Lit Terms
Terms
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- Exact
- repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that are close together in a poem
- External
- person person person society person nature
- Character
- a person in a story
- Symbol
- a person place thing or event that stands for itself and for something beyond itself
- Aside
- words spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to another character ( words, which supposedly, are not overheard by the others on the stage
- Denouement
- the final part of the story where problems are not necessarily resolved
- Eye
- words creating visual alikeness without sounding at all alike
- Climax
- the most significant and exciting moment in a plot, a turning point when the outcome is decided one way or another
- Internal
- rhyme inside a line of poetry, rather than at the end of the line
- Situational
- the outcome of events or the state of affairs is the opposite of what one would expect
- Static
- a character who remains the same or changes very little from beginning to end
- Rhyme Scheme
- the pattern of rhymes in a poem. To indicate the rhyme scheme of a poem, we use a separate letter of the alphabet for each rhyme
- Direct
- the author explains directly what the character is like
- Antagonist
- an obstacle to the protagonist or character who is involved in the most important conflict with the protagonist
- Iambic Pentameter
- a line of poetry that contains five iambs
- Sonnet
- a fourteen line lyric poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, that has a set rhyme scheme
- Irony
- a contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality
- Initial or inciting incident
- the point in a story, play,etc when conflict is introduced or initiated
- Characterization
- the process of revealing the personality of a character in a story
- First person narrator
- one of the characters tells the story
- Blank Verse
- poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
- Plot
- the series of related events that make up a story
- Indirect
- the author shows what the character is like by presenting the character
- Slant/Half/approximate
- words that do repeat some sounds by do not have exact chiming sounds
- Foreshadowing
- clues which hint at events to come in a play or story
- Soliloquy
- an unusually long speech in which a character on stage alone expresses his or her thoughts
- Protagonist
- the main character, the one who drives the action
- narrator
- one who tells a story
- Verbal
- words imply the oppostie of what they literally mean
- 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 feeling
- Pun
- a play on the multiple meanings of a word, or two words that sound alike but have different meanings
- Connotation
- all the meanings, associations or emotions that a word suggests
- 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
- Resolution
- the final part of the story where problems are resolved and the story is closed
- Mood
- atmosphere; feeling created in the reader by a literal work or passage
- Meter
- a basically regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
- Third person limited
- the narrator focuses on thoughts and feelings of one of the characters
- Rhyme
- generally, sounds repeated through stressed syllables
- Flat
- a character that, having only one or two traits, is easily described and one dimensional
- Drama
- a story that is written to be acted out in front of an audience
- Rhythm
- a musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables or by the repetition of other sound patterns
- Allusion
- a reference to a statement, person, place, event, or thing well known from literature, history, religion, pop culture, etc
- Couplet
- two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
- Theme
- the central idea of a literary work
- Denotation
- the literal, dictionary defintion of a word
- Dramatic
- the reader perceives something significant that the character misses
- Suspense
- feeling of growing uncertainty about the outcome of events in a story or play
- Metaphor
- a figure of speech that compares two unlike things in which one thing becomes another thing without the use of the words like, as, than, or resembles
- Point of View
- the vantage point from which the writer has chosen to tell the story
- Third person omniscient
- the narrator knows everything about the characters and various situations
- Round
- a realistic character that has many different character traits; fully developed; three dimensional
- Rising Action
- the portion of a story or play in which conflict intensifies, leading to the climax
- Exposition
- the first part of a fictional story; the part in which characters, setting and their conflict are usually introduced
- Monologue
- an extended speech given by one speaker
- Personification
- a metaphor in which a non-human thing or quality is talked about as if it were human
- Conflict
- a struggle or clash between opposing characters or forces
- Simile
- a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, using a term such as like, as resembles, or than