Vocabulary

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

Poetry or prose in which abstract ideas are represented by individual characters, events, or objects.

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

Rapid repetition of consonants in a given line of poetry or prose.

Question 3

Allusion

Answer 3

Reference to one literary work in another.

Question 4

Anachronism

Answer 4

Chronological error in which a relationship between events or objects is historically impossible.

Question 5

Anapest

Answer 5

A metrical foot where to unstressed syllables are followed by stressed syllable.

Question 6

Antihero

Answer 6

The protagonist of a literary work who has none of the characteristics associated with the hero

Question 7

Protagonist

Answer 7

One of the main characters in a literary work

Question 8

Apostrophe

Answer 8

Direct address to someone or something not present

Question 9

Assonance

Answer 9

Rapid repetition of vowels in a given line of poetry or prose

Question 10

Ballad

Answer 10

A poem, often intended to be sung, that tells a story

Question 11

Bathos

Answer 11

Deliberate anti-climax used to make a definitive point

Question 12

Bildungsroman

Answer 12

A coming of age story, using autobiographical

Question 13

Blank verse

Answer 13

Unrhymed poetry usually written in iambic pentameter

Question 14

Caesura

Answer 14

I deliberate pause in a line of poetry

Question 15

Canto

Answer 15

Analogous to a chapter in the novel, the division in a poem

Question 16

Climax

Answer 16

The peak of action in a literary work

Question 17

Conceits

Answer 17

Elaborate comparisons between unlike objects

Question 18

Consonance

Answer 18

Repetition of consonant sounds with unlike vowels similar to alliteration

Question 19

Couplet

Answer 19

A pair of rhyming lines of poetry in the same meter

Question 20

Dactyl

Answer 20

Metrical foot composed of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables

Question 21

Denouncement

Answer 21

The action following the climax in a literary work

Question 22

Diction

Answer 22

Word choice or syntax

Question 23

Doggerel

Answer 23

Crudely written poetry, in which words are often mangled to fit a rhyme scheme

Question 24

Elegy

Answer 24

A poem lamenting the passage of something

Question 25

Enjambment

Answer 25

In poetry, the continuation of a phrase or sentence onto the following line

Question 26

Epistolary

Answer 26

Refers to a novel or story told in the form of letters

Question 27

Fable

Answer 27

Store used to illustrate a moral lesson

Question 28

Foot

Answer 28

A group of syllables that make up a metered unit of a verse

Question 29

Haiku

Answer 29

A Japanese poetical form, having three lines and 17 syllables, five in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third

Question 30

Hubris

Answer 30

In tragic drama, excessive pride leading to the fall of a hero

Question 31

Hyperbole

Answer 31

Exaggeration for effect

Question 32

Iamb

Answer 32

A foot containing two syllables, a short then a long (in quantitative meter)

Question 33

quantitative

Answer 33

Measured by quantity

Question 34

Irony

Answer 34

A deliberate discrepancy between literal meaning and intended meaning

Question 35

Malapropism

Answer 35

Often use for humorous effect; it is the substitution of a word for one that sounds similar but has a radically different meaning

Question 36

Metaphor

Answer 36

A form of comparison in which something is said to be something else, often an unlikely pairing

Question 37

Meter

Answer 37

The combination of stressed and unstressed syllables that creates the rhyme of a poem

Question 38

Metonymy

Answer 38

A phrase or statement that takes on a larger meaning

Question 39

Motif

Answer 39

The recurrence of a word or theme in a novel poem

Question 40

Onomatopoeia

Answer 40

A word whose sound suggest its meaning; for example, “crash”

Question 41

Oxymoron

Answer 41

Two contradictory words used together to create deeper meaning; for example, sweet sorrow

Question 42

Paradox

Answer 42

A seemingly contradictory phrase, which proves to be true upon comparison

Question 43

Pathos

Answer 43

An appeal that evokes pity or sympathy

Question 44

Scansion

Answer 44

The annotation of the meter of the poem

Question 45

annotation

Answer 45

An added note of explanation to a text or a diagram

Question 46

Simile

Answer 46

Means of comparison using either “like” or “as”

Question 47

Sonnet

Answer 47

A verse form consisting of 14 lines arranged in an Octet “eight lines” and a sextet “six lines”, usually ending in a couplet; in common English form, arranged in three quatrains followed by a couplet

Question 48

quatrains

Answer 48

A stanza of four lines

Question 49

Spondee

Answer 49

A metrical foot comprised of two stressed syllables

Question 50

Synecdoche

Answer 50

The use of part of the thing to represent the whole; for example, “wheels” for a car

Question 51

Tone

Answer 51

Attitude of the speaker, setting the mood for a given passage

Question 52

Trochee

Answer 52

Metrical foot composed of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable

Question 53

Villanelle

Answer 53

Averse form consisting of five tercets and a quantum, the first and third lines of the tercet recur alternately as the last lines of the other tercets and together as the last lines of the quantum