Literary Terms
About this set
Created by:
emilytorine on October 29, 2010
Subjects:
ap english language & composition
Description:
Terms for point of view, characters, setting, tone, style, irony, theme, and symbols.
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48 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 fiction | name for stories that are at least partially shaped, made up, or imagined |
| dramatic situation | when a person is involved in some conflict |
| exposition | the opening portion that sets the scene, introduces the main characters and background |
| complication | a new conflict |
| protagonist | the principle person who strives |
| suspense | pleasurable anxiety we feel that heightens our attention to the story |
| foreshadowing | indication of events to come |
| crisis | a moment of high tension |
| climax | moment of greatest tension at which the outcome is decided |
| resolution (denouement) | the outcome or conclusion |
| plot | artistic arrangement of events in a story |
| in media res | in the midst of things |
| flashback (retrospect) | a scene relived in a character's memory |
| scene | a vivid or dramatic moment described in enough detail to create the illusion that the reader is practically there |
| epiphany | some moment of insight, discovery, or revelation |
| story of initiation | story that tells of a character initiated into experience or maturity |
| narrator | speaker |
| omniscient narrator | all-knowing speaker |
| editorial omniscience | adds occasional comment or opinion |
| impartial omniscience | presents the thoughts and actions of the character but does not judge or comment on them |
| limited (selective) omniscience | see events through the eyes of a single character |
| total omniscience | has a knowledge of the minds of all the characters |
| objective point of view | does not enter the mind of any character but describes events from the outside |
| innocent (naïve) point of view | fails to understand all the implications of the story |
| unreliable narrator | narrator is deceptive, deluded, or deranged |
| stream of consciousness | describes the procession of thoughts passing through the mind |
| interior monologue | an extended presentation of a character's thoughts |
| character | presumably an imagined person who inhabits a story |
| motivation | sufficient reason to behave as one does |
| flat (static) character | stays the same, has only one or a few distinguishing marks |
| round (dynamic) character | change some time in the story and have more facets |
| allusion | a reference to some famous person, place, or thing in other fiction or actuality |
| antihero | protagonist who lacks in one or more of the usual attributes of a traditional here |
| setting | a story's time and place |
| regional writer | a writer who usually sets stories in one geographic area |
| naturalism | a fiction of grim realism |
| tone | whatever leads us to infer an author's attitude |
| style | individual traits or characteristics of a piece of writing |
| diction | choice of words |
| minimalist | writers of realistic unemotional fiction |
| verbal irony | the speaker's meaning is far from usual meaning |
| sarcasm | sour mocking statement |
| dramatic irony | the speakers doesn't realize irony of situation (reader does) |
| irony of fate (cosmic irony) | suggests that some malicious fate or other force is purposely frustrating human efforts |
| theme | whatever general idea or insight the story reveals |
| symbol | a thing that suggests more than its literal meaning |
| allegory | story in which people, places, and things form a system of clearly labeled equivalents |
| symbolic act | a gesture with larger significance than the usual |
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