Literary Terms - Cumulative (Sets 1-4)
Terms
undefined, object
copy deck
- connotation
- The feelings and associations that have come to be attached to a word.
- fantasy
- Imaginative writing that carries the reader into an invented world where the laws of nature as we know them do not operate.
- introduction
- Introduces the characters and the setting of the story; it may also introduce the conflict.
- biography
- The story of a real person's life, written or told by another person.
- idiom
- A group of words that together mean something beyond the definitions of the individual words.
- folk tale
- A story with no known author, originally passed on from one generation to another by word of mouth.
- stanza
- In a poem, a group of lines that form a unit.
- suspense
- The anxious curiosity the reader feels about what will happen next in a story.
- free verse
- Poetry that is "free" of a regular meter or rhyme scheme. This kind of poem doesn't rhyme.
- figurative language
- A word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of something else and is not literally true.
- limerick
- A humorous five-line verse that has a regular meter and the rhyme scheme aabba.
- mythic hero
- A powerful person with unusual gifts who undertakes superhuman tasks, sometimes with help from the gods.
- mood
- The overall emotion created by a work of literature.
- chronilogical order
- Telling about events in the order in which they happened.
- extended metaphor
- A comparison between two unlike things in which the comparison is carried out through the entire work.
- internal rhyme
- Rhymes within lines.
- legend
- A story, usually based on some historical fact, that has been handed down from one generation to the next.
- plot
- The series of related events that make up a story.
- novel
- A fictional story that is usually between one hundred and five hundred book pages long.
- ode
- A poem that pays tribute to someone or something.
- resolution
- The final part of a story when the characters' problems are solved and the story ends.
- short story
- A fictional prose narrative that is from about five to twenty book pages long.
- speaker
- The voice talking to us in a story or poem.
- description
- The kind of writing that creates a clear image of something, by using details that appeal to one or more of the senses.
- autobiography
- The story of a person's life, written or told by that person.
- character
- A person or an animal in a story, play, or other literary work.
- Personification
- A special kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human.
- tone
- The author's attitude toward the subject or characters in a story or poem.
- end rhyme
- Rhymes at the end of lines.
- Foreshadowing
- The use of clues or hints to suggest events that will occur later in the plot.
- drama
- A story written to be acted in front of an audience.
- climax
- The most exciting moment in a story.
- tall tale
- An exaggerated, fanciful story that gets "taller and taller," more and more farfetched, the more it is told and retold.
- theme
- An idea about life revealed in a work of literature. It may be what you learn from a story.
- characterization
- The way in which a writer reveals the personality of a character.
- onomotopeoia
- The use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning.
- symbol
- A person, place, thing, or an event that has its own meaning and stands for something beyond itself as well
- myth
- A story that usually explains something about the world and involves gods and other superhuman beings.
- First Person Point of View
- A story told by one of the characters in the story, using the personal pronoun, I.
- rhythm
- The musical quality produced by the repeated pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line.
- dialogue
- Conversation between two or more characters.
- main idea
- The most important idea expressed in a piece of writing.
- omniscient point of view
- The point of view where the narrator knows everything about the characters and their problems - told in the 3rd person.
- poetry
- A kind of rhythmic, compressed language that used figures of speech and imagery to appeal to emotion and imagination.
- historical fiction
- Combines an imaginative story with facts about events that happened in the past.
- setting
- The time and place of a story, poem, or a play.
- prose
- Any writing that is not poetry.
- refrain
- A repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines in a poem or song or even in a speech.
- imagery
- Language that appeals to the senses - sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
- paraphrase
- A restatement of a written work in which the meaning is expressed in other words.
- rhyme
- The repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them.
- Internal Conflict
- A struggle between opposing desires or emotions with a person.
- dialect
- A way of speaking characteristic of a particular region or of a particular group of people.
- hyperbole
- An extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally.
- anecdote
- A brief story told to make a point, or teach a lesson.
- allusion
- A reference to a statement, a person, place, or an event from literature, history, religion, mythology, politics, sports, or science.
- external conflict
- A struggle between a character and some outside force. The outside force may be another person, animal, or the weather.
- flashback
- A scene that breaks the normal time order of the plot to show a past event.
- alliteration
- The repetition of the same very similar consonant sounds in words that are close together.
- Metaphor
- A comparison between two unlike things in which one thing becomes another thing.
- irony
- A contrast between what is expected and what really happens.
- simile
- A comparison between two unlike things using a word such as like or as.