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Allegory

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A story in which people (or things or actoins) represent an idea or a generalization about life. Allegories usually have a strong lesson or moral.

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Alliteration

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The repetition of initial consonant sounds in words, such as "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."

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Allusion

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A reference to a familiar person, place, thing, or event- for example, Don Juan, brave new world, Everyman, Machiavellian, utopia.

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Analogy

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A comparison of objects or ideas that appear to be different but are alike in some important way.

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Anapestic meter

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Meter that is composed of feet are short-short-long or unaccented-unaccented-accented, usually used in light whimsical poetry, such as a limerick.

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Anecdote

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A brief story that illustrates or makes a point.

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Antagonist

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A person or thing working against the hero of a literary work (the protagonist).

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Aphorism

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A wise saying, usually short and written.

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Apostrophe

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A turn from the general audience to address a specific group of persons (or a personified abstraction) who is present or absent. For example, in a recent performance of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet turned to the audience and spoke directy to one woman about his father's death.

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Assonance

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A repetition of the same sound in words close to one another- for example, white stripes.

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Blank verse

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Unrhymed verse, often occurring in iambic pentameter.

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Caesura

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A break in the rhythm of language, particularly a natural pause in a line of verse, marked in prosody by a double vertical line ( ́́ ́ ).

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Characterization

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A method an author uses to let readers know more about the characters and their personal traits.

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Cliché

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An expression that has been used so often that it loses its expressive power- for example, "dead as a doornail" or "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

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Consonance

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Repetition of the final consonant sound in words containing different vowels- for example, "stroke of luck."

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Couplet

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A stanza made up of two rhyming lines.

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Diction

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An author's choice of words based on their clearness. conciseness, effectiveness, and authenticity.

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Choices of words (Diction) includes

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Archaic, Colloquialisms, Dialect, Jargon, Profanity, Slang, and Vulgarity

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Archaic

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Old-fashioned words that are no longer used in common speech, such as thee, thy and thou.

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Colloquialism

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Expressions that are usually accepted in informal situations or regions, such as "wicked awesome."

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Dialect

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A variety of language used by people from a particular geographic area.

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Jargon

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Specialized language used in a particular field or content area- for example, educational jargon includes differentiated instruction, cooperative learning, and authentic assessment.

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Profanity

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Language that shows disrespect for others or something sacred.

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Slang

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Informal language used by a particular group of people among themselves.

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Vulgarity

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Language widely considered crude, disgusting, and oftentimes offensive.

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End rhyme

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Rhyming of the ends of lines of verse.

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Enjambment

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Also known as a run-on line in poetry, enjambment occurs when one line ends and continues onto the next line to complete meaning. For example, in Thoreau's poem "My life has been the poem I would have writ," the first line is "My life has been the peom I would have writ," and the second line completes the meaning- "but I could not both live and utter it."

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Existentialism

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A philosophy that values human freedom and personal responsibility. Jean-Paul Sartre is the foremost existentialist. Other famous existentialist writers include Soren Kierkegaard ("the father of existentialism"), Albert Camus, Freidrich Nietzsche, Franz Kafka, and Simone de Beauvoir.

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Flashback

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A literary device in which the author jumps back in time in the chronology of a narrative.

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Foot

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A metrical foot is defined as one stressed syllable and a number of unstressed syllables (from zero to as many as four). Stressed syllables are indicated by the ́ symbol. Unstressed syllables are indicated by the ˘ symbol. There are four possible metrical feet.

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Iambic

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unstressed, stressed

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Trochaic

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stressed, unstressed

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Anapestic

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unstressed, unstressed, stressed

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Dactylic

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stressed, unstressed, unstressed

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Monometer

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One foot

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Dimeter

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Two feet

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Trimeter

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Three feet

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Tetrameter

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Four feet

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Pentameter

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Five feet

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Hexameter

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Six feet

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Septameter

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Seven feet

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Octameter

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Eight feet

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Foreshadowing

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A literary technique in which the author gives hints or clues about what is to come at some point later in the story.

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Free verse

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Verse that contains an irregular metrical pattern and line lenght; also known as vers libre.

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Genre

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A category of literature defined by its style, form, and content.

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Heroic couplet

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A pair of lines of poetic verse written in iambic pentameter.

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Hubris

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The flaw that leads to the downfall of a tragic hero; this term comes from the Greek word hybris; which means "excessive pride."

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Hyperbole

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An exaggeration for emphasis or rhetorical effect.

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Imagery

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The use of a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or expected meaning.

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Three kinds of Irony

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Dramatic, Verbal, Situation

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Dramatic Irony

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The reader sees a character's errors, but the character does not.

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Verbal Irony

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The writer says one thing and means another.

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Situation Irony

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The purpose of a particular action differs greatly from the result.

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Malapropism

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A type of pun, or play on words, that results when two words become mixed up in the speaker's mine- for example, "Don't put the horse before the cart."

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Metaphor

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A figure of speech in which a comparison is implied but not stated, such as "This winter is a bear."

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Meter

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A A rhythmical pattern in verse that is made up of stressed and unstressed syllables.

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Mood

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The feeling a text evokes in the reader, such as sadness, tranquility, or elation.

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Moral

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A lesson a work of literature is teaching.

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Narration

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The telling of a story.

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Onomatopoeia

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The use of sound words to suggest meaning, as in buzz, click, or vroom.

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Oxymoron

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A phrase that consists of two contradictory terms- for example, "deafening silence."

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Paradox

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A contradictory statement that makes sense- for example, Hegel's paradox "Man learns from history that man learns nothing from history."

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Personification

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A literary device in which animals, ideas, and things are represented as having human traits.

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Point of view

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The perspective from which a story is told.

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First person

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The story is told from the point of view of one character.

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Third person

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The story is told by someone outside the story.

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Omniscient

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The narrator of the story shares the thoughts and feelings of all the characters.

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Limited omniscient

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The narrator shares the thoughts and feelings of one character.

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Camera view

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The narrator records the action from his or her point of view, unaware of any of the other characters' thoughts or feelings. This perspective is also known as the objective view.

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Refrain

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The repetition of a line or phrase of a poem at regular intervals, particularly at the end of each stanza.

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Repetition

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The multiple use of a word, phrase, or idea for emphasis or rhythmic effect.

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Rhetoric

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Persuasive writing.

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Rhythm

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The regular or random occurrence of sound in poetry.

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Setting

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The time and place in which the action of a story takes place.

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Simile

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A comparison of two unlike things, usually including the word "like" or "as"

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Style

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How the author uses words, phrases, and sentences to form ideas.

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Symbol

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A person, place, thing, or event used to represent something else, such as the white flag that represents surrender.

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Tone

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The overall feeling created by an author's use of words.

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Transcendentalism

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During the mid-19th century in New England, several writers and intellectuals worked together to write, translate works, and publish and become known as transcendetalists. Their philisophy focused on protesting the Puritan ethic and materialism. They valued individualism, freedom, experimentation, and spirituality. Noted transcendentalists include Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

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Verse

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A metric line of poetry. Named based on the kind and number of feet composing it.

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Voice

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Distinctive features of a person's speech and speech patterns.

Figurative Language and Literary Terminology – Flashcards

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