SAT II Literature Terms
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Created by:
tennisfashionxo on October 24, 2011
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51 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 exposition | introduction/basic background |
| rising action | develops conflict |
| climax | high point/point of no return/something that occurs to alter forever the story's main progression |
| falling action | reversal/descent as a result of climax's forceful influence |
| denouement | conclusion |
| plot | action of the story |
| charcterization | how personality develops throughout the narrative of characters |
| foil | character whose function it is to emphasize the personality traits of some other characters |
| tragic hero | protagonist |
| antihero | protagonist with villainous qualities |
| imagery | any description that appeals to the senses |
| metaphor | presents two things that seem very different as if they are the same i.e., The sun is a pizza in the sky |
| conceit | extended metaphor, a development of the initial concept |
| simile | uses like or as to make a comparison i.e., Eating the oatmeal was like slathering wet cardboard on your tongue |
| personification | attribution of human characteristics to something nonhuman i.e., As he stared at the diamonds, greed whispered sweet nothings in his ear |
| apostrophe | speaker's direct address to either a nonhuman thing or an absent human i.e., Embarrassment! Why do you come to me today? |
| hyperbole | exaggerated statement i.e. I've told you to do that a million times |
| metonymy | a larger whole, usually an abstract, represented by one of its parts i.e., The tin star was the one thing the honest people of Carson City revered. (Law is represented as the tin star worn by the sheriff) |
| synecdoche | when a part represents a specific, tangible, whole rather than an abstract i.e., Hands flew in the air when the teacher asked a question. (Hands represent the students) |
| verbal irony | imply a meaning in opposition to their literal meaning/sarcasm |
| situational irony | a situation in which the actions have taken an effect exactly opposite from what was intended i.e., Scarecrow longs for intelligence only to find out he's a genius, Tin man longs to be capable of love to find out he has a heart |
| dramatic irony | when the audience knows something one or more of the characters don't know |
| paradox | seeming contradiction with a greater truth i.e., The "child is the father of the man" |
| diction | word choice |
| syntax | the way words are put together in a sentence or series of sentences; diction + syntax = tone + mood |
| parallelism | when two or more items share a similar construction or treatment in a literary work |
| antithesis | pairing of opposites to make a point |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds within words i.e., The petite clerk meekly ate the bee (long e sound) |
| consonace | repetition of consonant words within words i.e., Tony's fingertips typed at the computer until dawn (repeated t) |
| onomatopoeia | uses words that imitate the sound they repeat i.e., Anita bonked Jared on the head when he tried to zip past her. |
| iambic pentameter | iamb = metrical foot of two syllables, with accent on the second syllable; five iambs to one line |
| heroic couplets | couples that emulate the loftiness of epic poetry |
| sonnet | a serious poem with 14 lines of iambic pentameter with a specific rhyme scheme |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| sprung rhythm | a variety of set meters and a complex rhyme scheme (ABBA) |
| free verse | no regular rhyme scheme or meter |
| ode | praises someone or something still in existence |
| elegy | honors someone dead |
| ballad | narrative poem with a tragicomic tone, each stanza being 4 lines long (ABCBDEFE) |
| concrete poetry | poetry that forms its words into pictures on the page, which has something to do with the poem's theme |
| first person (minor character) | a character who is not the main focus of the narrative tells the story i.e., Nick in Great Gatsby |
| third person (observer) | narrator is not a character in the story, nor does he know the thoughts and feelings of story's characters |
| third person (limited omniscient) | narrator, not a character, knows only of one specific character's thoughts and feelings |
| third person (omniscient) | narrator can know all of the thoughts and feelings of every character |
| narrative distance | narrator's proximity in relation to the other characters physically close - first person physically distant - third person omniscient psychologically close - sympathetic with characters psychologically distant - cold |
| narrative shift | significant change in the way the author is telling the story (change in verb tense) |
| discursive poetry | idea poem that sets forth on a topic |
| imagistic poetry | poetry of pure image that neither tells a tale nor formulates a theme |
| lyric | when a poem's meter and rhythm give it a songlike quality |
| anastrophe | inversion of a sentence to suit rhyme scheme and metrical rhythm |
| first person (major character) | narrator who is the protagonist of the work |
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