English II H Spring Exam Terms
Terms
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- Expressionism
- theater in which the physical theater, including props, lighting, music, dance, etc., is used to create the interior consciousness of characters
- analogy
- a comparison between similar words or things
- aside
- a character addresses the audience directly and the other characters on stage cannot hear him
- The Waste Land
- a highly influential 434-line modernist poem by T.S. Eliot
- Satire
- a literary composition that is ironic, sarcastic, or ridicules; has the purpose of reform
- Personification
- giving something nonhuman human qualities
- Pun
- a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word
- Reliable narrator
- A narrator that appears to be trustworthy and would have no outside interests to protect. Usually a 3rd person narrator, but not always.
- paraphrase
- restatement of the same concept using different words
- Slant rhyme
- a rhyme that is close, but somewhat different, such as predicate and ate
- realism
- literature towards depictions of contemporary life and society 'as they were', as opposed to the romantic style.
- local color
- style of writing that focuses on features particular to a specific region
- Objectivism
- the emphasis on concrete everyday objects and images rather than feelings or thoughts in literature.
- paraphrase
- statement or remark explained in other words or another way to clarify its meaning.
- Free verse
- verse that does not follow a fixed metrical pattern.
- Flat characters
- minor characters that are not very deep and do not undergo any substantial change or growth
- parallelism
- using same pattern of words to show that 2 or more ideas have same level of importance
- Paradox
- a seemingly contradiction of meaning but may not be upon closer inspection
- euphemism
- expression intended to be less offensive to the listener than the word it replaces
- motivation
- what makes a character do what s/he does, be they goals, incentives, or the nature of the character
- persona
- the role or type represented by a character; voice or character representing the speaker in a literary work; narrator of or a character in a literary work, sometimes identified with the author.
- Parody
- a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious work of literature
- Dramatic irony
- when a character on stage or in a story is ignorant, but the audience watching knows his or her eventual fate, as in Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet.
- Dialect
- a provincial and regional variety of a language distinguished by phonology, grammar, and vocabulary
- Symbolism
- the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities
- diction
- the author's word choice
- Objective correlative
- A situation or a sequence of events or objects that evokes a particular emotion in a reader or audience.
- catalogues
- long lists
- enjambment
- when one line ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its meaning
- Epiphany
- a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. OR a literary work or section of a work presenting, usually symbolically, such a moment of revelation and insight.
- Black humor
- presenting tragic or harrowing situations in comic terms
- soliloquy
- a dramatic or literary form of discourse in which a character talks to himself or herself or reveals his or her thoughts without addressing a listener
- Conceit
- a figure of speech in which to dissimilar things are compared
- foil
- the character who is usually the exact opposite of the main character and therefore serves to magnify certain characteristics of the main character
- Imagism
- the 20th century movement in European and American poetry, which advocated the creation of hard, clear images concisely written in everyday speech.
- Assonance
- repetition of vowel sounds
- Ambiguity
- doubtfulness or uncertainty of meaning or intention: to speak with ambiguity; an ambiguity of manner.
- Round characters
- characters with multiple facets
- exposition
- a detailed explanation, normally near the beginning of a story
- Revelation
- a surprising and previously unknown fact, esp. one that is made known in a dramatic way
- tercet
- three lines of poetry
- Connotation
- the suggested feeling or atmosphere of a word or phrase. The opposite of denotation, which is the literal definition of a word.
- anecdote
- an interesting short account of an incident
- Meter
- the arrangement of words in poetry that is divided by rhythm and syllables
- Verbal irony
- a figure of speech. The speaker intends to be understood as meaning something that contrasts with the literal or usual meaning of what he says.
- end-stopped line
- A poetic line that has a pause at the end and is usually marked by punctuation
- Situational irony
- Players and events coming together in improbable situations creating a tension between expected and real results; occurs when the results of a situation are far different from what was expected.
- couplet
- a two line stanza
- inversion
- a reversal of the order of things
- Allusion
- a reference in one literary work to another
- Interior monologue
- speech made by one person speaking his or her thoughts aloud or directly addressing a reader, audience, or character.
- Apostrophe
- addressing an inanimate object or anything nonhuman
- archaic language
- language no longer in use in the modern world
- the Harlem Renaissance
- the flourishing of African-American literature and art in the 1920's, mostly in urban centers across America. Prominent figures: Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, W.E.B. DuBois
- Disillusionment
- a freeing or a being freed from illusion or conviction; disenchantment.
- macrocosm
- a representation of a smaller unit or entity by a larger one
- Imagery
- the formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things, or of such images collectively: the dim imagery of a dream. ; pictorial images
- Unreliable narrator
- Narrators whose account of a story seems to be false, biased, or distorted. Usually a 1st person narrator, but not always.
- Hyperbole
- a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect
- chain of being
- the Elizabethan world view in which the world is separated into the spiritual and the terrestrial and each of these sections are ordered in accordance to their place in the universe; this view reflects the Elizabethans love of a structured life
- Simile
- a comparison using "like" or "as"
- the Lost Generation
- a group of American writers that rebelled against America's lack of cosmopolitan culture in the early 20th century. Many moved to cultural centers such as London in Paris in search for literary freedom. Prominent writers included T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Ernest Hemingway among others.
- aphorism
- a statement that expresses a principle in a few telling words or any general truth in a sentence
- The American Dream
- the idea (often associated with the Protestant work ethic) held by many in the United States of America that through hard work, courage and determination one could achieve prosperity.
- denouement
- the outcome or unraveling of the plot
- syntax
- the rules of a language; word order
- onomatopoeia
- word or grouping of words that imitates the sound it is describing
- Gothic
- genre that combines elements of both horror & romance
- Confessional poetry
- intimate and often blunt poetry that is used by the author to "confess". Confessional poets are sometimes deeply troubled and use writing as an outlet for their emotions.
- Stream of consciousness
- literary technique which seeks to portray an individual's point of view by giving the written equivalent of the character's thought processes
- extended metaphor
- metaphor that continues into following sentences, or one developed at great length, occurring frequently throughout a work.
- microcosm
- human beings, humanity, society, or the like, viewed as an epitome or miniature of the world or universe
- Exact rhyme
- perfect rhyme, such as buzz and fuzz
- tone
- the author's attitudes toward subject & audience
- Lyric poetry
- a type of emotional songlike poetry, distinguished from dramatic and narrative poetry
- Epic poetry
- poetry celebrating the deeds of some hero [syn: heroic poetry]
- cadence
- a fall in inflection (change in pitch or tone) of a speaker's voice, such as at the end of a sentence
- Dramatic monologue
- from only 1 point of view; type of lyric poem, developed during the Victorian period, in which a character in fiction or in history delivers a speech explaining his or her feelings, actions, or motives
- Alliteration
- the repetition of initial consonant sounds
- quatrain
- a four line stanza
- figurative language
- word or phrase that departs from everyday literal language for the sake of comparison, emphasis, clarity, or freshness figures of speech
- Blank verse
- unrhymed verse, esp. the unrhymed iambic pentameter most frequently used in English dramatic, epic, and reflective verse.
- naturalism
- a new rebellious type of writing introduced in the late 19th & early 20th century that imported scientific determination into literature, viewing people as part of the animal world, prey to natural forces
- Modernism
- the bold new experimental styles and forms that swept the arts during the first third of the twentieth century; called for changes in subject matter, in fictional styles, in poetic forms, and in attitudes.