English Literary Terms
Terms
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- personification
- when a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics (the sea danced)
- auditory imagery
- an image made by the author referring to hearing
- monologue
- a long speech given by a character to other characters
- soliloquy
- a speech made by a play's character to himself when alone
- symbol
- an object that stands for something beyond itself and allow different interpretations
- olfactory imagery
- an image made by the author referring to smell
- antagonist
- the character that opposes the protagonist
- narrative poetry
- poetry that tells a story either personal or objective
- open form poetry
- poetry that does not conform to specific rules
- rhyme scheme
- a regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem (abab cdcd efef gg)
- paradox
- a contradictory but true statement (less is more)
- hyperbole
- an extreme exaggeration
- dramatic aside
- when the actor makes a comment to himself
- couplet
- two consecutive lines in a verse that rhyme
- sonnet
- lyric poem of 14 lines, 10 syllables per line
- gustatory imagery
- an image made by the author referring to taste
- closed form poetry
- specific rules apply to the format of this type of poetry
- protagonist
- the main character of a literary work
- metaphor
- a figure of speech which one thing is spoken of as if it were something else without using "like" or "as" (Juliet is the sun)
- foreshadowing
- a hint from the author of what is going to happen next
- dramatic irony
- a situation where the audience knows something the character doesn't
- pun
- a play on words which capitalizes on a similarity of spelling or pronunciation between words with different meaning
- allusion
- a reference in writing to some piece of knowledge the writer presumes the reader already knows
- visual imagery
- an image made by the author referring to sight
- quatrain
- in verse, a stanza of four lines
- tactile imagery
- an image made by the author referring to touch
- kinetic imagery
- an image made by the author referring to movement
- simile
- a figure of speech involving a direct comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as" (I slept like a log)
- tone/mood
- a feeling in a literary work stemming from a writer's attitude towards the subject
- lyric poetry
- poetry written on deep ideas or emotions that have a message to them