| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Allusion | a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work |
| Attitude | the author's or writer's or character's disposition towards or in opinion of a subject |
| Details | the parts or items that make up a larger picture or story. Detail does not include a word's connotation. |
| Devices of sound | the techniques or deploying the sounds of words, esp. in poetry. It can be used to create a general effect of pleasant or discordant sound, imitate another sound, or reflect a meaning. |
| Diction | word choice. Certain words used to create a better effect |
| Figurative language | writing that uses figures of speech, like metaphor, simile and irony. Fig language uses words that suggest something other than their meaning. |
| Imagery | the images or sensory details in a literary work. The visual, auditory, and tactile images that are evoked by words in a lit work. |
| Irony | a figure of speech in which intent and actual meaning differ. It implies a discrepancy |
| Metaphor | a figure in speech where a comparison is expressed without using the words like, as, or than |
| Narrative techniques | methods or devices used to tell a story, such as point of view, manipulation of time, dialogue, and interior monologue. |
| Point of view | a narrative technique where a story is being told through one of several vantage points |
| 1st person | the narrator is a character in the story. The reader hears and feels things only through the character's point of view and experience, nothing else. |
| 3rd person omniscient | the narrator is outside the story and tells us the characters' thoughts and feelings. |
| 3rd person limited | the narrator is outside the story and tells the story through the vantage point of a character in the story but cannot tell what the other characters are feeling except through direct observation |
| 3rd person objective | the story is being told by the narrator outside of the story without telling us what the character's are thinking or feeling, only what they are saying and doing. |
| Resources of language | the general phrase for the linguistics or techniques that a writer can use such as syntax, diction, and imagery. |
| Rhetorical strategy | the management of language for a specific effect |
| Rhetorical techniques | methods used in effective or persuasive language, like contrast, paradox, rhetorical question, sarcasm. |
| Satire | humorous writing used to bring out the flaws in society or in human behavior such as greed, hypocrisy, and vanity. |
| Setting | the time and place of a story. The |
| Simile | figure of speech used for comparison using the words like, as, or than |
| Structure | the arrangement of materials within a work, like series, contrast, and repetition. |
| Style | the mode of expression in language |
| Symbol | something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else |
| Syntax | the structure of a sentence. The arrangement of words in a sentence |
| Theme | the main though expressed by a work |
| Tone | the manner in which an author express his or her attitude in a work |
| Allegory | a story that can be taken on a literal or symbolic level to make a political, moral, or religious point |
| Ambiguity | multiple meanings a literary work can communicate, especially 2 meanings that are incompatible. |
| Anachronism | something presented out of its actual chronological time of a literary work in regards to its setting. |
| Analogy | a comparison based on 2 dissimilar things that have something in common |
| Animism | the belief that natural objects and phenomena posses souls or consciousness |
| Aphorism | a short and usually witty saying |
| Apostrophe | directly addressing to someone or something that is not present |
| Pathos | when writing of a scene evokes feelings of sympathy and pity. |
| Bathos | when writing strains for grandeur it cannot support. Very sentimental and schmaltzy. |
| Bombast | pretentious and exaggeratedly learned writing, when big uncommon words are thrown with hopes of sounding eloquent. |
| Caricature | a portrait that exaggerates a facet of personality |
| Catharsis | when an audience feels a "cleansing" of emotions, having lived through the experiences presented on stage. |
| Colloquialism | words or phrased used in everyday conversational English not considered as being formal. |
| Conceit/Controlling image | in poetry, a startling or unusual metaphor, or one developed over several lines. When the image dominates or shapes an entire work. |
| Connotation | the implications of a word or phrase, as opposed to its exact meaning |
| Convention | a device of style or subject matter so commonly used that I becomes a recognized form of expression |
| Denotation | the literal meaning of a word |
| Didactic | explicitly instructive in telling the reader what is correct or how to live. |
| Digression | the use of material unrelated to the subject of a work |
| Epigram | a pithy saying often using contrast. A verse form, usually brief and pointed. It is witty, paradoxical, and/or satirical in nature. It is neatly and cleverly phrased. |
| Euphemism | also called doublespeak. Using indirection to avoid offensive bluntness. |
| Foil | a character within a work that provides a contrast to another character |
| Grotesque | characterized by distortions and incongruities. Refers principally to deformity and distortion that approach to the point of caricature or absurdity. |
| Hyperbole | deliberate exaggeration and over-statement. |
| Inversion | switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase. |
| Jargon | the special language of a profession or group, often with pejorative associations. |
| Literal | not figurative. Accurate to the letter. Matter of fact or concrete |
| Lyrical | songlike. Characterized by emotion, subjectivity, and imagination |
| Melodrama | a form of cheesy drama characterized by exaggerated emotions, stereotypical characters, and interpersonal conflicts. |
| Metonymy | a figure of speech that substitutes something closely related to the thing actually meant. |
| Objectivity | impersonal or outside view of events |
| Subjectivity | interior or personal view of a single observer, typically colored with that person's emotional responses. |
| Oxymoron | a combination of opposites. The union of contradictory terms. |
| Parable | a story that suggests a principle, illustrates a moral, or answers a question. It is an allegorical story. |
| Paradox | a statement that seems to be self-contradicting but is in fact true. |
| Parody | a good composition that imitates the style of another composition for a comic effect. |
| Persona | the character of the first person narrator in verse or prose narratives, and the speaker in lyric poetry. The speaker is part of the fictional creation. |
| Personification | giving human characteristics to nonhumans, like ideas, inanimate objects, animals, abstractions. |
| Picaresque | of or involving clever rogues or adventures. Originally, a roguish hero in a corrupt society. |
| Reliability | a quality of some fictional narrators whose word the reader can trust. |
| Rhetorical question | a question asked, not expecting an answer, but for effect. No reply expected because the question presupposes one answer. |
| Soliloquy | a speech in which a character that is alone speaks his or her thoughts out loud. |
| Stereotype | a conventional pattern, expression, character, or idea. |
| Stream of consciousness | a form of narration similar to that of first person except instead of the character telling the story, the author puts the reader inside the main character's head and makes the reader privy to all of the character's thoughts as they scroll through her consciousness |
| Syllogism | a form of deductive reasoning, where two statements are made with a conclusion. Beings with a major premise, followed by a minor premise, and a conclusion. |
| Synecdoche | figure in speech where a part is used for the whole, whole for the part, specific for the general, general for the specific, and a material for a thing made from it |
| Thesis | a theme, meaning, or position that a writer undertakes to prove or support |
| Tragic flaw | In tragedy, it is the weakness of character in an otherwise good individual that ultimately leads to his demise. |
| Understatement | restraint or lack of emphasis in expression for rhetorical effect. |
| Alliteration | repetition of similar consonant sounds, usually in the beginning of words |
| Assonance | the repetition of similar vowel sounds |
| Ballad | a simple narrative poem written in quatrains, originally meant to be sung |
| Ballad Meter | a four-lined stanza rhymed abcd, with 4 feet in lines 1 and 3 and 3 feet in lines 2 and 4 |
| Blank verse | unrhymed iambi pentameter |
| Caesura | a natural pause or break in the middle of a line of poetry, marked by // |
| Consonance | the repetition of 2 or more consonant sounds in stressed syllables containing dissimilar vowel sounds, usually within the same line |
| Dactyl | a metrical foot of 3 syllables. One accented syllable followed by 2 unaccented syllables. |
| Dramatic monologue | a lyric poem in which a speaker tells the reader a dramatic moment in his life, usually at a moment of crisis, and reveals his character in the process. |
| Elegy | a solemn and formal lyric about death. Usually reflects a tragic or serious theme, (passing of youth, beauty, or way of life) |
| End-stopped | a line with a pause at the end that concludes with a break in the meter and meaning. |
| Enjambment | the breaking of a syntactic unit by the end of a line or between 2 verses. |
| Free Verse | poetry that is not written in traditional meter, but is still rhythmical. |
| Heroic couplet | two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa,bb,cc with the thought usually completed in the 2-line unit |
| Iamb | a 2-syllamble foot, with an unaccented syllable followed by an accent syllable |
| Internal Rhyme | rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end |
| Lyric | a poem that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker. Presents an experience or single effect, not telling the whole story. |
| Meter | poetry's rhythm or its pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. Measured in units of feet. |
| Trimeter | a line of 3 feet (6 syllables) |
| Tetrameter | line of 4 feet (8 syllables) |
| Pentameter | line of 5 feet (iambic pentameter, 10 syllables) |
| Hexameter | a line of 6 feet (12 syllables) |
| Ode | a lyrical poem of some length, usually of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanza structure. (Honors people, commemorates events, responds to natural scenes, or considers serious human problems) |
| Onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sound suggests their meaning |
| Parallelism | parallel arrangement of parts of speech in successive lines of verse or pose ordered to build rhythm and momentum. |
| Pastoral | poem set in a tranquil, natural environment that deals with the pleasures of a simple rural life |
| Refrain | a recurring phrase, stanza, or chorus in a poem |
| Sestina | a verse form consisting of 6 six-line stanzas with a 3-line envoy. The end words of the first stanza are repeated as end words in the other stanzas |
| Slant rhyme | nearly rhyming words that have similar consonants or similar vowel sounds, but not both |
| Sonnet | a 14-line iambic pentameter poem |
| Stanza | grouping of lines in a poem |
| Tercet | 3 lines septet – 7 lines |
| Quatrain | 4 lines octet/octave – 8 lines |
| Cinquain | 5 lines |
| Sestet | 6 lines |
| Villanelle | a 19-line poem of 5 3-lined stanzas concluding with a quatrain. Aba, abaa. 2 refrains formed by repeating of line 1 in lines 6, 12, 18 and repeating of line 3 in lines 9, 15, 19. |
| Antecedent | that which goes before, especially the word, phrase, or clause to which the pronoun is referring to. |
| Clause | a group of words containing a subject and its verb, which may or may not be a complete sentence |
| Ellipsis | the omission of a word or several words necessary for a complete construction that is still understandable |
| Imperative | the mood of a verb that gives an order or command |
| Loose sentence | puts important idea first, then complete before its end |
| Periodic sentence | not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase, with the important idea at the end |
| Modify | restrict or limit in meaning |
| Parallel structure | used to create emphasis, contrast, and coherence within sentences, paragraphs, and an entire text. |
| Anaphora | the repetition of words or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses |
| Antithesis | the juxtaposition of contrasting or paradoxical ideas presented in parallel form |
| Chiasmus | a phrase reversal in which the second half of the sentence reverses the order of the first |
| Zeugma | use of a word that is grammatically or idiomatically linked w/ another member of pair |
Combine with other sets
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