LITERARY TERMS
Terms
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- caesura:
- in poetry, the pause or break in the middle of a line of verse-created by a mark of punctuation, such as a period, semi-colon, colon, or dash.
- irony:
- a contrast between what is stated and what is really meant: "Sure, I would be glad to slave all night and not get paid!"!
- soliloquy:
- long speech made by one character who is alone and thus reveals his/her private thoughts to the audience in an aside, a dramatic method to convey thoughts of a character on stage.
- polysyndeton:
- Connecting grammatical elements with "and" to build up a sense of labor or create an emphasis: "The Okies toiled and starved and cried and prayed."
- onomatopoeia:
- use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its meaning: "HISS, BUZZ"
- characterization:
- methods for developing character: actions, dialogue, direct narrator statement, what others say about a character. A character who changes is called dynamic; a character who does not change is called static.
- foil:
- a character who provides a contrast to another character, his or her opposite, to emphasize the characterization more clearly.
- apostrophe
- when an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something inhuman is addressed directly: "Caesar, thou wast a noble man" OR "Deliver me, sun, from your parching rays."
- motif:
- a recurring feature (such as a name, an image, or a phrase) in a work of literature. A motif generally occurs through a work and often is symbolic.
- protagonist:
- the central character of a drama, novel, short story, or narrative poem.
- tone:
- the attitude a writer takes toward his or her subject, characters, or audience-- humorous or angry and bitter. Tone is found in every work and contributes in some way to the theme.
- personification:
- figure of speech in which a non-human subject is given human characteristics.
- satire:
- writing that ridicules or holds up to contempt the faults of individuals or groups. It may be gentle or extremely harsh and bitter in the tone.
- oxymoron:
- figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory ideas or terms--such as "living death" or "my dearest enemy."
- allusion
- reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work which a writer expects the reader to recognize
- imagery:
- words that, together, produce a word picture-"Her golden curls hung in ringlets, creating a halo about her round baby-blue eyes."
- parallelism:
- the use of phrases, clauses, or sentences that are similar or complementary in grammatical structure or in meaning: In the screaming arena, With the pressing hordes, By myself and isolated.
- metaphor:
- a direct comparison of two unlike things: "Dreadnaughts are a herd of unstoppable buffalo."
- cataloguing:
- the listing of characteristics or items in a series
- litotes:
- a deliberate understatement in the opposite sense, as in "he was not unmotivated"
- catharsis
- : a purging of emotions; a cleansing of the spirit (used in Greek tragedies)
- pun:
- a play on words. Involves using a word or a phrase that has two different meanings at the same time. "The smell of the chicken coup was, indeed, most FOWL." (play on the word "foul")
- simile:
- the comparison of two unlike things using the words "like" or "as": "He was like a flitting bird."
- apotheosis
- figure in literature that is almost godlike in its magnificence or power
- assonance:
- the repetition of vowel sounds in close proximity:
- antagonist
- the character or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a rival of the hero or heroine.
- connotation:
- all the emotions and associations that a word or phrase may arouse
- tone:
- the attitude a writer takes toward his or her subject, characters, or audience-- humorous or angry and bitter. Tone is found in every work and contributes in some way to the theme.
- consonance:
- repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words: Success is obsession.
- hyperbole:
- a deliberate exaggeration or overstatement: "He would walk a million miles to see her smile."
- asyndeton:
- joining together several grammatical clauses or phrases without using conjunctions between them: "The air was sultry, the water was murky, the spirits were despondent."
- alliteration
- repetition of initial consonant sounds. It serves to please the ear and to emphasize the words in which it occurs: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers."
- theme:
- the general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express in a literary work. The theme of a work is worded as a complete sentence. Longer works may have many themes.
- flashback:
- a scene in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem that interrupts the action to show an important connection to the present action, a rationale for what is occurring in the plot.
- anaphora
- repeating the exact wording at the beginning of clauses or phrases: Happy in your company, Happy in our solidarity, Happy in the pursuit of knowledge.
- paradox:
- a statement that reveals the truth but at first seems contradictory: "One must feel pain to appreciate life."
- antithesis:
- opposite: night is the antithesis of day
- foreshadowing:
- clues in a literary work that suggest events that have yet to occur.
- metonymy:
- figure of speech that substitutes something closely related for the thing actually meant (ex: White House for the President of the U.S.)
- rhetoric:
- language and its many shapes and forms, both oral and written
- epiphany
- a sudden moment of enlightenment for a character