| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Pathos | when the writing of a scene evokes feelings |
| Catharsis | cleansing of emotion |
| Metonym | word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with |
| Interior Monologue | writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a characters head |
| Analogy | a comparison |
| Atmosphere | the emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene |
| Apostrophe | Figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman |
| Black Humor | disturbing themes in comedy |
| Ballad | long, narrative poem, usually in very regular meter and rhyme |
| Archaism | the use of deliberately old-fashioned language |
| Aphorism | short and witty saying |
| Hyperbole | exaggeration or deliberate overstatement |
| Periodic Sentence | not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase |
| Implicit | to say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly |
| Foil | a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast |
| Euphemism | a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality |
| Lament | a poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss |
| Lyric | a type of poetry that explores the poets personal interpretation of and feelings about the world |
| Limited Omniscient Narrator | third person narrator who generally reports only what one character sees |
| Stream of Consciousness | the author places the reader inside the main characters head |
| Suggest | to imply, infer, indicate |
| loose sentence | complete before its end |
| Abstract | complex type of writing that seldom uses examples |
| Academic | dry and theoretical writing |
| Accent | stressed portion of a word |
| Aesthetic | appealing to the senses |
| Allegory | story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself |
| Alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds |
| Allusion | a reference to another work or famous figure |
| Anachronism | misplaced in time |
| Anecdote | short narrative |
| Antecedent | word, phrase, or clause that determines what a pronoun refers to |
| Anticlimax | occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect |
| Antihero | a protagonist who is markedly unheroic |
| Aside | a speech made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage |
| Assonance | the repeated use of vowel sounds |
| Bombast | when a person is trying to be eloquent by using the largest, most uncommon words |
| Canto | section division in a long work of poetry |
| Chorus | group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it |
| Colloquialism | word or phrase used in everyday conversational english that isn't a part of accepted |
| Conceit | startling or unusual metaphor |
| Connotation | everything that a word suggests or implies |
| Denotation | literal meaning of a word |
| Couplet | a pair of lines that end in rhyme |
| Decorum | a characters speech must be styled according to her social station & occasion |
| Diction | the authors choice of words |
| Dirge | song for the dead |
| Doggerel | crude, simplistic verse often in sing-song rhythm |
| Dramatic Irony | when the audience knows something that the characters do not |
| Dramatic Monologue | when a single speaker says something to a silent audience |
| elegy | type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner |
| Enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause |
| Epic | very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style |
| Epitaph | lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place |
| Euphony | when sounds blend harmoniously |
| Feminine Rhyme | lines rhymed by their final two syllables |
| Foot | basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry |
| Foreshadowing | An event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later |
| Free Verse | poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern |
| Genre | a sub-category of literature |
| Gothic | dark, mysterious gloomy |
| Hubris | the excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main characters downfall |
| Inversion | switching the customary order of elements in a sentence of phrase |
| meaning | literal meaning |
| Melodrama | a form of cheesy theater |
| metaphor | comparison |
| similie | like a metaphor but uses like or as |
| Nemesis | protagonist's arch enemy |
| Objectivity | impersonal or outside view of events |
| Oxymoron | a contradiction |
| Parenthetical phrase | phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail |
| Pastoral | a poem set in tranquil nature |
| Personification | when an inanimate object takes on human shape |
| Plaint | a poem or speech expressing sorrow |
| Pun | the usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings |
| Refrain | a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem |
| Rhetorical question | a question that suggests an answer |
| Satire | exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor |
| Stanza | a group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose |
| Subjunctive Mood | grammatical situation that involves the words "if" and "were" |
| Summary | a simple retelling of what you've just read |
| Suspension of disbelief | demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with their imagination |
Combine with other sets
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