| Term | Definition |
|---|
| apostrophe | a figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is non human |
| caricature | a portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality |
| conceit | a startling or unusual metaphor or a metaphor developed and expanded upon over several lines |
| controlling image | image dominates and shapes the entire work |
| couplet | a pair of lines that end in rhyme |
| diction | the author's choice of words |
| syntax | the ordering and structuring of the words |
| dramatic irony | when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not |
| enjambment | the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause |
| foreshadowing | an event or statement in a narrative that suggests, in miniaure, a largerevent that comes later |
| hyperbole | exaggeration or deliberate overstatement |
| irony | a statement that means the opposite of what is seems to mean |
| irony | undertow of meaning, sliding against the literal meaning of the words |
| metaphor | comparison or analogy that states one thing IS another |
| simile | softens full out equation of comparisons, often using like or as |
| objectivity | impersonal or outside view of events |
| subjectivity | uses the interior or personal view of a single observer (colored with the observer's emotional response) |
| Opposition | a pair of elements that contrast sharply |
| Paradox | a situation of statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection does not |
| personification | giving an inanimate object human qualities or form |
| point of view | perspective from which the action of a novel is presented |
| Omniscient narrator | third-person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action going on |
| limited omniscient narrator | third person narrator who generally reports only what one character sees, and who only reports the thoughts of that one privilieged character |
| objective (camera-eye) narrator | third-person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera, does not know what the character is thinking unless the character speaks of it |
| first person narrator | narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his or her point of view |
| stream of consciousness technique | like firest-person narration but instead of the character telling the story, the author places the reader inside the main character's head and makes the reader privy to all of the character's thoughts as they scroll through their consciousness |
| protagonist | the main character of a novel or play |
| satire | exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor |
| satire | attempts to improve things by pointing out people's mistakes in the hope that once exposed, such behavior will become less common |
| stanza | a group of lines in verse, roughly analogous in function to the paragraph in prose |
| symbolism | a device in literature where an object represents an idea |
| theme | the main idea of the overall work; the central idea |
| theme | the topic of discourse or discussion |
Combine with other sets
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