| Term | Definition |
| elegy | a poem that meditates on death or mortality |
| elements | basic techniques of each genre of literature |
| enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause |
| epic | a long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style |
| epitaph | lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place |
| euphemism | a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality |
| euphony | when sounds blend harmoniously |
| explicit | to say or write something directly and clearly |
| farce | extremely broad humor, a funny play |
| feminine rhyme | lines rhymed by their final two syllables |
| first person narrator | a character who is in the story and tells the tale from his or her point ot view |
| foil | a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character |
| foot | the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry |
| foreshadowing | an event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later |
| free verse | poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern |
| genre | a sub-category of literature |
| gothic, gothic novel | the sensibility derived from gothic novels |
| hubris | the excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall |
| hyperbole | exaggeration or deliberate overstatement |
| implicit | to say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly |
| in medias res | latin for "in the midst of things" |
| interior monologue | refers to writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head |
| inversion | switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase |
| irony | a statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean |