Key+Literary+Terms

Mrs. Trudy A. Miller
 * Key Literary Terms**

1. abstract - Used as a noun, the term refers to a short summary or outline of a longer work. As an adjective applied to writing or literary works, abstract refers to words or phrases that name things not knowable through the five senses.

2. allegory - Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy. Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning. Example: Fairie Queen Spenser; Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan; Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

3. alliteration - Alliteration is generally described as the repetition of initial consonant sounds in two or more words in a line or groups of lines, or the repetition of consonant sounds within the words. Alliteration may occur within a line or between two or more lines. Often, the alliterative sounds pick up each other throughout a poem. Alliteration is one of many sound devices used for specific effects. The repetition of the initial m sounds in the following line by Wilfred Owen strengthens the image he creates of tired, defeated soldiers marching past normal endurance: "Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots."

4. allusion - An allusion is a reference in a literary work to another literary work or character, or a historical figure, person, or object. Readers are expected to identify most allusions and understand the applied parallels they suggest.

5. ambiguity - The state of having more than one meaning or being unclear.

6. anachronism - Assignment of something to a time when it was not in existence. For example, Shakespeare has a scene of bowling in Antony and Cleopatra.

7. analogy - the comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites, results of are types of relationships you should find. Example: hot is to cold as fire is to ice OR hot:cold::fire:ice

8. analytical writing - a form of writing in which the author applies rigorous and logical analysis to a piece of writing for its meaning, nature, and significance and then puts this analysis into a written format.

9. anaphora - the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines.
 * We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender. Churchill.

10. anecdote- originally, an anecdote was a little-known, entertaining facts of history or biography; now, a short, often entertaining account of some happening, usually personal or biographical

11. antagonist - The antagonist is a character that is in conflict with the protagonist. Sometimes referred to as the villain, the antagonist may be a very positive character who assists the protagonist to grow.

12. antihero - A central character in a work of literature who lacks traditional heroic qualities such as courage, physical prowess, and fortitude. Anti-heros typically distrust conventional values and are unable to commit themselves to any ideals. They generally feel helpless in a world over which they have no control. Anti-heroes usually accept, and often celebrate, their positions as social outcasts.

13. antithesis - The antithesis of something is its direct opposite. In literature, the use of antithesis as a figure of speech results in two statements that show a contrast through the balancing of two opposite ideas. Technically, it is the second portion of the statement that is defined as the "antithesis"; the first portion is the "thesis."

An example of antithesis is found in the following portion of Abraham Lincoln's "Gettysburg Address"; notice the opposition between the verbs "remember" and "forget" and the phrases "what we say" and "what they did": "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

14. apostrophe - A statement, question, or request addressed to an inanimate object or concept or to a nonexistent or absent person. A sudden turn from the general audience to address a specific group or person or personified abstraction absent or present. Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
 * For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel.

15. aside - An aside occurs when a character speaks a line that is only supposed to be heard by only a few of the characters on stage and the audience, or only by the audience. The aside is designed to be understood by the audience that the information is to be withheld from other characters. An side may be a quick comment spoken to an accomplice, or an ironic observation aimed at the audience, or a means to let the audience hear what a character is thinking.

16. assonance - Assonance is a noted repetition of vowel sounds in unrhyming words. Assonance most often occurs within a line drawing words together through a shared sound. The a sound in the following line by Gwendolyn Brooks is assonal: "In parks or alleys, comes haply on the verge."

17. audience - The people for whom a piece of literature is written. Authors usually write with a certain audience in mind, for example, children, members of a religious or ethnic group, or colleagues in a professional field. The term "audience" also applies to the people who gather to see or hear any performance, including plays, Poetry readings, speeches, and concerts.

18. bildungsroman - (Also known as Apprenticeship Novel, Coming of Age Novel, Erziehungsroman, or Kunstlerroman.) A German word meaning "novel of development." The bildungsroman is a study of the maturation of a youthful character, typically brought about through a series of social or sexual encounters that lead to self-awareness. Bildungsroman is used interchangeably with erziehungsroman,a novel of initiation and education. When a bildungsroman is concerned with the development of an artist (as in James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man), it is often termed a kunstlerroman. Well-known bildungsromane include J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, Robert Newton Peck's A Day No Pigs Would Die, and S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders.

19. canon - n relation to literature, this term is half-seriously applied to those works generally accepted as the great ones. A battle is now being fought to change or throw out the canon for three reasons. First, the list of great books is thoroughly dominated by DWEM's (dead, white, European males), and the accusation is that women and minorities and non-Western cultural writers have been ignored. Second, there is pressure in the literary community to throw out all standards as the nihilism of the late 20th century makes itself felt in the literature departments of the universities. Scholars and professors want to choose the books they like or which reflect their own ideas, without worrying about canonicity. Third, the canon has always been determined at least in part by political considerations and personal philosophical biases. Books are much more likely to be called "great" if they reflect the philosophical ideas of the critic.

20. carpe diem - A Latin term meaning "seize the day." This is a traditional theme of Poetry, especially lyrics. A carpe diem poem advises the reader or the person it addresses to live for today and enjoy the pleasures of the moment.

21. catharsis - The release or purging of unwanted emotions — specifically fear and pity — brought about by exposure to art. The term was first used by the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his Poetics to refer to the desired effect of tragedy on spectators. A famous example of catharsis is realized in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex,when Oedipus discovers that his wife, Jacosta, is his own mother and that the stranger he killed on the road was his own father.

22. character - Broadly speaking, a person in a literary work. The actions of characters are what constitute the plot of a story, novel, or poem. There are numerous types of characters, ranging from simple, stereotypical figures to intricate, multifaceted ones. In the techniques of Anthropomorphism and personification, animals — and even places or things — can assume aspects of character. "Characterization" is the process by which an author creates vivid, believable characters in a work of art. This may be done in a variety of ways, including (1) direct description of the character by the narrator; (2) the direct presentation of the speech, thoughts, or actions of the character; and (3) the responses of other characters to the character. The term "character" also refers to a form originated by the ancient Greek writer Theophrastus that later became popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is a short essay or sketch of a person who prominently displays a specific attribute or quality, such as miserliness or ambition.

23. characterization - the method used by a writer to develop a character. The method includes (1) showing the character's appearance, (2) displaying the character's actions, (3) revealing the character's thoughts, (4) letting the character speak, and (5) getting the reactions of others.

24. chronological organization - Organization from the time something began until the time it ended.

25. closure - The principle that structured things do not just stop, they come to an end with a sense of conclusion, completeness, wholeness, integrity, finality, and termination.

26. colloquialism - A word, phrase, or form of pronunciation that is acceptable in casual conversation but not in formal, written communication. It is considered more acceptable than slang. An example of colloquialism can be found in Rudyard Kipling's Barrack-room Ballads: When 'Omer smote 'is bloomin' lyre He'd 'eard men sing by land and sea; An' what he thought 'e might require 'E went an' took — the same as me!

27. concrete - Concrete is the opposite of abstract, and refers to a thing that actually exists or a description that allows the reader to experience an object or concept with the senses. Henry David Thoreau's Walden contains much concrete description of nature and wildlife.

28. connotation - Connotation is an implied meaning of a word. Opposite of denotation.

29. consonance - Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds. Example: lady lounges lazily, dark deep dread crept in

30. controlling image/metaphor - An image or metaphor that runs throughout and determines the form or nature of a literary work.

31. convention – A device of style or subject matter so oftern used that it becomes a recognizable means of expression. For example, a olver observng the literary love conventions cannot eat or sleep and grows pale and lean. Romeo, at the beginning of the play is a conventional lover.

32. denotation - Denotation is the literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning. Opposite of connotation.

33. deus ex machina - A Latin term meaning "god out of a machine." In Greek drama, a god was often lowered onto the stage by a mechanism of some kind to rescue the hero or untangle the plot. By extension, the term refers to any artificial device or coincidence used to bring about a convenient and simple solution to a plot. This is a common device in melodramas and includes such fortunate circumstances as the sudden receipt of a legacy to save the family farm or a last-minute stay of execution. The deus ex machina invariably rewards the virtuous and punishes evildoers.

34. devices - the techniques utilized by a writer.

35. diction - The selection and arrangement of words in a literary work. Either or both may vary depending on the desired effect. There are four general types of diction: "formal," used in scholarly or lofty writing; "informal," used in relaxed but educated conversation; "colloquial," used in everyday speech; and "slang," containing newly coined words and other terms not accepted in formal usage.

36. didactic - A term used to describe works of literature that aim to teach some moral, religious, political, or practical lesson. Although didactic elements are often found in artistically pleasing works, the term "didactic" usually refers to literature in which the message is more important than the form. The term may also be used to criticize a work that the critic finds "overly didactic," that is, heavy-handed in its delivery of a lesson.

37. digression – The use of material unrelated to the subject of a work.

38. epigram – a pithy saying, often using contrast. The epigram is also a verse form, usually brief and pointed.

39. epiphany - A sudden revelation of truth inspired by a seemingly trivial incident. The term was widely used by James Joyce in his critical writings, and the stories in Joyce's Dubliners are commonly called "epiphanies."

40. epistolary - Epistolary novel. A novel consisting of letters written by a character or several characters. The form allows for the use of multiple points of view toward the story and the ability to dispense with an omniscient narrator. Example: The Color Purple

41. euphemism - substitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant.

42. figurative language - A technique in writing in which the author temporarily interrupts the order, construction, or meaning of the writing for a particular effect. This interruption takes the form of one or more figures of speech such as hyperbole, irony, or simile. Figurative language is the opposite of literal language, in which every word is truthful, accurate, and free of exaggeration or embellishment. Examples of figurative language are tropes such as Metaphor and rhetorical figures such as apostrophe.

43. figures of speech - Writing that differs from customary conventions for construction, meaning, order, or significance for the purpose of a special meaning or effect. There are two major types of figures of speech: rhetorical figures, which do not make changes in the meaning of the words, and tropes, which do. Types of figures of speech include simile, hyperbole, Alliteration, and pun, among many others. (See also Figurative Language, irony.)

44. flashback - Flashback is action that interrupts to show an event that happened at an earlier time which is necessary to better understanding.

45. foil - A character in a work of literature whose physical or psychological qualities contrast strongly with, and therefore highlight, the corresponding qualities of another character. In his Sherlock Holmes stories, Arthur Conan Doyle portrayed Dr. Watson as a man of normal habits and intelligence, making him a foil for the eccentric and wonderfully perceptive Sherlock Holmes.

46. foreshadowing - Foreshadowing is the use of hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in literature.

47. genre - A category of literary work. In critical theory, genre may refer to both the content of a given work — tragedy, Comedy, pastoral — and to its form, such as Poetry, novel, or drama. This term also refers to types of popular literature, as in the genres of Science Fiction or the detective story.

48. grotesque – Characterized by distortions or incongruities. The fiction of Poe or Flannery O’Connor is often described as grotesque.

49. hero - The principal sympathetic character (male or female) in a literary work. Heroes and heroines typically exhibit admirable traits: idealism, courage, and integrity, for example. Famous heroes and heroines include Pip in Charles Dickens's Great Expectations, the anonymous narrator in Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, and Sethe in Toni Morrison's Beloved. (Compare with Antagonist, anti-hero, and protagonist.)

50. hyperbole - Hyperbole is exageration or overstatement. Example: I'm so hungry I could eat a horse. He's as big as a house.

51. imagery - Image is language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.

52. irony: verbal, dramatic, situational - Irony is an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant. Three kinds of irony: 1. verbal irony is when an author says one thing and means something else. 2. dramatic irony is when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know. 3. irony of situation is a discrepency between the expected result and actual results. Example: "A fine thing indeed!" he muttered to himself.

53. jargon – The special language of a profession or group. The term jargon ususallly negative associations, with the implication that jargon is evasive, tedious, and unintelligible to oursiders. The writings of the lawyer and the literary critic are both susceptible to jargon.

54. juxtaposition - the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side

55. literal - An author uses literal language when he or she writes without exaggerating or embellishing the subject matter and without any tools of figurative language. To say "He ran very quickly down the street" is to use literal language, whereas to say "He ran like a hare down the street" would be using figurative language. (Compare with Figurative Language.)

56. litote - understatement, for intensification, by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed. (Sometimes used synonymously with meiosis.)
 * A few unannounced quizzes are not inconceivable.
 * War is not healthy for children and other living things.
 * One nuclear bomb can ruin your whole day. (meiosis)

57. lyrical – Songlike; charaacterized by emotion, subjectivity, and imagination.

58. metaphor - implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words; the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it. That struts and frets his hour upon the stage. Shakespeare, Macbeth
 * Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,

59. meter - The rhythmic pattern produced when words are arranged so that their stressed and unstressed syllables fall into a more or less regular sequence, resulting in repeated patterns of accent (called feet).

60. metonymy - substitution of one word for another which it suggests.
 * He is a man of the cloth.
 * The pen is mightier than the sword.
 * By the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread.

61. mood - in a literary work the mood is the emotional-intellectual attitude of the author towards the subject.

62. motif - a recurring object, concept, or structure in a work of literature.

63. narrator - The teller of a story. The narrator may be the author or a character in the story through whom the author speaks. Huckleberry Finn is the narrator of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

64. onomatopoeia -A figure of speech in which a word immitates the sound it is suppose to represent. Example: boom, bang, crash, hiss, meow, slurp, sizzle.

65. oxymoron - Oxymoron is putting two contradictory words together. Examples: hot ice, cold fire, wise fool, sad joy, military intelligence, eloquent silence

66. parable – A story designed to suggest a principle, illustrate a moral, or answer a question. Parables are allegorical stories.

67. paradox - an assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, but that may yet have some truth in it.
 * What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young. George Bernard Shaw

68. parallelism - A method of comparison of two ideas in which each is developed in the same grammatical structure. Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Civilization" contains this example of parallelism: Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

69. parody - A satiric imitation of a work or of an author with the idea of ridiculing the author, his ideas, or work. The parodist exploits the peculiarities of an author's expression--his propensity to use too many parentheses, certain favorite words, or whatever. The parody may also be focused on, say, an improbable plot with too many convenient events. Fielding's Shamela is, in large part, a parody of Richardson's Pamela.

70. pathos - an element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion.

71. periodic sentence – A sentence that holds its main idea until the end: Example: Laughting and sprinting in glee, the children frolicked in the tall grass. As oppossed to a loose sentence, whose main idea comes at the beginning. Example: The children frolicked in the tall gass, as they laughed and sprinted in glee.

72. personification - attribution of personality to an impersonal thing.
 * England expects every man to do his duty. Lord Nelson

73. protagonist - The central character of a story who serves as a focus for its themes and incidents and as the principal rationale for its development. The protagonist is sometimes referred to in discussions of modern literature as the hero or anti-hero. Well-known protagonists are Hamlet in William Shakespeare's Hamlet and Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

74. reliability – A quality of some fictional narrators whose word the reader can trust. There are both reliable and unreliable narrators, that is, tellers of a story who should or should not be trusted. Most narrators are reliable(fitzgerald’s Nick Carraway, Conrad’s Marlow, but some are clearly unreliable (Poe’s Tell-Tale Heart)

75. repetition - The repeating of a word, sound, phrase, or idea througout a text for the purpose of emphais or rhythm.

76. rhetorical question - A question asked for effect, not in expectation of a reply. No reply is expeced because the question presupposes only one possible answere. The lover of Suckling’s “Shall I wasting in despair/Die because a lady’s fair?” has already decided the answer is no.

77. rhyme - Rhyme is a pattern of words that contain similar sounds. Example: go/show/glow/know/though Rhyme is not only a recurrence but a matching of sounds. The pleasure of pairing words to make a kind of musical echo is as old as mankind. Rhyme has been called a kind of musical punctuation. It is not only an aid to memory, as we have discovered in proverbs and nursery rhymes, but it is also a pleasure to the ear.

78. rhyme scheme - Rhyme Scheme is rhymed words at the ends of lines. Example: Roses are red Violents are blue Sugar is sweet And so are you.

79. rhythm - The dictionary tells us it is "a movement with uniform recurrence of a beat or accent." In its crudest form rhythm has a beat with little or no meaning. Savages repeat strongly marked syllables to evoke a charm or magic- spell; children use them in games and counting-out rhymes. In poetry, rhythm, broadly speaking, is a recognizable pulse, or "recurrence," which gives a distinct beat to a line and also gives it a shape.

80. sarcasm - witty language used to convey insults or scorn; "he used sarcasm to upset his opponent"; "irony is wasted on the stupid" [syn: irony, satire, caustic remark]

81. satire : a literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the satiric attack.

82. setting - The total environment for the action of a fictional work. Setting includes time period (such as the 1890's), the place (such as downtown Warsaw), the historical milieu (such as during the Crimean War), as well as the social, political, and perhaps even spiritual realities. The setting is usually established primarily through description, though narration is used also.

83. simile - an explicit comparison between two things using 'like' or 'as'. For that which longer nurseth the disease, Shakespeare, Sonnet CXLVII While the evening is spread out against the sky, Like a patient etherized upon a table... T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
 * My love is as a fever, longing still
 * Let us go then, you and I,

84. soliloquy – A speech in which a character who is alone speaks his or her thoughts aloud. This is different from a monologue where the individual speaks to others who do not interupt.

85. stereotype - A conventional pattern, expression, character, orr idea. In literature, a steretype could apply to the unvarying plot and characters of some works of fiction or to the stock characters and plots of many of the greatest stage comedies.

86. syllogism - A method of presenting a logical argument. In its most basic form, the syllogism consists of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. An example of a syllogism is: Major premise: When it snows, the streets get wet. Minor premise: It is snowing. Conclusion: The streets are wet.

87. symbol - Symbol is using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning. Example: the bird of night (owl is a symbol of death)
 * The practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships.
 * A system of symbols or representations.
 * A symbolic meaning or representation.

88. synecdoche - understanding one thing with another; the use of a part for the whole, or the whole for the part. (A form of metonymy.)
 * Give us this day our daily bread. Matthew 6

89. syntax - The study of the rules whereby words or other elements of sentence structure are combined to form grammatical sentences. The pattern of formation of sentences or phrases in a language.

90. theme - Theme is the general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express. All of the elements of literary terms contribute to theme. A simple theme can often be stated in a single sentence.

91. thesis statement - The sentence in which the writer’s topic ior position is stated

92. tone - Tone is the attitude a writer takes towards a subject or character: serious, humorous, sarcastic, ironic, satirical, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective.

93. transition - A word, phrase, sentence, or series of sentences connecting one part of a discourse to another.

94. verisimilitude - How fully the characters and actions in a work of fiction conform to our sense of reality. To say that a work has a high degree of verisimilitude means that the work is very realistic and believable--it is "true to life.".

95. voice - The distinctive style or manner of expression of an author or of a character in a book.

Last updated 2/26/07