9th Grade Honor's English Literary Terms
Terms
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- That quality of a literary work that makes the reader or audience uncertain or tense about the outcome of events. This makes the reader ask "What will happen next?"
- Suspense
-
A struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem. Conflict can be internal or external, and it can take one of these forms:
1. Person against another person
2. Person against society
- Internal/External Conflict
- A series of related events, in which, each event in a plot "hooks" our curiosity and pulls us forward to the next event to satisfy that curiosity, and the order in which this happens
- Plot/Plot Sequence
- The highly charged moment when the suspense is greatest, when we finally discover how the conflict is going to work out. In most stories this is the moment that brings about some change in the situation, the main character, or both.
- Climax
- Clues the writer plants that foretell what's coming next
- Foreshadow
- A scene in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem that interrupts the action to show an event that happened at an earlier time
- Flashback
- The personality a character displays; also, the means by which an author reveals that personality
- Characterization
- Using humor to ridicule
- Satire
- The events that make up the plot are closely related: One event cause another event which causes you to ask youself: "How did that discovery affect the girl in this story?"
- Cause and Effect
- An ending that makes sense but could not have been predicted
- Surprise Ending
- The order in which the events occured
- Chronological Order
- n.: obstacles; things that restrain or prevent an activity
- Hindrances
- n.: balanced arrangement
- Symmetry
- n.: fear; bewilderment.
- Consternation
- v.: drew back or crouched in fear and helplessness
- Cowered
- v.: causing to occur at the same rate or time.
- Synchronizing
- System for exercising authority
- Government
- The idea that people can govern themselves
- Democracy
- A state ruled by the noble class
- Aristocracy
- Those who were granted certain rights and responsibilities
- Citizens
- Predictable patterns found by using reason and intelligence
- Natural Laws
- Government controlled by one person
- Monarchy
- A form of government in which power rests with citizens who have the right to elect the leaders who make government desicions
- Republic
- Aristocractic branch of Rome's government
- Senate
- He began a series of political reforms that greatly increased citizen participation in Athenian government
- Solon
- He worked toward making Athens a full democracy by reorganizing assembly. He is reffered to as the founder of democracy in Athens
- Cleisthenes
- He strengthened Greek democracy by increasing the number of paid public officials and by paying jurors
- Pericles
- The first great philosopher, he encouraged his students to examine their most closely held beliefs and used a question-and-answer method.
- Socrates
- Student of Socrates, he wanted society goverened not by the richest and most powerful but by the wisest
- Plato
- Religion of the Hebrews
- Judaism
- The Jews written code of laws
- Ten Commandments
- The religion founded by Jesus
- Christianity
- Leaders and teachers who were believed by the Jews to be messengers from God
- Prophets
- One chruch that developed from Roman Christianity, and most powerful institution in Europe in the Middle Ages
- Roman Catholic Church
- Period of European history, from about 1300-1600, which renewed interest in classical culture led to far-reaching changes in art, learning, and views of the world
- Renaissance
- 16th-century movement for religious reform, leading to the founding of Christian churches that rejected the Pope's authority
- Reformation
- the political and economic system of the Middle Ages
- Feudalism
- This reflected customs and principles established over time.
- Common Law
- "Great Charter" -- a document guaranteeing basic political rights in England, drawn up by nobles and approved by King John
- Magna Carta
- The right to have the law work in known, orderly ways
- Due Process of Law
- England's national legislature
- Parliment
- The claim tht a king's power came directly from God
- Divine Right
- The bloodless overthrow of the English king James II and his replacement by William and Mary
- Glorious Revolution
- Where the powers of the rulers are restricted by the constitution and the laws of the country
- Constitutional Monarchy
- A formal summary of the rights and liberties considered essential to the people
- Bill of Rights
- Political and economic system of the Middle Ages
- Feudalism
- This reflected customs and principles established over time
- Common Law
- An intellectual movement where thinkers attempted to apply the principles of reason and the methods of science to all aspects of society
- Enlightenment
- Agreement by which people define and limit their individual rights, thus creating an organized society
- Social Contract
- He gave views on human nature and believed that people were by nature selfish and ambitious, and the only government that could control selfish ambitions was absolute monarchy. Believed in a social contract between the people and an authoritarian ruler
- Thomas Hobbes
- He believed that the government's fundamental purpose is to protect the rights of the people, and that all people had, by nature the right to life, liberty, and property.
- John Locke
- The idea that all human beings had, by nature the right to life, liberty and property
- Natural Rights
- He proposed tolerance, freedom of religion, and free speech.
- Voltaire
- He was considered the most free thinking of the Enlightenment, he considered the only legitimate governmant one that came from the consent of the goverened
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- He concluded that liberty, (your natural right) could best be safeguarded separation of powers
- Baron de Montesquieu
-
The division of government into three separate branches:
1. Legislature- to make laws
2. Executive- to enforce them
3. Courts- to interpret them - Separation of Powers
- Colonists' fight for independence from Great Britain that began with the Battle of Lexington and Concord
- American Revolution
- A government in which citizens elect representatives to make laws and policies for them
- Representative Government
- System of government in which power is divided between a central authority and a number of individual states
- Federal System
- French war for democracy that began in 1789 and ended with the overthrow of the monarchy
- French Revolution
- An international organization whose goal is to work for world peace and the betterment of humanity
- United Nations
- A major change in European thought, starting in the mid-1500s, in which the study of the natural world began to be characterized by the careful observation and the questioning of accepted beliefs
- Scientific Revolution
- A polish cleric and astronomer, he reasoned that the stars, the earth, and the other planets revolved around the sun, the heliocentric theory
- Nicolaus Copernicus
- Idea that the stars, the earth, and the other planets revolved around the sun
- Heliocentric Theory
- A brilliant mathmatician and Brahe's former assistant, continued Brahe's work after his death and mathmatically confirmed that Copernicus' theory was correct
- Johannes Kepler
- 17-year-old Italian student who disproved many of Aristotle's theories, and discovered the law of the pendulum
- Galileo Galilei
-
A logical procedure for gathering and testing ideas.
1. Develop a question
2. Form a hypothesis
3. Test the hypothesis in an experiment or on the basis of data
4. Analyze and interpret the data to reach a new conclusion
5. Prove - Scientific Method
- He urged scientists to experiment theories formed by Aristotle and other ancient philosophers because their ideas were based solely on abstract theories
- Francis Bacon
- He developed analytical geometry which linked algebra and geometry. This provided an important new tool for scientific research. He also believed that scientists needed to reject old assumptions and teachings
- Rene Descartes
- Scholars generally relied on ancient authorities, church teachings, common sense, and reasoning to explain the physical world
- Old Science
- Scholars used observations, experimentation, and scientific reasoning to gather knowledge and draw conclusions about the physical world
- New Science
- He discovered gravity
- Isaac Newton
- Social critics of this period in France
- Philosophes
- An Italian philosophe that railed against common abuses of justice and he believed that the degree of punishment should be based on the seriousness of the crime, he also said that people deserved the right to a speedy trial
- Cesare Beccaria
- She argued that women should recieve the same rights as men
- Mary Wollstonecraft
- A social gathering of intellectuals and artists, like those held in homes of wealthy women in Paris and other European cities during the Enlightenment
- Salons
- A grand, ornate style
- Baroque
- Relating to a simple, elegant style (based on ideas and themes from ancient Greece and Rome) that characterized the arts in Europe during the late 1700s
- Neoclassical
- Monarchs who embraced the new ideas of the Enlightenment
- Enlightened Despots
- King of Prussia who granted religious freedoms, reduced censorship, and improved education. He also reformed the justice system and abolished the use of torture, he called himself "the first servant of the state"
- Frederick II
- He controlled Austria and was the most radical royal reformer, he introduced legal reforms and freedom of the press, he also supported freedom of worship, and he abolished serfdom and ordered that peasants be paid for their labor with cash
- Joseph II of Austria
- She ruled Russia with absolute authority, but took steps to reform Russia, she recommended allowing religious toleration and abolishing torture and capital punishment, however her enlightened ideas changed after an uprising from the serfs
- Catherine the Great
- Document written by Thomas Jefferson that was based on the ideas of John Locke and the Enlightenment
- Declaration of Independence
- He wrote the Declaration of Independence
- Thomas Jefferson
- A violent protest in Massachusetts where debt-ridden farmers, led by a war beteran named Daniel Shays
- Shays's Rebellion
- System where each branch of the federal system could check the actions of the other two
- Checks and Balances
- The first ten ammendments to the U.S. Constitution, which protect citizens' basic rights and freedoms
- Bill of Rights (U.S.A.)
- A word used pejoratively to describe works whose purpose is to evoke strong emotion
- Sentimentality
- An exaggerated flat character
- Caricature
- A song of religious rejoicing, usually associated with Christmas
- Carol
- An object, person, or place that has a meaning in itself and that also stands for something larger than itself, usually an idea or concept; some concrete thing that represents an abstraction
- Symbol
- A comparison of tow things that are basically dissimial but are brought together in order to create a sharp image
- Metaphor
- Prose writing whose purpose is to get reponses from the reader
- Evocative Prose
- A subtle sometimes humorous perception of inconsistency in which the significance of a statement or event is changed by its content
- Irony
- The audience knows more about a character's situation that the character does
- Dramatic Irony
- A naive hero whose view of the world differs from the author's and reader's
- Structural Irony
- A discrepancy between what is said and what is really meant
- Verbal Irony
- A comparison between two different things using either like or as
- Simile
- The position or vatage point from which the events of a sotry seem to come and are presented to the reader
- Point of View