| Term | Definition |
|---|
| epistle | a formal letter, or composition, generally addressed to one person but intended for a wide audience. |
| Extended Metaphor | when two unlike things are compared at some length and in several ways. |
| Simile | a stated comparison between two things that are actually unlike, but that have something in common. |
| aphorism | a brief statement that expresses a truth about life. |
| Anaphora | in rhetoric, the repetition of words, phrases, or sentences, often at the beginnings of successive sentences, clauses, or paragraphs. |
| Rhetorical Question | a question that is intended to produce an effect, usually emotional, and not an answer. |
| Allusion | a reference to an historical or literary person, place, or event with which the reader is assumed to be familiar |
| metaphor | a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things that have something in common. |
| Analogy | a point by point comparison between two dissimilar things for the purpose of clarifying the less familiar of the two things. |
| parallelism | when a speaker, poet, or other writer expresses ideas of equal worth with the same grammatical form. |
| Personification | a figure of speech in which human qualities are attributed to an object, an animal, or an idea. |
| Heroic Couplet | two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme and that are written in iambic pentameter. |
| diction | word choice |
| syntax | style of phrasing |
| nonfiction | prose about real people, places, and events |
| 1st person (POV) | narrator is a character, subjective (major, minor char; as if events are just happening), detached (major char; looks upon past events from a matured perspective, has learned), observer (minor char; confidant of the protagonist; knows what is seen/spoken). |
| 3rd person (POV) | narrator not a character (disembodied voice), omniscient (knows thats, actions, emotions of chars.), objective (only reports on what is said and done). |
| realism | life as it is without distortion or idealization |
| romanticism | life as we wish it-- grand, more sensational, dramatic, suspenseful, etc. than real life |
| Narrator | The person from whose point of view elements are related; may be a main or minor character in a story, an external witness to the action created by the writer, or the writer presenting events from his or her own point of view |
| point of view | The narrative method used in a short story, novel, or nonfiction selection. Most common: 1st person, 3rd person omniscient, 3rd person detached. |
| description | writing that appeals to the senses |
| setting | the time and place of the action of a story |
| theme | the main idea or message in a work of literature |
| style | the way in which a piece of literature is written; refers to how something is said. Contains elements such as diction, syntax, figurative language, imagery, tone, pov, irony, and characterization. |
| lyric | any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings |
| meter | the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry; each unit is called a foot, with each foot having one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables |
| four basic types of meter | 1) iamb: unstressed, stressed; 2) trochee: stressed, unstressed 3) anapest: unstressed, unstressed, stressed; 4) dactyl: stressed, unstressed, unstressed |
| rhyme | the similarity of sound between two words |
| end rhyme | rhyme at the end of a line of poetry |
| internal rhyme | rhyme that occurs within a single line of poetry |
| couplet | two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme |
| structure | the way in which a work of literature is put together; in poetry it is the arrangement of words and lines (stanza is the basic structural unit of poetry); in prose it is the arrangement of larger units or parts of a selection (paragraphs- basic unit) |
| rhyme scheme | the pattern of end rhyme in a poem |
| figurative language | language that communicates ideas beyond the ordinary, everyday meaning of the words |
| autobiography | the story of a person's life written by that person |
| persuasion | a technique used to convince an audience to adopt a particular opinion, perform an action, or both |
| essay | a brief, nonfiction composition that offers an opinion on a subject; the purpose is often to persuade or inform |
| symbol | a person, place, or object that represents something beyond itself |
| character motivation | the stated or implied reason behind a character's behavior |
| irony | a contrast between appearance and actuality. three main types: situation, verbal, dramatic |
| fiction | imaginative works of prose, including the novel and short story. sometimes based on actual events and real people, but primarily comes from the imagination of the writer |
| folk tale | a short story that exhibits an atmosphere of fairy-tale unreality, often suggested by phrases such as "once upon a time" |
| mood | the feeling, or atmosphere, that a writer creates for the reader |
| foreshadowing | a writer's use of hints of clues to indicate events that will occur later in the narrative |
| gothic literature | fiction in which strange, gloomy settings and mysterious, violent, often supernatural events create suspense and terror. |
| short story | a work of fiction that can be read at one sitting; usually develops one primary conflict and produces a single effect; 4 basic elements: plot, characters, setting, and theme |
| suspense | the tension or excitement felt by the reader as he or she becomes involved in a narrative and eager to know either the outcome of a conflict or how the outcome occurred |
| imagery | words and phrases that create vivid sensory experiences for the reader; types: visual, smell, hearing, taste, touch |
| ballad | a narrative poem that was originally meant to be sung; generally about ordinary people who have unusual adventures, with a single tragic incident as the central focus |
| alliteration | the repetition of initial consonant sounds. |
| refrain | in poetry, a part of a stanza, consisting of one or more lines that are repeated regularly, sometimes with changes often at the ends of succeeding stanzas |
| sonnet | a lyric poem consisting of 14 lines of rhymed iambic pentameter |
| hyperbole | a figure of speech in which the truth is exaggerated for emphasis or for a humorous effect |
| paradox | a statement that seems to be contradictory or ridiculous but is actually quite true |
| mock epic | a form of satire that mocks low characters and insignificant events by using the literary traditions of the epic |
| epic | a long narrative on a serious subject, presented in an elevated style and concerned with a heroic character or characters whose actions speak for a particular group of people such as a nation or a race. (yes it is a very long run on) |
| free verse | poetry written without regular patterns of rhyme and meter |
| blank verse | unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter |
| dramatic lyric | a lyric poem in which the speaker is an imagined character rather than the poet |
| narrative poem | a poem that tells a story |
| consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds within and at the end of words |
| connotation | the emotional response evoked by a word |
| denotation | the objective dictionary definition of a word |
Combine with other sets
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