Vocabulary 1-20

Question 1

allegory

Answer 1

a prose or poetic narrative in which the characters’ behavior, and even the setting, demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance

Question 2

alliteration

Answer 2

the sequential repetition of a similar initial sound, usually applied to consonants, usually heard in closely proximate stressed syllables

Question 3

allusion

Answer 3

a reference to a literary or historical event, person, or place

Question 4

anapestic

Answer 4

a metrical foot in poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed

Question 5

anecdote

Answer 5

a brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature

Question 6

antagonist

Answer 6

any force that is in opposition to the main character, or protagonist

Question 7

apostrophe

Answer 7

an address or invocation to something that is inanimate, such as an angry lover who might scream at the ocean in his or her or their despair

Question 8

archetype

Answer 8

recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature

Question 9

assonance

Answer 9

a repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually those found is stressed syllables of close proximity

Question 10

attitude

Answer 10

the sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or the mood of a piece of writing; the feelings the author holds towards his subject, the people in his narrative, events, setting, or theme; might even be feeling towards the reader

Question 11

ballad

Answer 11

a narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sang. Repetition and refrain (recurring phrase or phrases) characterize the ballad

Question 12

ballad stanza

Answer 12

a common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain (stanza of four lines) that alternate four-beat and three-beat lines: one and three are unrhymed iambic tetrameter (four beats) and two and four are rhymed iambic tri-meter (three beats)

Question 13

blank verse

Answer 13

the verse form that most resembles common speech, blank verse consists of unrhymed lines on iambic pentameter (5 beats). Many of Shakespeare’s play are in blank verse

Question 14

caesura

Answer 14

a pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns

Question 15

caricature

Answer 15

a depiction in which a character’s characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd

Question 16

colloquial

Answer 16

words or phrases that are not literary, ones used in casual conversation

Question 17

conceit

Answer 17

a comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular an extended metaphor within a poem

Question 18

connotation

Answer 18

what is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly describes, often referred to as the implied meaning of a word

Question 19

consonance

Answer 19

the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants with a change in the intervene vowels

Question 20

couplet

Answer 20

two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter (5 stresses) that together present a single idea or connection