Vocab

Question 1

dipthong

Answer 1

two vowel sounds (rather than one) occurring in the same syllable e.g. ‘reign’

Question 2

Define: fricative

Answer 2

voiced: v, th (e.g. then)

• unvoiced: f, th (e.g theatre)
• airy effect

Question 3

Define: plosive

Answer 3

• p, b, t, d, k, g

- abrupt, sharp, sometimes shocking effect

Question 4

Define: sibilant

Answer 4

• s, sh, x

- effect depends on context: soft, hissing, or sinister

Question 5

Define: phonetic symbolism

Answer 5

using words with the same sounds and associated meaning, e.g. gleam, glare, glitter.

Question 6

Define: onomatopoeia

Answer 6

word that imitates or suggests the sound that it describes

- we hear the sound it describes

Question 7

Define: alliteration

Answer 7

repetition of a consonant sound
- renders flow and beauty to writing

• draws attention

Question 8

Define: assonance

Answer 8

Repetition of similar vowel sounds close to one another (“The sweep / of easy wind”: Frost)
- creates internal rhyme

• helps develop a mood

Question 9

Define: caesura

Answer 9

A break or pause within a line of poetry, created by a comma or full stop or unmarked pause needed by the sense. Used effectively for emphasis, or to change direction or pace.
- initial - occurs in first half of line

• medial - occurs in middle of line
• terminal - occurs at end of line

Question 10

Define: closed vowel

Answer 10

vowel sound is closed/shortened e.g. ‘a’ in ‘cat’

Question 11

Name the 8 parts of speech.

Answer 11

• adjective
• verb
• preposition
• article
• adverb
• noun
• conjunction
• pronoun

Question 12

Define: adjective

Answer 12

describing word e.g. small, big

Question 13

double rhyme

Answer 13

occurs within words that have the same beginnings and the same endings. For example, “measles” and “weasels” in which “wea” and “mea” rhyme as well as “ les” and “els.” Often, this type of rhyme uses the dactylic meter.

Question 14

Sonnet

Answer 14

A fourteen-line rhyming poem usually in iambic pentameter. Rhyme schemes and organisation of lines vary, depending on the type of sonnet (for example, Shakespearian), but often set out as a block of 8 lines (octave) and six lines (sestet).

Question 15

Iambic

Answer 15

The ‘iamb’ is a metrical measure, or foot, in which an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable (“To be, or not to be”).

Question 16

Internal rhyme

Answer 16

Rhymes within a line of poetry.

Question 17

Allegory:

Answer 17

A literary or visual form in which characters, events or images represent or symbolise ideas. It can be a story of some complexity corresponding to another situation on a deeper level.

e.g. Animal Farm is about a community of animals, but reflects the Russian Revolution and satirises Communism.

Question 18

Allusion:

Answer 18

An indirect reference to an event, person, place, another work of literature, etc. that gives additional layers of meaning to a text or enlarges its frame of reference.

e.g., Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out”, about a boy’s accidental death, alludes to Macbeth’s line about life: “Out, out, brief candle”.

Question 19

Ambiguity:

Answer 19

Where language, action, tone, character, etc. are (sometimes deliberately), unclear and may yield two or more interpretations or meanings.

Question 20

Ambivalence:

Answer 20

Simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings towards something or someone. A writer’s attitude to a character or event may not be clear-cut, but may seem to hold at least two responses at the same time. Distinguish this from ‘ambiguity’.

Question 21

Anagnoris:

Answer 21

A moment of recognition or discovery usually late in the plot where the protagonist discovers something about his or her true nature or behaviour or situation.

e.g., Elizabeth Bennet, late in Pride and Prejudice dramatically realises her prejudice.

Question 22

Antithesis:

Answer 22

Expressing contrasting ideas by balancing words of opposite meaning and idea in a line or sentence, for rhetorical impact:
e.g, “They promised opportunity and provided slavery”.

Question 23

Apostrophe:

Answer 23

An exclamatory passage where the speaker or writer breaks off in the flow of a narrative or poem to address a dead or absent person, a particular audience, or object.
The subject may be dead, absent, an inanimate object, or even an abstract idea.

Question 24

Bathos:

Answer 24

A sudden descent from the serious, to the ridiculous or trivial, for rhetorical effect. “His pride and his bicycle tyre were punctured in the first hour”.

Question 25

Blank verse:

Answer 25

Unrhymed poetry, not broken into stanzas, keeping to a strict pattern in each line, usually in iambic pentameter. Used by Shakespeare.

Question 26

Connotation:

Answer 26

An association suggested by a word, useful when discussing diction.

Question 27

Consonance:

Answer 27

Where the final consonants are the same in two or more words close together

e.g, Pitter Patter, Pitter Patter-repetition of the “t,” and “r” sounds.

“Traffic figures, on July Fourth, to be tough.”

Question 28

Couplet (rhyming couplet):

Answer 28

Two consecutive rhyming lines of verse. May clinch or emphasise an idea.
(“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold”. Frost)

Question 29

Defamiliarisation:

Answer 29

The technique of making the familiar seem new and strange, of making us see more vividly, of awakening the mind. Although a specific term of literary theory, it is generally the aim of art and all good writing. It may be achieved, for example, through point of view, or perspective, as in Gulliver’s Travels, or unusual chronology, or diction and imagery.

Question 30

Denouement:

Answer 30

From the French, literally ‘unknotting’. How the ending of a novel or play turns out, how the plot is unravelled or revealed.

Question 31

Didactic:

Answer 31

Describes text where there is an intention to preach a (usually) moral, political or religious point

Question 32

Dramatic irony:

Answer 32

Where a character (or characters) is/are unaware of something of which the audience/reader and often other characters on stage are aware. A powerful tool especially in drama, used for tragic or comic purposes.

Question 33

Elegy:

Answer 33

A mournful lament for times past or the dead. It is a specific poetic form, but the term can be used more generally. “Elegiac” describes a meditative mood in prose or verse, reflecting on the past.

Question 34

End-stopped line:

Answer 34

A line of poetry where the meaning pauses or stops at the end of the line. The full stop allows a statement or idea to stand out clearly, and provides a pause for the reader’s reflection.

Question 35

Enjambement:

Answer 35

The sense flows over from one line to another, or through a series of lines, or to the next stanza. This can reflect a build-up of emotion or some other effect.

Question 36

Epigram:

Answer 36

A concise, pointed, witty statement. ‘Epigrammatic’ style means those qualities in prose or poetry. Oscar Wilde is a master of epigram. “The truth is rarely pure and never simple”.

Question 37

Free indirect discourse or speech:

Answer 37

Is where the third person or omniscient narrator takes on (for a short while) the voice, speech characteristics of a character, taking us into the mind and thoughts of the character without indicating this directly. It can be used sympathetically or ironically.

Question 38

Hyperbole:

Answer 38

A deliberate exaggeration for various effects – comic, tragic, etc.
When Frost writes that the beauty of Spring “is only so an hour”, he emphasises how very brief the life of precious things seems.

e.g. I walked a million miles to get here.

Question 39

Idyll/idyllic:

Answer 39

Refers to the innocent simple life in an idealised rural setting. It is a specific form of poetry, but the adjective is generally used to denote an experience that has those untroubled, and simple qualities, for example a childhood or a time in a rural setting.

Question 40

Metaphor

Answer 40

A comparison between two unlike things that are seen as alike in some aspect, without the use of ‘like’ or ‘as’. It can facilitate understanding of an abstract concept (for example, life as a journey) or open up the imagination by creating a striking visual and sensual link between things not normally associated.

Question 41

Oxymoron:

Answer 41

Where two words, seemingly contradictory or incongruous are joined, often suggesting something complex, as in Romeo and Juliet when Juliet says that “parting is such sweet sorrow”.

Question 42

Paradox:

Answer 42

An apparently contradictory statement, which on investigation is found to contain a truth. (For example Frost’s title “Nothing gold can stay”). Distinguish from the compressed paradox of ‘oxymoron’.

Question 43

Personification:

Answer 43

Where human feelings or sensations are attributed to an inanimate object.

Question 44

Refrain:

Answer 44

Repetition of a phrase or lines in a work of literature, often at the end of a stanza.

Question 45

Simile:

Answer 45

Where a comparison is made explicit with ‘as’ or ‘like’ (distinguish from metaphor). Can make descriptions vivid and unusual.

Question 46

Skaz:

Answer 46

A technique of narration that mirrors oral narration with its hesitations, corrections, grammatical mistakes, interactions, etc.

Question 47

Soliloquy:

Answer 47

A speech by a character along on stage, thinking aloud, revealing thoughts and emotions, or communicating directly with the audience. Powerful tool for revealing psychological complexity, used often by Shakespeare. (Distinguish from monologue).