Literary Terms Borelli
Terms
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- Suspense
- feeling of growing uncertainty about the outcome of events in a story or play
- Internal rhyme
- rhyme inside a line of poetry, rather than at the end
- Pun
- A play on the multiple meanings of a word, or two words that sound alike but have different meanings
- Meter
- a basically regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
- Prose
- literary expression not marked by rhyme or metrical regularity
- Consonance
- the repetition of the same consonant sounds before and after changing vowel sounds, as in "tick-tock" or "step-stop"
- Monologue
- an extended speech given by one speaker
- Denotation
- The literal, dictionary definition of a word
- Conflict
- a struggle or clash between opposing characters or forces
- Exact rhyme
- repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that are close together in a poem
- Sonnet
- a fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, that has a set rhyme scheme
- Verbal Irony
- words imply the opposite of what they literally mean (sarcasm)
- Dramatic irony
- the reader perceives something significant that the character misses
- Protagonist
- the main character, the one who "drives the action."
- Irony
- a contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality
- Juxtaposition
- the arrangement of two or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases or words side by side or in simliar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrastic, rhetorical effect, suspense, or character development
- Nonfiction
- prose writing that deals with real people, events and places
- Connotation
- All the meanings, associations or emotions that a word suggests
- Metaphor
- A figure of speech that compares 2 unlike things in which one thing becomes another without the use of the words like, as, than, or resembles
- Indirect Characterization
- The author shows what the character is like by presenting the character's: 1. Speech 2. Appearance 3. Inner thoughts and feelings 4. What others think or say about the character 5. Actions
- Eye rhyme
- words creating visual alikeness without sounding at all alike
- Monologue
- an extended speech given by one speaker
- Prose
- literary expression not marked by rhyme or metrical regularity
- Personification
- Metaphor in which a non-human thing or quality is talked about as if it were human
- Iambic Pentameter
- a line of poetry that contains five iambs
- Characterization
- the process of revealing the personality of a character in a story.
- Paradox
- a statement that appears contradictory but which may be shown to contain a truth
- Poetry
- A kind of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery designed to appeal to our emotions and imaginations
- mood
- atmospher; feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage
- Comedy
- a story that ends happily
- Internal Conflict
- Person vs. Self
- Exposition
- the first part of a fictional story; the part in which characters, setting and their conflict are usually introduced
- Point of View
- the vantage point from which the writer has chosen to telly the story
- Round
- a realistic character that has many different character traits; fully developed; three-dimensional
- Connotation
- All the meanings, associations or emotions that a word suggests
- Simile
- a figure of speech that makes a comparison between 2 unlike things, using a term such as like, as, resembles, or than.
- First Person
- one of the charactesr tells the story ("I")
- Novel
- A long fictional story which uses all the elements of storytelling (plot, characters, setting, point of view, theme)
- Suspense
- feeling of growing uncertainty about the outcome of events in a story or play
- Epic
- a long story told in poetry relating deeds of a larger-than-life hero who embodies the values of his society; 2 ways (war and journey)
- Extended Metaphor
- A metaphor that is extended or developed over several lines of writing or throughout an entire poem
- Fiction
- a literary work portraying imaginary characters and events
- Dialogue
- lines of a conversation or speech included in a literary work
- Falling Action
- the point in a story or play following the climax in which the intensity of action or conflict diminishes and leads to the resolution.
- Third Person Omniscient
- the narrator knows everything about the characters and various situations
- Hubris
- arrogance; excessive self-pride and self-confidence, especially in reference to Greek tragic heroes whose pride led them to ignore warnings from the gods and thus invite catastrophe
- homeric simile
- a comparison/ simile except that the comparison is extended and explains heroic or epic events in terms of everyday happenings
- Catharsis
- An emotional release which brings about a renewal of one's self or welcome relief from anxiety, tension, etc.
- Satire
- writing which ridicules society, a group, a social institution, etc., in order to reveal a weakness
- Character
- a person in a story
- Rhyme
- generally, sounds repeated through stressed syllables
- Diction
- a writer's or speaker's choice of words
- Situational Irony
- The outcome of events or the state of affairs is the opposite of what one would expect
- Imagery
- language that appeals to any of the 5 senses
- Diction
- A writer's or speaker's choice of words
- Initial Incident
- the point in a story, play, etc., when conflict is introduced or initiated
- Symbol
- A person, place, or thing, or event that stands for itself and for something beyond itself
- Allusion
- a reference to a statement, person, place, event, or thing well known from literature, history, religion, pop culture, etc.
- Aside
- words spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another characters
- Rhyme Scheme
- the pattern of rhymes in a poem. To indicate , we use a seperate letter of the alphabet for each rhyme
- Onomatopoeia
- the use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning
- Drama
- a story that is written to be acted out in front of an audience
- Myth
- story involving fantasy to express ideas about life that cannot be expressed easily in realistic terms
- Science Fiction
- fiction of a highly imaginative or fantastic kind, generally involving some actual or projected scientific phenomenon.
- Epithet
- An adjective or other descriptive phrase that is regularly used to characterize a person, place, or thing
- Flashback
- A scene in a movie, play, short story, novel or narrative poem that interrupts the present action of the plot to flash backward and tell what happened at an earlier time.
- Climax
- the most significant and exciting moment in a plot, a turning point when the outcome is decided one way or another
- Personification
- a metaphor in which a non-human thing or quality is talked about as if it were human.
- Direct Characterization
- the author direcly explains what the character is like
- Denotation
- the literal, dictionary definition of a word
- Local Color
- writing which represents the mannerisms, dress, speech and customs of a particular geographical region
- Foil
- A character that is used to contrast another character
- Resolution
- the final part of a story where problems/conflicts are resolved and the story is closed
- Plot
- the series of related events that make up a story
- Foreshadowing
- clues which hint at events to come in a play or story
- Flat
- a character that, having only one or two traits, is easily described and one-dimensional (like a carboard figure)
- Dynamic
- a character who changes in some important way as a result of what happens in the story. Change may involve some new knowledge or a different way of behaving or feeilng
- Alliteration
- the repetition of the same consonant sounds in words that are close together, or the repitition of consonant sounds that are similar
- narrator
- one who tells the story
- Tragedy
- a play, novel, etc depicting serious events in which the main character comes to an unhappy end
- Couplet
- two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.
- Antagonist
- an obstacle to the protagonist or character who is involved in the most important conflict with the protagonist
- Denouement
- The final part of the story where problems/conflicts are not necessarily resolved
- Soliloquy
- An unusually long speech in which a character on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts
- Tone
- the author's attitude toward his or her subject, character or audience
- Rising Action
- the portion of a story or play in which conflict intensifies, leading to the climax. (often contains many complications)
- Third Person Limited
- the narrator (not character) focuses on thoughts and feelings of one of the characters
- Rhythm
- a musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables or by the repitition of other sound patterns
- Assonance
- the repetition of simliar vowel sounds enclosed in different consonant sounds
- Theme
- the central idea of a literary work
- Blank Verse
- poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
- Setting
- the time and place of a story or play
- Static
- a character who remains the same or changes very little from beginning to end
- Archetype
- An original model or type after which other similar things are patterned; a prototype
- Pun
- A play on the multiple meanings of a word, or two words that sound alike but have different meanings
- Essay
- a short piece of nonfiction prose that examines a single subject
- Tone
- the author's attitude toward his or her subject, character, or audience
- External conflict
- person vs. person; person vs. society; person vs. nature/environment
- Slant rhyme
- words that do repeat some sounds but do not have exact chiming sounds
- Genre
- a kind of type of literature