| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Drama | a composition in prose or verse presenting in dialogue or pantomime a story involving conflict or contrast of character, esp. one intended to be acted on the stage; a play. |
| Playwright | someone who writes plays or the texts of plays that can be read, as distinct from being seen and heard in performance |
| Pastoral | a poem, play, or the like, dealing with the life of shepherds, commonly in a conventional or artificial manner, or with simple rural life generally; a bucolic. |
| Epistle | A literary composition in the form of a letter. |
| Metaphysical poetry | unified by a philosophical conception of the universe and of the role assigned to the human spirit in the great drama of existence. |
| Antithesis | the placing of a sentence or one of its parts against another to which it is opposed to form a balanced contrast of ideas, as in "Give me liberty or give me death." |
| Anticlimax | an event, conclusion, statement, etc., that is far less important, powerful, or striking than expected. a descent in power, quality, dignity, etc.; a disappointing, weak, or inglorious conclusion: After serving as President, he may find life in retirement an _________. |
| Apocalypse | a prophetic revelation, esp. concerning a cataclysm in which the forces of good permanently triumph over the forces of evil. |
| Archetype | the original pattern or model from which all things of the same kind are copied or on which they are based; a model or first form; prototype. |
| Burlesque | an artistic composition, esp. literary or dramatic, that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats ordinary material with mock dignity. |
| Catastrophe | (in a drama) the point at which the circumstances overcome the central motive, introducing the close or conclusion; dénouement |
| Catharsis | the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music. |
| Conceit | A fanciful poetic image, especially an elaborate or exaggerated comparison. |
| Closet drama | drama appropriate for reading rather than for acting. |
| Discourse | communication of thought by words; talk; conversation: earnest and intelligent __________. |
| Epiphany | a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. |
| Epilogue | a concluding part added to a literary work, as a novel. |
| Exposition | (in a play, novel, etc.) dialogue, description, etc., that gives the audience or reader the background of the characters and the present situation. |
| Figure of speech | any expressive use of language, as a metaphor, simile, personification, or antithesis, in which words are used in other than their literal sense, or in other than their ordinary locutions, in order to suggest a picture or image or for other special effect |
| Grotesque | odd or unnatural in shape, appearance, or character; fantastically ugly or absurd; bizarre. |
| Inversion | reversal of the usual or natural order of words; anastrophe. |
| Metonymy | a figure of speech that consists of the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part, as "scepter" for "sovereignty," or "the bottle" for "strong drink," or "count heads (or noses)" for "count people." |
| Motif | recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes. |
| Overstate | to state too strongly; exaggerate: to ___________ one's position in a controversy. |
| Parallelism | Likeness, correspondence, or similarity in aspect, course, or tendency. |
| Rhyme Royal | a form of verse introduced into English by Chaucer, consisting of seven-line stanzas of iambic pentameter in which there are three rhymes, the first line rhyming with the third, the second with the fourth and fifth, and the sixth with the seventh; rhyming ababbcc |
| Scansion | the metrical analysis of verse. The usual marks for __________ are ˘ for a short or unaccented syllable, ¯ or ʹ for a long or accented syllable, ^ for a rest, | for a foot division, and ‖ for a caesura or pause. |
| Soliloquy | an utterance or discourse by a person who is talking to himself or herself or is disregardful of or oblivious to any hearers present (often used as a device in drama to disclose a character's innermost thoughts) |
| Sprung rhythm | a poetic rhythm characterized by the use of strongly accented syllables, often in juxtaposition, accompanied by an indefinite number of unaccented syllables in each foot, of which the accented syllable is the essential component. |
| Spenserian stanza | the stanza used by Spenser in his Faerie Queene and employed since by other poets, consisting of eight iambic pentameter lines and a final Alexandrine, with a rhyme scheme of ababbcbcc. |
| Stock character | a character in literature, theater, or film of a type quickly recognized and accepted by the reader or viewer and requiring no development by the writer. |
| Strophe | (in modern poetry) any separate section or extended movement in a poem, distinguished from a stanza in that it does not follow a regularly repeated pattern. |
| Stream of consciousness | A literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur. |
| Superego | the part of the personality representing the conscience, formed in early life by internalization of the standards of parents and other models of behavior |
| Synecdoche (sa-nek-ta-ki) | A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole (as hand for sailor), the whole for a part (as the law for police officer), the specific for the general (as cutthroat for assassin), the general for the specific (as thief for pickpocket), or the material for the thing made from it (as steel for sword). |
| Terza Rima | an Italian form of iambic verse consisting of eleven-syllable lines arranged in tercets, the middle line of each tercet rhyming with the first and last lines of the following tercet; aba bcb cdc, etc. |
| Villain | a character in a play, novel, or the like, who constitutes an important evil agency in the plot. |
| Zeugma | the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words when it is appropriate to only one of them or is appropriate to each but in a different way, as in to wage war and peace or On his fishing trip, he caught three trout and a cold. |
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