Midterms - English - Essay Literary Terms
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24 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 allusion | a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work. |
| attitude | a speaker's, author's, or haracter's disposition toward or opinion of a subject. |
| details | iterms or parts that make up a larger picture or story |
| devices of sound | the techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially in poetry (rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia) |
| diction | word choice (any word that is important to the meaning and the effect of a passage) |
| figurative language | writing that uses vigures of speech (as opposed to literal language or that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, simile, and irony |
| imagery | the sensory details of a work; the visual, auditory, or tactile images evoked by the words of a literary work or the images that figurative language evokes |
| irony | a figure of speech in which intent and actual meaning differ, characteristically blame for praise and praise for blame |
| metaphor | a figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term like "as" or "like" or "than" |
| narrative techniques | the method involved in telling a story; the procedures used by a writer of stories or accounts. |
| omniscient point of view | the vantage point of a story in which the narrator can know, see, and report whatever he or she chooses. |
| point of view | any of several possible vantage points from which a story is told (may be omniscient, limited to that of a single character, or limited to that of several characters). |
| resources of language | a general phrase for the linguistic devices or techniques that a writer can use. |
| rhetorical techniques | the devices used in effective or persuasive language; contrast, repetitions, paradox, understatement, sarcasm, and rhetorical questions. |
| satire | writing that seeks to arouse a reader's disapproval of an object by ridicule. |
| setting | the background to a story. |
| simile | a directly expressed comparison (like, as, than, etc). |
| strategy (or rhetorical strategy) | the management of language for a specific effect; the planned placing of elements to achieve an effect. |
| structure | the arrangement of materials within a work; the relationship of the parts of a work to the whole. |
| style | the mode of expression in language; diction, syntax, figurative language, imagery, selection of detail, sound effects, ton |
| symbol | something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else (winter, darkness, cold, etc) |
| syntax | the structure of a sentence; the arrangement of words in a sentence; length vs. brevity of sentences, questions vs. exclamations vs. declarative sentences, etc. |
| theme | the main thought expressed by a work. |
| tone | the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning. |
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