Lit Terms quiz 1
Terms
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- allegory
- a tale in prose or verse in which characters, actions, or settings represent abstract ideas or moral qualities
- alliteration
- the repitition of initial consonant sounds in words
- analogy
- the comparison between two things to show similarities between them
- anapest
- a poetic foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable
- antagonist
- a person or force opposing the protagonist in a drama or narrative
- aphorism
- a terse, pointed statement expressing a wise or clever observation about life
- apostrophe
- a figure of speech in which an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something inanimate or nonhuman is addressed directly
- aside
- in drama, a short speech spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the audience
- assonance
- the repitition or vowel sounds, especially in poetry
- ballad
- a story told in verse and usually meant to be sung
- blank verse
- verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
- caesura
- a break or pause in a line of poetry, which contributes to the rhythm of the poem
- Classicism
- a movement or tendency in art, literature, ad music reflecting the principles manifested in the art of ancient Greece and Rome
- climax
- the decisive point in a narrative or dreama; the point of greatest intensity or interest
- conceit
- a kind of metaphor that makes a comparison between two stratlingly different things
- concrete poetry
- poetry that uses appearance of the verse lines on the page to suggest or inanimate the poem's subject
- confessional poetry
- poetry that makes frank, explicit use of incidents in the poet's life
- conflict
- a struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story
- couplet
- two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
- dactyl
- a poetic foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables
- denouement
- the outcome of a plot
- dialect
- the characteristic speech of a particular region of social group
- diction
- a writer's choice of words, particularly for clarity, effectiveness, and precision
- dramatic monologue
- a narrative poem in which one character speaks to one or more listeners whose replies are not given in the poem
- elegy
- a poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual
- epic
- a long narrative poem describing the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the culture from which it originated
- epigram
- a short, witty statement in prose or verse
- epigraph
- a quotation or motto at the beginning of a chapter, book, short story, of poem that makes some point about the work
- epitaph
- an inscription on a gravestone or a short poem written in memory of someone who has died
- epithet
- a descriptive name or phrase used to characterize someone or something, such as "fair-weather friend" or "Catherine the Great"
- essay
- a prose work, usually short, that deals with a subject in a limited way and expresses a particular point of view
- consonance
- the repetition of similar consonant sounds withing a group of words
- allusion
- a reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects a reader to recognize