| Term | Definition |
|---|
| allegory | a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy. |
| aliteration | the repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words. |
| allusion | Allusion is a brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or ficticious, or to a work of art. Casual reference to a famous historical or literary figure or event. |
| anagram | a word or phrase made by transposing the letters. |
| analogy | the comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites, results of are types of relationships you should find. |
| anaphara | The deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs. |
| antropomorphism | used with God or gods. The act of attributing human forms or qualities to an entities which are not human. Specifically, anthropomorphism is the describing of gods or goddesses in human forms and possessing human characteristics such as jealousy, hatred, or love. |
| antithesis | opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction. |
| aphorism | brief saying embodying a moral, a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words |
| assonance | repetition of the same sound in words close to each other. |
| conflict | the struggle found in fiction |
| connotation | an implied meaning of a word |
| consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds |
| denotation | the literal meaning of a word |
| diction | style of speaking or writing as dependent upon choice of words |
| epilogue | a concluding part added to a literary work, as a novel |
| euphemism | the substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener |
| flashback | action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier time |
| foil | character that contrasts another character, often the protagonist |
| hyperbole | exaggeration or overstatement |
| imagery | language that evokes one or all of the five senses |
| irony | implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant |
| verbal irony | when an author says one thing and means something else |
| dramtic irony | when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know |
| irony of situation | discrepency between the expected result and actual results |
| juxtaposition | when one theme or idea or person or whatever is paralleled to another could be comparison or contrast |
| metaphor | comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be" and not using like or as as in a simile |
| metonymy | substituting a word for another word closely associated with it |
| motif | dominant theme or central idea |
| mood | emotional attitude the author takes towards hir subject |
| nemesis | which good characters are rewarded and bad characters are appropriately punished |
| oxymoron | putting two contradictory words together |
| paradox | reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory two opposing ideas |
| personification | giving human qualities to animals or objects |
| point of view | The way a story gets told and who tells it. It is the method of narration that determines the position, or angle of vision, from which the story unfolds |
| plot | struggle found in fiction |
| prologue | preface or introductory part |
| satire | a literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness |
| setting | determining Time and Place in fiction |
| simile | comparison of two unlike things using like or as. |
| symbol | using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning |
| syntax | the standard word order and sentence structure of a language |
| theme | general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express |
| tone | mood |
| tragedy | A serious play in which the chief character, by some peculiarity of psychology, passes through a series of misfortunes leading to a final, devastating |
| understatement | to state or represent less strongly or strikingly than the facts |
| verisimilitude | How fully the characters and actions in a work of fiction conform to our sense of reality |
Combine with other sets
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