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A
Act
Action
Allegory
Alliteration
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Allusion
Anagnorisis
Anagram
Example:
cask to sack; weird to wired.
Analogy
Example:
hot is to cold as fire is to ice OR hot: cold = fire: ice
Anapest
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In a line of poetry, two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed
syllable forming the pattern for the line or perhaps for the entire poem.
The following example is by Robert Frost:
.
Anaphora
Examples: (1) Give me wine, give me women and give me song. (2)
For everything there is a season . . . a time to be born, and a time to
die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.–Bible,
Ecclesiastes. (3) To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream.–
Shakespeare, Hamlet.
Anastrophe
Example:
Anecdote
Antagonist
Anthropomorphism
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Anthropomorphism is used with God or gods. It is the act of attributing
human forms or qualities to 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.
Aphorism
Examples:
Hippocrates: Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting,
experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult.
Pope: Some praise at morning what they blame at night.
Emerson: Imitation is suicide
Apocope
Apologue
Examples:
Apostrophe
Example:
With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbest the skies. Busy old fool,
unruly sun.
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Aside
Asyndeton
Assonance
Example:
fleet feet sweep by sleeping geeks.
Autobiography
B
Ballad
Ballad is a narrative folk song. The ballad is traced back to the Middle
Ages. Ballads were usually created by common people and passed
orally due to the illiteracy of the time. Subjects for ballads include
killings, feuds, important historical events, and rebellion.
Biography
The story of a person's life written by someone other than the subject
of the work.
Blank Verse
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A poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Consider the
following from "The Ball Poem" by John Berryman:
Burlesque
C
Cacaphony
Example:
finger of birth-strangled babe.
Caesura
Example:
England - how I long for thee!
Canon
Canto
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A subdivision of an epic poem. Each of the three books of Dante
Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" is divided into cantos.
Carpe Diem
Catastrophe
Catharsis
Aristotle and countless followers said that tragedy evokes pity and
fear, and that it produces in the spectator a catharsis (purgation, or,
some scholars hold, purification) of these emotions: it drains or
perhaps refines or modifies these emotions, and thus tragedy is
socially useful
Character
Characterization
Chiasmus
I come from the rural north, from the urban south comes she.
John is a good worker, and a bright student is Mary.
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A fop their passion, but their prize a sot.–Alexander Pope.
Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike–Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
Chorus
Classicism
Cliché
Climax
The decisive moment in a work of fiction/ story/ play. The climax is the
turning point of the story/ play to which the rising action leads.
Closet Drama
Conceit
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example from Act V of Shakespeare's "Richard II," the imprisoned King
Richard compares his cell to the world in the following line:
Conclusion
Concrete Poetry
Conflict
Connotation
Example:
Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest
(burial)
Consonance
Example:
lady lounges lazily, dark deep dread crept in
Couplet
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A stanza of two lines, usually rhyming. The following by Andrew Marvell
is an example of a rhymed couplet:
Dactyl
Denotation
Example:
Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest
(sleep).
Denouement
Deus ex Machina
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Deuteragonist
In Greek drama, the character second in importance to the main
character, or protagonist.
Dialogue
Diction
Didactic Literature
Digression
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The use of material unrelated to the subject of a work. The
interpolated narrations in the novels of Cervantes or Fielding may
be called digressions, and Tristram Shandy includes a digression on
digressions.
Dramatic Irony
Dramatic Monologue
E
Elegy
Enjambment
The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line
without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line. For example, the
first two lines here are enjambed:
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Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove. . . . --Shakespeare
Enlightenment
Epic
Epigram
Wise or witty saying expressing a universal truth in a few words.
Following are examples of epigrams from Shakespeare:
Epigraph
Epilogue
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Epiphany
Epitaph
Epithet
Eulogy
Euphemism
Euphony
Example:
O star (the fairest one in sight)
Exeunt
Exposition
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Exposition is a technique by which background information about the
characters, events, or setting is conveyed in a novel, play, movie or
other work of fiction. This information can be presented through
dialogue, description, flashbacks, or even directly through narrative.
Expressionism
F
Fable
Fabliau
Short verse tale with coarse humor and earthy, realistic, and
sometimes obscene descriptions that present an episode in the life of
contemporary middle- and lower-class people
Falling Action
The falling action is the series of events which take place after the
climax.
Farce
Figurative Language
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Clearly Mr. Burns does not really mean that he has fallen in love with a
red, aromatic, many-petalled, long, thorny-stemmed plant. He means
that his love is as sweet and as delicate as a rose.
Figure of Speech
Flashback
Foil
Folklore
Foot
The meter in a poem is classified according both to its pattern and the
number of feet to the line. Below is a list of classifications:
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Trimeter = three feet to a line
Tetrameter = four feet to a line
Pentameter = five feet to a line
Since the line above is written in iambic meter, four feet to the
line, the line would be referred to as iambic tetrameter.
Foreshadowing
Frame Tale
Free Verse
G
Gasconade
Genre
Gothic Fiction
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old mansion on a hilltop, a misty cemetery, a forlorn countryside, or
the laboratory of a scientist conducting frightful experiments.
H
Hagiography
Haiku
Hamartia
Homily
Hyperbole
Example:
I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.
He's as big as a house.
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I
Iamb
Idyll
Poem focusing on the simplicity and tranquillity of rural life; prose work
with a similar focus. Idyll is derived from the Greek eidýllion (little
picture or image). The Greek poet Theocritus (300-260 B.C.) developed
this genre.
Imagery
Imagery is language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing,
hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.
Inference
Interlude
Internal Rhyme
Example:
I awoke to black flak.
Irony
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Irony is an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is
meant.
Three kinds of irony:
J
Jargon
K
Kenning
L
Lampoon
Litotes
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Creation of a positive or opposite idea through negation. Examples: (1)
I am not unaware of your predicament. (2) This is no small problem. (3)
I'm not forgetful that you served me well.–John Milton.
Local Color
Lyric Poem
M
Magnum Opus
Malapropism
Melodrama
Metaphor
Metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be"
and not using as or like as in a simile.
Example:
He is a pig. Thou art sunshine.
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Meter
Metonymy
Mood
Motif
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Recurring theme in a literary work; recurring theme in literature in
general. Maltreatment of women is a motif that appears in “Hills Like
White Elephants,” a short story by Ernest Hemingway; “The Story of an
Hour,” a short story by Kate Chopin; and “The Chrysanthemums,” a
short story by John Steinbeck.The love of money as the root of evil is a
motif that occurs in many works of literature.
Motivation
Myth
N
Narrative Poem
A poem which tells a story. Usually a long poem, sometimes even book
length, the narrative may take the form of a plotless dialogue as in
Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man."
Naturalism
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The principles of retributive justice by which good characters are
rewarded and bad characters are appropriately punished;
Nihilism
Nihilism (a term derived from the Latin word nihil, meaning nothing) is
a philosophy that calls for the destruction of existing traditions,
customs, beliefs, and institutions and requires its adherents to reject
all values, including religious and aesthetic principles, in favor of belief
in nothing. The term was coined in the Middle Ages to describe
religious heretics.
Novel
O
Ode
Oeuvre
Onomatopoeia
Example:
splash, wow, gush.
Oxymoron
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Oxymoron is putting two contradictory words together.
Examples:
hot ice, cold fire, wise fool, sad joy, military intelligence, eloquent
silence,
P
Parable
Paradox
Example:
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.
Parody
Pastoral
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pathos; a literary device wherein something nonhuman found in
nature-a beast, plant, stream, natural force, etc.-performs as though
from human feeling or motivation.
Peripeteia (reversal)
The reversal occurs when an action produces the opposite of what was
intended or expected, and it is therefore a kind of irony.
Personification
Plot
Poetry
Point of View
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A piece of literature contains a speaker who is speaking either in the
first person, telling things from his or her own perspective, or in the
third person, telling things from the perspective of an onlooker. The
perspective used is called the Point of View, and is referred to either as
first person or third person. If the speaker knows everything including
the actions, motives, and thoughts of all the characters, the speaker is
referred to as omniscient (all-knowing). If the speaker is unable to
know what is in any character's mind but his or her own, this is called
limited omniscience.
Portmanteau
Example:
smog is the combination of smoke and fog
Prologue
Protagonist
Pun
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Q
Quatrain
R
Realism
Resolution
The part of a story or drama which occurs after the climax and which
establishes a new norm, a new state of affairs-the way things are going
to be from then on.
Rhyme
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb
Rhyme Scheme
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The pattern of rhymed words in a stanza or generalized throughout a
poem, expressed in alphabetic terms. Consider the following lines from
Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening:
Rhythm
Rising Action
The part of a drama which begins with the exposition and sets the
stage for the climax. In a five-act play, the exposition provides
information about the characters and the events which occurred before
the action of the play began. A conflict often develops between the
protagonist and an antagonist. The action reaches a high point and
results in a climax, the turning point in the play.
Romance
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Romanticism
Saga
Sarcasm
Form of verbal irony that insults a person with insincere praise. For
example, a cruel person might tell a homely woman wearing dowdy
clothes, "I see, Miss America, that you are wearing the latest Dior
ensemble."
Satire
Scansion
Scenario
Science Fiction
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Literary genre focusing on how scientific experiments, discoveries, and
technologies affect human beings for better or worse. Science fiction
differs from pure fantasy in that it presents events that appear to be
scientifically plausible. Traveling to another galaxy in a spaceship is
scientifically plausible. Riding to the moon on a winged horse is not
scientifically plausible.
Sentimentality
Setting
Short Story
Simile
Simile is the comparison of two unlike things using like or as. Related
to metaphor
Example:
He eats like a pig. Vines like golden prisons.
Soliloquy
Sonnet
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A lyric poem of fourteen lines whose ryhme scheme is fixed. The
rhyme scheme in the Italian form as typified in the sonnets of Petrarch
is abbaabba cdecde. The Petrarchian sonnet has two divisions: the first
is of eight lines (the octave), and the second is of six lines (the sestet).
The rhyme scheme of the English, or Shakespearean sonnet is abab
cdcd efef gg. (See Rhyme Scheme). The change of rhyme in the
English sonnet is coincidental with a change of theme in the poem.
Spondee
Spoonerism
Stanza
Stereotype
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society projects or imposes on every member of a group as a result of
prejudice or faulty information. Examples of stereotypes are the Irish
drunk, the Italian mobster, the dishonest car salesman, the plain-Jane
librarian, the shyster lawyer, the Machiavellian politician, and the
dumb blonde.
Stichomythia
Style
Many things enter into the style of a work: the author's use of
figurative language, diction, sound effects and other literary devices.
Suspense
He was an innocent, this boy; the other boys were out to get him.
Symbolism
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Little lamb, I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a lamb;
Syncope
Synecdoche
Synesthesia:
T
Theme
An ingredient of a literary work which gives the work unity. The theme
provides an answer to the question What is the work about? There are
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too many possible themes to recite them all in this document. Each
literary work carries its own theme(s).
Tone
Tone expresses the author's attitude toward his or her subject. Since
there are as many tones in literature as there are tones of voice in real
relationships, the tone of a literary work may be one of anger or
approval, pride or piety-the entire gamut of attitudes toward life's
phenomena.
Tragedy
Transcendentalism
Belief that every human being has inborn knowledge that enables him
to recognize and understand moral truth without benefit of knowledge
obtained through the physical senses. Using this inborn knowledge, an
individual can make a moral decision without relying on information
gained through everyday living, education, and experimentation. One
may liken this inborn knowledge to conscience or intuition.
Travesty
Play, novel, poem, skit, film, opera, etc., that trivializes a serious
subject or composition. Generally, a travesty achieves its effect
through broad humor and through incongruous or distorted language
and situations. Examples of works that contain travesty are
Cervantes’s Don Quixote de La Mancha and Shakespeare’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream (the Act V staging of Pyramis and Thisbe by
the bumbling tradesmen). Literary works that mock trivial or
unimportant subjects are not travesties; travesties mock only serious,
dignified, or noble subjects.
Trochee
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The opening line to Vachel Lindsay's "General William Booth Enters
into Heaven" provides an example:
U
Understatement
V
Verisimilitude
Verisimilitude in its literary context is defined as the fact or quality of being verisimilar,
the appearance of being true or real; likeness or resemblance of the truth, reality or a
fact’s probability. Verisimilitude comes from Latin verum meaning truth and similis
meaning similar.
Z
Zeugma
Example: The dance floor was square, and so was the bandleader’s
personality. Explanation: Square describes the dance floor and the
bandleader’s personality with different meanings.
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