| Term | Definition |
|---|
| antagonist | an obstacle to the protagonist or character who is involved in the most important conflict with the protagonist. |
| foil | a character that is used to contrast another character |
| connotation | all the meanings, associations or emotions that a word suggests. |
| denotation | the literal, dictionary definition of a word. |
| foreshadowing | clues which hint at events to come in a play or story. |
| genre | a kind or type of literature (poetry, drama, fiction, etc.) |
| comedy | a story that ends happily. |
| essay | a short piece of nonfiction prose that examines a single subject. |
| epic | a long story told in poetry relating deeds of a larger-than-life hero who embodies the values of his society. |
| imagery | the images used in a work of literature -- language that appeals to any of the senses. |
| diction | Particular words used in writing or speech. Refers to word choice. -- a writer's or speaker's choice of words. |
| allusion | a reference to some person, place, or thing from literary or cultural history. often indirect. -- a reference to a statement, person, place, event, or thing well known from literature, history, religion, pop culture, etc. |
| hyperbole | overstatement or exaggeration. |
| dramatic monologue | a poem in which a character reveals himself or herself in a dramatic situation |
| satire | Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity |
| realism | figures and scenes are depicted as they are experienced in everyday life |
| social realism | focuses on the lives of middle and lower class characters |
| symbol | A word, place, character, or object that means something beyond what it is on a literal level |
| theme | A central idea in a piece of writing -- a key idea in a work of literature. a general or abstract idea that is made specific and concrete through the characters, plot, action, or imagry of the work |
| apostrophe | addressing an absent or imaginary person -- a poetic devise in which an imaginary or absent person, a non-human creature, an object or an abstract idea is directly addressed as if it were present. |
| omens | a sign that something will happen |
| personification | the act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas -- a figure of speech in which human characteristics are attributed to non-human things (most often animals, plants, natural forces, objects, or abstract concepts) |
| consonance | the use of the repetition of consonants as a rhyming device |
| paradox | a statement that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth |
| novel | a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes -- a long fictional story which uses all the elements of storytelling (plot, character, setting, point of view, theme). |
| play | a dramatic work intended for performance by actors on a stage -- a story that is written to be acted out in front of an audience. |
| anti-hero | A main character in a dramatic or narrative work who is characterized by a lack of traditional heroic qualities, such as idealism or courage |
| black humor | a form of humor that regards human suffering as absurd rather than pitiable, or that considers human existence as ironic and pointless but somehow comic -- sick humor; laugh when you shouldn't |
| protagonist | the leading character in a literary work -- the main character, the one who "drives the action." |
| turning point | a point at which a decisive change takes place; critical point |
| flashback | an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological order of a narrative -- a scene in a movie, play, short story, novel or narrative poem that interrupts the present action of the plot to "flash backward" and tell what happened at an earlier time. |
| speaker | The person who is talking |
| cliffhangers | A suspenseful situation occurring at the end of a chapter, scene, or episode |
| persona | An external representation of oneself which might or might not accurately reflect one's inner self |
| tragedy | any literary composition dealing with a somber theme carried to a tragic conclusion -- a play, novel, or other narrative depicting serious events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end. |
| archetype | An original model after which other similar things are patterned -- an original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype |
| mood | a state or quality of feeling at a particular time -- the attitude an author conveys toward his or her SUBJECT. |
| rising action | a related series of incidents in a literary plot that build toward the point of greatest interest |
| static character | a literary character who remains basically unchanged throughout a work |
| blank verse | not rhymed verse; opposite of iambic pentameter -- 10 syllabols (?) |
| play of manners | a play that demonstrates societal behavior; in the case of A Doll's House, the bad marriage relationship Nora and Torvald have |
| prose | the ordinary form of spoken or written language, without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse |
| verse | a succession of metrical feet written, printed, or orally composed as one line; one of the lines of a poem |
| couplet | a pair of successive lines of verse, esp. a pair that rhyme and are of the same length |
| aside | a part of an actor's lines supposedly not heard by others on the stage and intended only for the audience |
| soliloquy | an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself or herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in drama to disclose a character's innermost thoughts) |
| monologue | any composition, as a poem, in which a single person speaks alone |
| alliteration | the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter, as in apt alliteration's artful aid. |
| short story | a piece of prose fiction, usually under 10,000 words |
| hero | a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. |
| Christian hero | a |
| anti-climax | a dull or disappointing ending to a play, activity etc after increasing excitement |
| syntax | the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language |
| achronological narrative | a |
| voice | expression in spoken or written words, or by other means |
| teasers | a |
| narrative | a story or account of events, experiences, or the like, whether true or fictitious |
| coincidence | a striking occurrence of two or more events at one time apparently by mere chance |
| tragic flaw | A flaw in the character of the protagonist of a tragedy that brings the protagonist to ruin or sorrow |
| minor character | a |
| audience | The spectators or listeners assembled at a performance, for example, or attracted by a radio or television program; the readership for printed matter, as for a book |
| third person omniscient | a |
| falling action | the part of a literary plot that occurs after the climax has been reached and the conflict has been resolved |
| stock character | a character in literature, theater, or film of a type quickly recognized and accepted by the reader or viewer and requiring no development by the writer |
| figurative language | speech or writing that departs from literal meaning in order to achieve a special effect or meaning, speech or writing employing figures of speech |
| dramatic irony | irony that is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience but not grasped by the characters in the play |
| major character | a |
| situational irony | an outcome that turns out to be very different from what was expected, the difference between what is expected to happen and what actually does |
| pychological realism | a |
| motif | A recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work |
| assonance | rhyme in which the same vowel sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of the rhyming words, as in penitent and reticence |
| understatement | to state or represent less strongly or strikingly than the facts would bear out; set forth in restrained, moderate, or weak terms |
| iambic pentameter | a common meter in poetry consisting of an unrhymed line with five feet or accents, each foot containing an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable |
| classic hero | greek or latin |
| setting | the locale or period in which the action of a novel, play, film, etc., takes place |
| climax | a decisive moment that is of maximum intensity or is a major turning point in a plot |
| chronological narrative | a |
| comic relief | an amusing scene, incident, or speech introduced into serious or tragic elements, as in a play, in order to provide temporary relief from tension, or to intensify the dramatic action |
| rite of passage | any important act or event that serves to mark a passage from one stage of life to another |
| existentialism | people are entirely free and therefore responsible for what they make of themselves |
| first person | the grammatical person used by a speaker in statements referring to himself or herself or to a group including himself or herself, as I and we in English |
| euphemism | the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt |
| dynamic character | in literature or drama, a character who undergoes a permanent change in outlook or character during the story |
| synecdoche | substituting a part or a whole |
Combine with other sets
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