Literary Terms Exam Review
Terms
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- Rhyme scheme
- the pattern of rhymes used in a poem, usually marked by letters to symbolize correspondences, as rhyme royal, ababbcc.
- Antagonist:
- One who opposes and contends against another; an adversary.
- Alliteration:
- The repetition of the beginning sounds of words, as in "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers," "long-lived," "short shrift," and "the fickle finger of fate."
- Couplet
- A pair of lines of verse that rhyme.
- Conflict
- : to come into collision or disagreement; be contradictory, at variance, or in opposition; clash
- Octave
- a group of eight lines of verse, esp. the first eight lines of a sonnet in the Italian form.
- Assonance:
- Resemblance of sound, especially of the vowel sounds in words
- Sestet:
- the last six lines of a sonnet in the Italian form, considered as a unit.
- Motivation:
- the psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal; the reason for the action; that which gives purpose and direction to behavior
- Quatrain:
- A stanza or poem of four lines.
- Point of view:
- : the position of the narrator in relation to the story, as indicated by the narrator's outlook from which the events are depicted and by the attitude toward the characters.
- Onomatopoeia:
- The formation or use of words such as buzz or murmur that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.
- Allusion:
- An indirect reference to some piece of knowledge not actually mentioned. Allusions usually come from a body of information that the author presumes the reader will know. For example, an author who writes, "She was another Helen," is alluding to the proverbial beauty of Helen of Troy.
- Theme:
- A central idea in a piece of writing or other work of art
- Stanza:
- A group of lines of verse, usually set off from other groups by a space. The stanzas of a poem often have the same internal pattern of rhymes.
- Plot pyramid
- A diagram that goes in the order of 1. exposition 2. rising action 3. climax 4.falling action 5. resolution
- Allegory:
- The representation of abstract ideas or principles by characters, figures, or events in narrative, dramatic, or pictorial form; A story that has a deeper or more general meaning in addition to its surface meaning. Allegories are composed of several symbols or metaphors. For example, in The Pilgrim's Progress, by John Bunyan, the character named Christian struggles to escape from a bog or swamp. The story of his difficulty is a symbol of the difficulty of leading a good life in the "bog" of this world. The "bog" is a metaphor or symbol of life's hardships and distractions. Similarly, when Christian loses a heavy pack that he has been carrying on his back, this symbolizes his freedom from the weight of sin that he has been carrying.
- Hyperbole:
- An exaggerated, extravagant expression. It is hyperbole to say, "I'd give my whole fortune for a bowl of bean soup."
- Symbol/symbolism
- : An object or name that stands for something else, especially a material thing that stands for something that is not material. The bald eagle is a symbol of the United States of America. The cross is a symbol of Christianity. The Star of David is a symbol of Judaism.
- Irony
- The use of words to mean something very different from what they appear on the surface to mean. Jonathan Swift uses irony in "A Modest Proposal" when he suggests the eating of babies as a solution to overpopulation and starvation in Ireland.
- Imagery:
- The mental pictures created by a piece of writing: "The imagery of "The Waste Land" — crumbling towers, dried-up wells, toppled tombstones — conveys the author's sense of a civilization in decay."
- Protagonist:
- The principal character in a literary work. Hamlet, for example, is the protagonist of the play by William Shakespeare that bears his name.
- Climax:
- the highest or most intense point in the development or resolution of something;
- Metaphor
- The comparison of one thing to another without the use of like or as: "A man is but a weak reed"; "The road was a ribbon of moonlight." Metaphors are common in literature and expansive speech.
- Personification:
- A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form
- Simile
- A common figure of speech that explicitly compares two things usually considered different. Most similes are introduced by like or as: "The realization hit me like a bucket of cold water."