| Term | Definition |
|---|
| alliteration | the repetition of a leading vowel or consonant sound in a phrase |
| allusion | an implied or indirect reference to a person, event, or thing or to a part of another text |
| antagonist | character who opposes the protagonist. |
| antecedent | the noun that is represented by a particular pronoun |
| apostrophe | the speaker or narrator directly addresses a person who is not present or a thing or an abstraction. |
| aside | a literary device in that an actor speaks to the audience; he/she is not heard by the other characters who are on stage with him or her |
| assonance | repetition of similar vowel sounds |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| character | a person, an animal or a thing who takes part in the action of a literary work. |
| climax | high point of interest or suspense |
| comic relief | a humorous or farcical interlude in a serious literary work or drama, especially a tragedy, intended to relieve the dramatic tension or heighten the emotional impact by means of contrast |
| conceit | a fanciful poetic image, especially an elaborate or exaggerated comparison (metaphor) that gets developed beyond the initial mention of it. |
| conflict | the struggle which grows out of the interplay(good vocabulary word!) of the two opposing forces in a plot. |
| consonance | repetition of similar consonant sounds within words and especially at the ends of accented syllables |
| denouement | resolution, general insight or change is conveyed and the story is finished or resolved |
| direct characterization | descriptions of the character's appearance or personality that tell you what they are like |
| dramatic foil | characters who have contrasting qualities and are put together for the purpose of emphasizing those differences. This is a juxtaposition of unlike characters. |
| dramatic irony | when the audience knows something about what is happening that the characters do not |
| dramatic poetry | more like a play which uses techniques of drama such as speaker and conflict to tell a story. |
| dynamic character | character who changes, grows or develops during the literary work |
| exposition | introduction of setting, characters and the basic situation |
| external conflict | character in conflict with other characters or society |
| falling action | action after the climax that leads to the denouement or resolution |
| first person | major or minor character in the story tells the story and we see and hear only what that character sees and hears |
| flat character | character who shows only one side or one characteristic of his or her personality |
| foreshadow | to present an indication or a suggestion of what will happen later on |
| foreshadowing | the use of clues that suggest events that have yet to happen. |
| hyperbole | exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect |
| iambic pentameter | poetic rhythm co nsisting of 10 beats in a pattern of unstressed, then stressed syllables. |
| imply | to hint something without actually stating it |
| inciting incident | event that introduces the central conflict |
| indirect characterization | actions or statements that imply certain characteristics without actually saying what the character is like |
| infer | to come to a conclusion based on evidence |
| internal conflict | character in conflict with self |
| irony | a situation that is unusual or amusing because something strange happens, or the opposite of what is expected happens or is true |
| juxtaposition | putting two unlike things close together to emphasize the differences between them |
| lyric poetry | expresses vivid thoughts and feelings but no plot |
| metaphor | makes a comparison by writing or speaking about one thing as if it were another |
| meter | formal organization of rhythms; a pattern of alternating stressed and unstressed syllables |
| metonymy | substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself |
| musical poetry | uses elements of sound to produce the desired effect. |
| narrative poetry | tells a story with a genuine plot |
| narrator | speaker or character who tells a story |
| onomatopoeia | the use of words to imitate actual sounds. |
| oxymoron | incongruous or contradictory terms are combined |
| paradox | a seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true |
| person vs. nature | when an individual is pitted against the forces of nature such as weatheror terrain. |
| person vs. person | when one individual is in direct conflict with another person. |
| person vs. self | when an individual is in direct conflict with his own desires or beliefs |
| person vs. society | when an individual is in direct conflict with the rules, traditions or human nature or the people around them. |
| personification | inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form |
| place | element of the setting that includes geography, region, country, state, or town, AND the social, economic, or cultural environment. |
| plot | The sequence of events in a literary work. |
| protagonist | main character, may change as a result of the action of the story. |
| pun | a phrase that deliberately exploits confusion between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect |
| repetition | repeated words or phrases |
| rhyme scheme | pattern of rhymes expressed with letters of the alphabet for each specific rhyme |
| rhyme | words that end the same sounds. |
| rhyming couplet | two consecutive lines of iambic pentamenter that rhym |
| rising action | development that leads to the climax |
| round character | character who shows multiple characteristics of his or her personality |
| simile | two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as |
| soliloquy | a speech of a character in a play while the speaker is alone, to show the audience what the character is thinking. |
| sonnet | a poem of 14 lines of iambic pentameter with a specific rhyme pattern |
| speaker | the imaginary voice assumed by the writer of a poem; may be a person, animal, thing or abstraction. |
| stanza | sub-part of a poem - like a paragraph |
| static character | character who does not change or develop during the literary work |
| suspense | feeling of excitement or nervousness when you do no tknow what will ahppen next |
| theme | a main subject or idea in a piece of writing |
| third person limited | narrator sees the world through only one characters eyes and thoughts. |
| third person | story is told by a person outside the story |
| third person omniscient | narrator can tell reader what any character is thinking |
| time | element or setting that includes past, present, future, year, season, time of day |
| elegy | poem written in mourning or to memorialize |
| quatrain | four lines in a verse |
| synechdoche | reference to something by a part of it |
| parallelism | passages with similar or identical sentence structures |
| pastoral | having to do with an idealized country shepherd's style of life |
| caesura | a pause in a line of poetry |
| free verse | poetry with no structured rhyme or rhythm |
| connotation | associated meanings beyond the literal definition of a word |
| denotation | literal meaning of a word |
| heroic couplet | two connected rhymed lines of iambic pentameter |
| epic | long grand poem about heroes |
| scansion | the method of writing down the rhythm of a poem |
| refrain | repeated lines in a poem or song |
| malapropism | a humorous replacement of one word with a similar-sounding word |
| polysyndeton | the use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some might be omitted |
Combine with other sets
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