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zEnglish > Useful Terms > Flashcards

Useful Terms Flashcards

1
Q

Allusion

A

A casual reference to a familiar cultural icon

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2
Q

Ambiguity

A

An effort by an author to allow for multiple meanings/interpretations

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3
Q

Analogy

A

A sustained comparison between two different items

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4
Q

Archetype

A

An original model or pattern from which other later copies are made, especially a character, an action or a situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life.

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5
Q

Bildungsroman

A

Novel that traces the development of a character, generally from youth.

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6
Q

Convention

A

A pattern in literature that is familiar to the point of recognisability or predictability

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7
Q

Diction

A

Word/language choice

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8
Q

Didactic

A

An adjective describing works, often for children, that are meant to teach a lesson.

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9
Q

Doppelgänger

A

Characters in a work who may represent alter egos of one self

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10
Q

Epigraph

A

A line at the beginning of a work/chapter that had significance for that work

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11
Q

Fable

A

A brief narrative, often using animals, that illustrates a moral truth

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12
Q

Gothic novel

A

A genre that attempts to create a sense of peril by placing characters in situations with horrific/supernatural overtones

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13
Q

Irony

A

A device whereby the author overtly suggests one perspective but actually expects the reader to infer a second, more critical perspective.

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14
Q

Linearity

A

A descriptor for unidirectional plots and narratives. Devices such as flashbacks and montages undermine linearity.

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15
Q

Memoir

A

A brief autobiographical recollection of events in the author’s life.

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16
Q

Meta fiction

A

Novels that are intensely aware of their own status as novels

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17
Q

Motif

A

A recurring visual or verbal theme that has significance in terms of our general understanding of the work

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18
Q

Parable

A

A short, often obscure tale that is meant to convey a moral truism.

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19
Q

Pastoral

A

A term that describes a fairly conventional vision of peaceful, beautiful nature in which humans live idyllic lives.

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20
Q

Plot

A

The way events in a narrative genre are constructed

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21
Q

Prose

A

Writing that is not overly marked by rhyme

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22
Q

Psychological novel

A

A novel in which the plot is intensely concerned with the emotions and intellectual concerns of a character

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23
Q

Rhetoric

A

A mode of understanding the way in which language achieves its effect

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24
Q

Satire

A

An attempt to make fun of something in a way that uses the forms and conventions of the subject against itself.

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25
Q

Stock character

A

A character whose pattern of behaviour is familiar.

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26
Q

Stream of consciousness

A

A narrative style that represents the thinking process a character is going through. It often dispenses with linear narrative flow to imitate the true process of thought.

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27
Q

Utopian literature

A

Literature that attempts to portray or define an ideal world.

28
Q

Verisimiltude

A

An effort to replicate a realistic moment in a literary work eg including the ‘uh huhs’ of real conversation when writing about a phone call

29
Q

Willing suspension of disbelief

A

The process by which a reader allows themself to be absorbed into the scenarios established by a text

30
Q

Alter ego

A

A literary character or narrator who is a thinly disguised representation of the author

31
Q

Anachronism

A

Placing an event, person, item or verbal expression in the wrong historical period

32
Q

Anagnorisis

A

The moment of tragic recognition in which the protagonist realised some important fact or insight

33
Q

Antihero

A

A protagonist who is a non-hero or the antithesis of a traditional hero

34
Q

Atmosphere

A

The emotional feelings inspired by a work

35
Q

Authorial voice

A

The voices or speakers used by authors when they seemingly speak for themselves in a book.

36
Q

Biographical fallacy

A

The error of believing that characters and events in the authors historical life must have inspired any fictional events or characters in their work, or that the narrative speaker in a literary work must be synonymous with the authors own viewpoints.

37
Q

Characterisation

A

An authors use of description, dialogue, dialect and action to create in the reader an emotional or intellectual reaction to a character or to make the character more vivid and realistic.

38
Q

Chronology

A

The order in which events happen, especially when emphasising a cause-effect relationship in history or in a narrative

39
Q

Close reading

A

Carefully reading a piece of literature to analyse the significance of individual words, images and artistic ornaments.

40
Q

Closure

A

A sense of completion or finality, especially a feeling in the audience that all the problems have been resolved satisfactorily.

41
Q

Conflict

A

Opposition between two characters, two people groups or between the protagonist and a larger problem.

42
Q

Episodic

A

Occurring in a long string of short, individual sections rather than focusing on the sustained development of a single plot.

43
Q

Eucatastrophe

A

A final resolution in fantasy literature that evokes a sense of beauty, hope and wonder in readers.

44
Q

Foreshadowing

A

Suggesting it hinting at what will occur later in a narrative

45
Q

Ideal reader

A

The imaginary audience who would, ideally, understand every phrase, word and allusion in a literary work, and respond emotionally as the writer wished.

46
Q

Implied audience

A

The ‘you’ a writer refers to it implies when creating a dramatic monologue

47
Q

In medias res

A

(Latin, ‘in the middle of things’) the classical tradition of opening an epic not in the chronological point at which the sequence of events would start, but rather at the midway point of the story.

48
Q

Interior monologue

A

A type of stream of consciousness in which the author depicts the interior thoughts of a single individual in the same order they occur in the characters head

49
Q

Leit-motif

A

A recurring device/symbol loosely linked with a character, setting or event.

50
Q

Unreliable narrator

A

A storyteller who plainly misinterprets the actions or motives of characters, or fails to see connections between events in the story. The author presents material to the reader in such a way that we are able to see what the narrator overlooks.

51
Q

Paratext

A

Anything external to the text itself that influences the way we read a text. These may include the authors gender, reviews of their work or other works by the author.

52
Q

Parody

A

Something that imitates the serious manner and characteristic features of a particular literary work in order to make fun of those same features.

53
Q

Peripeteia

A

The sudden reversal of fortune in a story

54
Q

Persona

A

An external representation of oneself which may or may not accurately reflect the inner self.

55
Q

Setting

A

The locale, historical time and social circumstances in which the action of a fictional or dramatic work occurs.

56
Q

Subplot

A

A minor or subordinate secondary plot, often involving a deuteragonist’s struggles, which takes place simultaneously with a larger plot.

57
Q

Syntax

A

The orderly arrangement of words into sentences to express ideas

58
Q

Assonance

A

The repetition of a vowel sound

59
Q

Dissonance

A

Discordant combinations of sounds

60
Q

Enjambment

A

Where a sentence continues beyond the end of a line/verse to give a sense of continuity

61
Q

Types of imagery

A

Visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, gastatory

62
Q

Onomatopoeia

A

A word that sounds like the noise it’s describing

63
Q

Oxymoron

A

When two words not normally associated are brought together eg bitter sweet

64
Q

Pathos

A

Language that evokes pity or sorrow

65
Q

Sibilance

A

Repetition of the ‘s’ sound

66
Q

Zeugma

A

When an author uses a word that has multiple meanings for different phrases in the same sentence eg Gina lost her wallet and her mind

zEnglish (5 decks)

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