| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Allegory | A work that functions on a symbolic level |
| Alliteration | The reptition of initial consonant sounds: "Peter Piper picked a peck of picked pepper" |
| Apostrophe | Direct address in poetry: "Be w/ me Beauty, for the fire is dying" |
| Aside | Words spoken by an actor intended to be heard by the audience but not the characters on stage |
| Aubade | A love poem set at dawn which bids farewell to the beloved |
| Ballad | Simple narrative poem incorporating dialogue in quatrains: a b c d |
| Blank Verse | Unrhymed iambic pentameter (Shakespeare) |
| Cacophony | Harsh/discordant sounds in a line/passage |
| Caesura | A break/pause within a line of poetry |
| Catharsis | Release of emotion that the audience of a tragedy experiences |
| Comic Relief | The inclusion of humorous character/scene to contrast w/ tragic elements, intensifying the next tragic event |
| Connotation | Interpretive level of a word based on its associated images rather than its literal meaning |
| Convention | Traditional aspect such as a soliloquy in a Shakespearean play/tragic hero in Greek tragedy |
| Couplet | Two lines of rhyming poetry--concludes a scene/important passage |
| Detonation | Literal/dicitonary meaning of a word |
| Denouement | Conclusion/tying up of loose ends; resolution of the conflict & plot |
| Deus ex machina | Anyone who untangles, resolves, or reveals the key to the plot |
| Diction | The author's choice of words |
| Dramatic monologue | Poem that presents a conversation btwn a speaker &implied listener |
| Elegy | Poem lamenting the dead/a loss |
| Enjambment | Technique in poetry that involves the running on of a line/stanza |
| Epic | A lengthy, elevated poem celebrating the exploits of a hero |
| Epigram | A brief witty poem |
| Euphony | The pleasant presentation of sounds in a literary work |
| Exposition | Bg info presented |
| Fable | A simple, symbolic story usually employing animals as characters (Authors Aesop and La Fontaine) |
| Figurative Language | Body of decives enabling the writer to operate on levels other than the literal one (metaphor, simile, symbol, motif, hyperbole, etc) |
| Flashback | A device that enables a writer to refer to past thoughts, events, episodes |
| Foot | A metrical unit in poetry; syllabic measure of a line: iamb, tochee, anapest, dactyl, spondee |
| Form | The shape/structure of a literary work |
| Free verse | Poetry without a define form, meter, or rhyme scheme |
| Hyperbole | Extreme exaggeration (e.g. Burns: ...loving "until all the seas run dry") |
| Iamb | A metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one; the most common poetic foot in the English language, u /. |
| Idyll | A type of lyric poem which extols the virtues of an ideal place or time |
| Image | A verbal approximation of a sensory, impression, concept, emotion |
| Imagery | The total effect of related sensory images in a work of literature |
| Impressionism | Writing that reflects a personal image of a hcaracter, event, concept |
| Dramatic irony | Ignorance o those involved while the audience is aware of the circumstance |
| Lyric poetry | Poetry characterized by emotion, personal feelings, and brevity; exhibits rhyme, meter, &reflective thought |
| Magical realism | Type of literature that explores narratives by and abt characters who inhabit &experience their reality differently from what we term the objective world |
| Metaphor | A direct comparison btwn dissimilar things (e.g. "Your eys are stars") |
| Metaphysical poetry | Refers to the works of poets who explore highly complex, philosophical ideas through extened metaphors ¶dox (Donne) |
| Meter | A pattern of beats in a poetry |
| Metonymy | A figure of speech in which a representative term is used for a larger idea ("Thepen is mightier than the sword.") |
| Monologue | A speech given by one character |
| Motif | The reptition/variations of an image/idea in a work which is used to develop theme/characters |
| Narrative powm | A poem that tells a story |
| Narrator | The speaker of literary work |
| Octave | An eight-line stanza, usually combined with a sstet in a Petrachan sonnet |
| Ode | A formal, lengthy powm that celebrates a particualr subject |
| Onomatopoeia | Words that sound like the ousnd they represent (e.g. hiss, bang, gurgle) |
| Oxymoron | An image of contradictory terms (bittersweet, pretty ugly) |
| Parable | A story that operates on more than one level &usually teaches a moral lesson |
| Paradox | A set of seemingly contradictory elements which nevertheless reflects an underlying truth |
| Parallel plot | A secondary story line that mimics &reinforces the main plot (Hamelt lose his father as does Ophelia) |
| Parody | A comic imitation of a work that ridicules the original |
| Pathos | The aspects of a literary work that elicit pity from the audience |
| Protagonist | The hero/main character of a literary work, the character the audience sympathizes with |
| Quatrain | A four-line stanza |
| Resolution | The denoument of a literary work |
| Rhetorical question | A question tah tdoes not expect an explicit answer; used to pose an idea to be considered by the speaker/audience |
| Rhyme/rime | The duplicaiton of final syllable sounds in two/more lines |
| Rhyme scheme | The annotation of the pattern of the rhyme |
| Rhythm | The repetitive pattern of beats in poetry |
| Romanticism | A style/mvt of literature that has as its foundation an interest in freedom, adventure, idealism, &escape |
| Satire | A mode of writing based on ridicule, which criticizes the foibles adn follies of society without necessarily offering a solution |
| Sestet | A six-line stanza, usually paired with an octave to form a Petrachan sonnet |
| Sestina | A highly structured poetic form of 39 lines, written in iambic pentameter; depens upon the reptition of six words from the first stanza in each of six stanzas |
| Soliloquy | A speech in a play which is used to reveal the character's inner thoughts to the audience ("To be or not to be") |
| Sonnet | A 14-line powm w/ a prescribed rhyme scheme in iambic pentameter |
| Spondee | A poetic foot consisting of two accented syllables, (//) |
| Stage directions | The specific instructions a playwright includes concerning sets, characterization, delivery, etc. |
| Stanza | A unit of a poe, similar in rhyme, meter, &length to other units in the poem |
| Structure | The organization &form of a work |
| Style | The unique way an author presents his ideas (diction, syntax, imagery, structure, &content) |
| Subplot | A secondary plot that explores ideas different form the main storyline (m: Hamlet avenging father's death; sp: dealing with his love for Ophelia) |
| Subtext | Implied meaning of a work or section of a work |
| Symbol | Something in a literary work that stands for somethign else |
| Synecdoche | A figure of speech that utilizes a part as represenative of the whole |
| Syntax | The grammatical structure of prose &poetry |
| Tercet | A three-line stanza |
| Theme | The underlying ideas that the author illustrates through characterization, motifs, language, plot, etc. |
| Tragic hero | According to Aristotle, a basically good person of noble birth/exalted position who has a fatal flaw/commits an error in judgment which leads to his downfall; must have a moment of realization &live &suffer |
| Understatment | The opposite of exaggeration; technique for developing irony &/or humor where one writes/says less than intended |
| Villanelle | A highly structured poetic form that comprises six stanzas: five tercets, &a quatrain; repeats the first &third lines throughout |
| Anapest | A metrical pattern of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable (^^') |
Combine with other sets
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