Vocab Flashcards
dipthong
two vowel sounds (rather than one) occurring in the same syllable e.g. ‘reign’
Define: fricative
voiced: v, th (e.g. then)
- unvoiced: f, th (e.g theatre)
- airy effect
Define: plosive
- p, b, t, d, k, g
- abrupt, sharp, sometimes shocking effect
Define: sibilant
- s, sh, x
- effect depends on context: soft, hissing, or sinister
Define: phonetic symbolism
using words with the same sounds and associated meaning, e.g. gleam, glare, glitter.
Define: onomatopoeia
word that imitates or suggests the sound that it describes
- we hear the sound it describes
Define: alliteration
repetition of a consonant sound
- renders flow and beauty to writing
- draws attention
Define: assonance
Repetition of similar vowel sounds close to one another (“The sweep / of easy wind”: Frost)
- creates internal rhyme
- helps develop a mood
Define: caesura
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
Define: closed vowel
vowel sound is closed/shortened e.g. ‘a’ in ‘cat’
Name the 8 parts of speech.
- adjective
- verb
- preposition
- article
- adverb
- noun
- conjunction
- pronoun
Define: adjective
describing word e.g. small, big
double rhyme
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.
Sonnet
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).
Iambic
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”).
Internal rhyme
Rhymes within a line of poetry.
Allegory:
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.
Allusion:
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”.
Ambiguity:
Where language, action, tone, character, etc. are (sometimes deliberately), unclear and may yield two or more interpretations or meanings.
Ambivalence:
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’.
Anagnoris:
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.
Antithesis:
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”.
Apostrophe:
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.
Bathos:
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”.
Blank verse:
Unrhymed poetry, not broken into stanzas, keeping to a strict pattern in each line, usually in iambic pentameter. Used by Shakespeare.
Connotation:
An association suggested by a word, useful when discussing diction.
Consonance:
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.”
Couplet (rhyming couplet):
Two consecutive rhyming lines of verse. May clinch or emphasise an idea.
(“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold”. Frost)
Defamiliarisation:
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.
Denouement:
From the French, literally ‘unknotting’. How the ending of a novel or play turns out, how the plot is unravelled or revealed.
Didactic:
Describes text where there is an intention to preach a (usually) moral, political or religious point
Dramatic irony:
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.
Elegy:
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.
End-stopped line:
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.
Enjambement:
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.
Epigram:
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”.
Free indirect discourse or speech:
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.
Hyperbole:
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.
Idyll/idyllic:
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.
Metaphor
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.
Oxymoron:
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”.
Paradox:
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’.
Personification:
Where human feelings or sensations are attributed to an inanimate object.
Refrain:
Repetition of a phrase or lines in a work of literature, often at the end of a stanza.
Simile:
Where a comparison is made explicit with ‘as’ or ‘like’ (distinguish from metaphor). Can make descriptions vivid and unusual.
Skaz:
A technique of narration that mirrors oral narration with its hesitations, corrections, grammatical mistakes, interactions, etc.
Soliloquy:
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).
