| Term | Definition |
|---|
| acts | the major divisions of a play |
| alliteration | repetition of the same sound beginning several words in a sequence |
| allusion | a reference to something well known |
| aside | a line spoken by an actor to the audience but not intended for others on the stage |
| characterization | The means by which a writer reveals a character to a reader, including appearance, speech and behavior, thoughts and feelings, and other characters' reactions and opinions. |
| climax | the turning point in a plot |
| comedy | light and humorous drama with a happy ending |
| couplet | Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry. |
| denouement | A French term meaning "unraveling" or "unknotting," used to describe the resolution of the plot following the climax. |
| dialogue | the lines spoken by characters in drama or fiction |
| drama | a dramatic work intended for performance by actors on a stage |
| dramatis personae | Cast of characters in a drama, or more generally, participants in an event. |
| exposition | background information on character or events in novel or play |
| fiction | a literary work based on the imagination and not necessarily on fact |
| flashback | a transition (in literary or theatrical works or films) to an earlier event or scene that interrupts the normal chronological development of the story |
| foreshadowing | the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot |
| hyperbole | a figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion, make a point, or evoke humor |
| iambic pentameter | A metrical pattern in poetry which consists of five iambic feet per line. (an iamb, or iambic foot, consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.) |
| imagery | words that appeal to the senses that create images in the mind of the reader |
| irony | when what occurs is the opposite of what one would expect |
| metaphor | a direct comparison between two things |
| monologue | a speech given by one character |
| mood | the feeling created in the reader by author |
| novel | a extended fictional work in prose |
| onomatopoeia | words that imitate sounds |
| oxymoron | A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. |
| personification | the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas etc. |
| prose | ordinary writing as distinguished from verse |
| pun | a "play on words" based on the multiple meanings of a single word or on words that sound alike but mean different things |
| resolution | an event that solves a problem or explains how to solve the problem |
| setting | where and when a story occurs |
| simile | a comparison between two things using like or as |
| soliloquy | A speech delivered by a character alone onstage, revealing his or her very private thoughts, motives, or state of mind. |
| sonnet | a verse form consisting of 14 lines with a fixed rhyme scheme |
| stage directions | instructions for actors that are usually written in parenthesis and italics |
| stanza | a group of lines in poetry |
| symbol | something that stands for or represents a greater idea |
| theme | the main idea of a literary work or a statement about life that the work makes |
| tragedy | a drama with a sad ending, Play/novel that depicts serious events, hero becomes unhappy in the end |
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