Vocabulary 2

Question 1

Consonance

Answer 1

the repetition of a sequence of 2 or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels, such as pitter-patter, pish-posh, clinging and clanging

• ie: Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night’s Dream: “Or if there were a sympathy in choice/ War, death, or sickness did lay siege to it.”

Question 2

Couplet

Answer 2

2 rhyming lines of iambic pentameter that together present a single idea or connection

• ie: Shakepeare’s sonnets (XVIII): “So long as men can breathe or eyes can see/ So long lives this and this gives life to thee.”

Question 3

Dactylic

Answer 3

a metrical foot in poetry that consists of 2 stressed syllables followed by 1 unstressed syllable //-//-//-//-

• ie: Phillip Brooks’ Christmas Everywhere: “Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight./ Christmas in lands of the fir-tree and pines.”

Question 4

Denotation

Answer 4

a direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word

Question 5

Dialect

Answer 5

the language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people

• ie: Minnesotans say “you betcha”
• ie: Southerners say “you all”
• ie: Mark Twain as Huck Finn: “I put ten dollars in a cow. But I an’gwyne to resk no mo’ money in stock. De cow up’n’died on my han’s.”

Question 6

Diction

Answer 6

the specific word choice an author uses to persuade or convey tone, purpose or effect

• ie: Edgar A. Poe: “I hadn’t so much forgot as I couldn’t bring myself to remember” = more impact that “I chose not to remember.”

Question 7

Dramatic Monologue

Answer 7

set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience (aka soliloquy)

• ie: Hamlet: “To be or not to be”
• ie: Macbeth: “Is this a dagger I see before me?”

Question 8

Elegy

Answer 8

a poetic lament upon the death of a particular person, usually ending in consolation

• ie: Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”

Question 9

Enjambment

Answer 9

the continuation of a sentence from one line or couplet of a poem to the next

• ie: “The Sick Rose”
• ie: Geoge Eliot’s poem “The Choir Invisible”
  Oh, may I join the choir invisible
  Of those immortal dead who live again
  In minds made better by their presence; live
  In pulses stirred to generosity,

Question 10

Epic

Answer 10

a poem that celebrates in continuous narrative, the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, often concerned with the founding of a nation or developing of a culture; it uses elevated language and grand, high style

• ie: “The Iliad,” “The Odyssey” and “Paradise Lost,” “Star Wars”

Question 11

Exposition

Answer 11

that part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play

Question 12

Extended Metaphor

Answer 12

a detailed and complex metaphor that extends over a long section of a work (aka conceit)

Question 13

Fable

Answer 13

a legend or short moral story often using animals as characters

• ie: “Uncle Remus Stories” by Joel Chandler Harris = cultural fable
• ie: “Animal Farm” by George Orwell = political fable
• ie: Aesop = best-known teller of fables

Question 14

Falling Action

Answer 14

that part of the plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled (aka denouement)

Question 15

Farce

Answer 15

a play or scene in a play or cook that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics and often slapstick and physical humor

• ie: Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night’s Dream:
• ie: “Catch-22”
• ie: “Pink Panther
• ie: “Search for the Holy Grail”

Question 16

Flashback

Answer 16

retrospection, where an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronology of the narrative

• ie: Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” = flashback to events that happened in the adult narrator’s childhood

Question 17

Foreshadowing

Answer 17

to hint at or to present an indication of the future beforehand

- ie: "Romeo and Juliet"
... my mind misgives 
Some consequences yet hanging in the stars
Shall bitterly begin his fearful date
With this night's revels and expire term
Of a despised life closed to my breast
By some vile forfeit of untimely death.
- ie: "To Kill a Mockingbird" = narrator predicts the drama at the end of the book by anticipating the happenings that took place the summer Jen broke his arm

Question 18

Formal Diction

Answer 18

language that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal; used in narrative epic poetry

• ie: John Milton’s “Paradise Lost” & “Paradise Regained”

Question 19

Free Verse

Answer 19

poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter and nonrhyming lines

• ie: Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass”
• ie: “To be or not to be”

Question 20

Genre

Answer 20

a type or class of literature

• ie: epic
• ie: narrative
• ie: poetry
• ie: belles lettres

Question 21

Hyperbole

Answer 21

overstatement characterized by exaggerated language

• ie: “I’m starving!”
• ie: “Concord Hymn” by Ralph Waldo Emerson
  By the rude bridge that arched the flood,
  Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
  Here once the embattled farmer’s stood,
  And fired the shot heard ‘round the world.

Question 22

Iambic

Answer 22

a metrical foot in poetry that consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable: -/-/-/-/-/; used in sets of 5 = iambic pentameter

• ie: Shakespeare’s sonnets
  Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
  Thou art more lovely and more temperate

Question 23

Idyll

Answer 23

a short poem describing a country or pastoral scene, praising the simplicity and peace of rustic life

• ie: Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King”

Question 24

Imagery

Answer 24

broadly defined, any sensory detail or evocation in a work: more narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object; involves any or all 5 senses

Question 25

Informal Diction

Answer 25

language that is not as lofty or impersonal as formal diction; similar to everyday speech

• ie: “OK,” “bye,” “huh?”

Question 26

In Medias Res

Answer 26

“in the midst of things”; refers to opening a story in the middle of the action, necessitating filling past details by exposition or flashback

Question 27

Irony

Answer 27

a situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant; often humorous and sometimes sarcastic when it uses words to imply the opposite of what they normally mean

• ie: Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal”

a form of humor in which the outcome is the opposite of what is expected

• ie: “ The Ransom of a Red Chief” by James Thurber: a young boy is kidnapped, and his behavior is so atrocious that the kidnappers pay the parents to take the boy back

Question 28

Jargon

Answer 28

specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group

• ie: the computer industry = words like geek, crash, and interfere