| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Allegory | a prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance. Often a universal symbol or personified abstraction |
| Anapestic | metrical foot: unstressed, unstressed, stressed |
| Anaphora | the regular repitition of the same work or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses |
| Antithesis | the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas. "To err is human, to forgive divine" |
| Apostrophe | an address or invocation to something that is inanimate |
| Assonance | a repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually those found in stressed syllables of close proximity. e.g. "In Xanadu did Kubla Khan..." |
| Asyndeton | a style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast-paced, more rapid prose. eg. "I came, I saw, I conquered" |
| Ballad | a narrative poem that is/was originally meant to be sung. Repetition and refrain (recurring phrase or phrases) is commonly used |
| Blank verse | the verse form that most resembles common speech. Consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter |
| Caesura | a pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than specific metrical patterns |
| Chiasmus | a figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second. eg. "Pleasure's a sin, and sometimes sin's a pleasure" --Byron |
| Colloquial | ordinary language, the vernacular |
| Conceit | a comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out. Also known as an extended metaphor |
| Connotation | the implied meaning of a word; what is suggested by a word, apart from what it explicitly describes. |
| Consonance | the repetition of a sequence of two or more consonants, but with a change in the intervening vowels |
| Couplet | two lines of iambic pentameter. Also known as heroic_________ |
| Dactylic | a metrical foot: stressed, stressed, unstressed |
| Denotation | dictionary meaning of a word; direct and specific meaning |
| Dialect | the language and speech idiosyncrasies of a specific area, region, or group of people |
| Diction | the specific word choice used to persuade or convey tone, purpose, or effect |
| Soliloquy | also known as dramatic monologue; a monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience |
| Elegy | a poetic lament upon the death of a partucular person, usually ending in consolation |
| Enjambment | the continuation of a sentence from one line or couplet of a poem to the next |
| Exposition | the part of the structure that sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play |
| Denouement | falling action; the part of plot structure in which the complications of the rising action are untangled |
| Farce | a scene in a play or book that is characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick and physical humor |
| Formal diction | diction that is lofty, dignified, and impersonal. Often used in narrative epic poetry |
| Free verse | poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines |
| Hyperbole | overstatement characterized by exaggerated language |
| Iambic | metrical foot: unstressed, stressed |
| Imagery | any sensory detail or evocation in a work; involves any or all of the five senses |
| In medias res | "in the midst of things"; the technique of opening a story in the middle of the action and filling in past details by exposition or flashback |
| Irony | a situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected/said and what happens/is meant. Often humorous and sarcastic |
| Jargon | specialized or technical language of a trade, profession, or similar group |
| Litote | a figure of speech that emphasizes its subjet by conscious understatement. e.g. "not bad" for something very well done |
| Loose sentence | a sentence gramatically complete that usually states its main idea before the end. e.g. "the child ran as if being chased by demons" |
| Lyric poem | any short poem in which the speaker expresses intense personal emotion (such as a sonnet or ode) rather than describing a narrative or dramatic situation |
| Meter | the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry |
| Metonymy | a figure of speech in which an attribute or commonly associated feature is used to name or designate something. e.g "The White House" |
| Mood | a feeling or ambiance resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer/narrator's attitude and point of view. Usually established through descriptions of feelings |
| Motif | a recurrent device, formula, or situation. e.g. the color green in "The Great Gatsby" |
| Narrative structure | structure based on sequences of connected events, usually presented in a straightforward, chronological framework |
| Ode | a long, stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form. Typically serious poems on an exalted subject. |
| Oxymoron | a figure of speech that combines two contradictory elements. e.g. jumbo shrimp, deafening silence |
| Parable | a short fiction that illustrates an explicit moral lesson through the use of analogy |
| Paradox | a statement that seems contradictory but may actually be true. e.g. "fight for peace" |
| Parallel structure | structure in which similar forms of nouns, verbs, phrases, or thoughts. Maintains balance. e.g. "Lilly likes reading, writing, and skiing" instead of "Lilly likes to read, write, and go skiing" |
| Parody | a work that imitates another work for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original. e.g. Weird Al Yankovic's music |
| Pastoral | a work that describes the simple life of country folk. Also known as ecologue, bucolic, or idyll |
| Periodic sentence | a sentence which is not grammatically complete until the end. e.g. "The child, who looked as if she were being chased by demons, ran" |
| Quatrain | a poetic stanza of four lines |
| Realism | the form of literature that describes nature and life without idealization and with attention to detail |
| Refrain | a repeated stanza or line(s) |
| Stock character | a character that appears in a number of stories or plays. e.g. cruel stepmother, hot-headed son, femme fatale |
| Synecdoche | when a part is used to signify a whole |
| Syntax | the way words are put together; sentence structure and how it influences the way a reader reacts to the writing |
| Trochaic | metrical foot: stressed, unstressed (the opposite of iambic) |
| Villanelle | highly structured poem consisting of six stanzas: five tercets and a quatrain; first and third line are repeated throughout. e.g. Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" |
| Foil | a character whose qualities or actions emphasize those of another character through contrast |
| Pathos | the quality that creates sympathy, feelings of tenderness, pity, or sorrow |
| Synesthesia | imagery that stimulates 2 or more senses simultaneously |
| Baroque | particularly ornate or euphuistic style |
| Analepsis | flashback |
| Pathetic fallacy | The attribution of human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects or to nature; for example angry clouds; a cruel wind. |
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