Vocab 1 Flashcards
Alexandrine
A verse line of twelve syllable adopted by poets since the 16th century as the standard verse form of French poetry, especially dramatic and narrative
Allegory
A story or visual with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. A principle technique is personification. It may be perceived as a metaphor
Alliteration
The reputation of the same sounds- usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllables- in any sequence of neighboring words: landscape lover, lord of language
Anachronism
The misplacing of any person, thing, custom, or event outside its proper historical time
Aphorism
A statement of some general principle, expressed memorably by condensing much wisdom into a few words
“Give a man a mask and he’ll tell you the truth”
Assonance
The reputation of identical or similar vowel sounds in the stresses syllables (and sometimes in the following unstressed syllables) of neighboring words; consonants differ although the vowels or diphthongs match: sweet dreams, hit or miss
Classic
A work of the highest class. A work deemed to have stood the test of time and outlasted changes in critical taste
Commedia Dell’ Arte
The Italian term for ‘professional comedy’ a form of improvised comic performance popular between the 16th and 18th centuries in Italy, France, and elsewhere in Europe, acted in masks by traveling companies of professional actors each of whom specialized in a stock character
Conceit
An unusually far-fetched or elaborate metaphor or simile presenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings
Aesthetic Movement
A literary and artistic tendency of the late 19th century which may be understood as a further phase of Romanticism in reaction against philistine bourgeois values of practical efficiency and morality
