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| Poetry that doesn not conform to a reular meter or rhyme scheme. |
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| A figure of speech that uses an incredile exaggeration or overstatement, for effect. "If I told you once, I've told you a million times..." |
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| Sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relaitonships between them. (Use of such synactic subordination of just one cluse to another is known as hypotaxis.) I am tired becuase I am hot. |
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| The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience. |
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| The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase |
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| A discrepancy between appearances and reality. |
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| Occurs when someone says one thing but really means something else (aka. Sarcasm) |
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| Takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen, and what really does happen. |
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| Is so called becuase it is often used on stage. A character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better. |
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| Poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit. It is also a form of contrast by which writers call attention to dissimilar ideas or images or metaphors. Martin Luther King: "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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| Is a form of understatement in which the positive form s emphasized through the negation of a negative form: Hawthorne---"...the wearers of petticoat and farthingale... stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their NOT UNSUBSTANTIAL PERSONS, if occasion were, into the throng..." |
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| A term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect, and landscape. |
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| One in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units. See periodic sentence. "Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of this footsteps, sere and brownm across its cheerful verdure." |
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| a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. A BALLAD tells a story. |
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| A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison as like, as, than, or resembles. |
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| does not state explicity the two terms of the comparison: "I like to see it lap the miles" is an implied metaphor in which the verb lap implies a comparison between "it" and some animal that "laps" up water. |
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| Is a metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it. (conceit if it is quite elaborate). |
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| Is a metaphor that has been used so often that the comparison is no longer vivid: "The head of the house", "the seat of the government", "a knotty problem" |
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| Is a metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible. "The President is a lame duck who is running out of gas" |
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| a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it. "We requested from the crown support for our petition." The crown is used to represent the monarch. |
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| An atmosphere created by a writer's diciton and the details selected. |
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| A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object or situation used throughout a work (or several works by one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme. Kurt Vonnegut uses "So it goes" thoughout Slaughterhouse-Five to remind the reader of the senselessness of death. |
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| The reasons for a character's behavior. |
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| The use of words whose sounds echo their sense. "pop" "zap" |
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| A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. "Jumbo shrimp" "pretty ugly" "bitter-sweet" |
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| A relatively short story that teaches a moral, or lesson about how to lead a good life. |
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| A statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth. |
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| Is a paradox used in Zen Buddhism to gain intuitive knowledge: "What is the sound of one hand clapping?" |
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| (parallelism) the repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures. |
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| Simply juxtaposs clauses or sentences. I am tired:it is hot. |
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| A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer's style. |
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| Sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements. |
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| A figure of speech in which an oject or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes. |
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| The series of related events in a story or play, sometimes called the storyline. |
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| Introduces characters, situation, and setting |
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| Complications in conflict and situaitons (may introduce new ones as well) |
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| That point in a plot that creates the greatest intensity, suspense, or interest. Also called "turning point" |
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| The conclusion of a story, when all or most of the conflicts have been settled; often called the denouement. |
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| The vantage point from which the wirter tells the story |
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| First Person Point of View |
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| One of the characters tells the story |
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| Third Person Point of View |
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| An unknown narrator, tells the story, but this narrator zooms in to focus on the thoughts and feelings of only one character. |
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| An omniscient or all knowing narrator tells the story, also using the third person pronouns. This narrator, instead of focusing on one character only, often tells us everything about many characters. |
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| A narrator who is totally impersonal and objective tells the story, with no comment on any characters or events. |
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| Sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to seperate the items in a series. Instead of X, Y, and Z... Polysyndeton results in X and Y and Z... Kurt Vonnegut ses this advice. |
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| The central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action. Usually the hero or anti-hero; in a tragic hero, like John Proctor of The Crucible, there is always a hamartia, or tragic flaw in his characterwhich will lead to his downfall. |
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| a "play on words" based on the multiple meanings of a single word or no words that sound alike but mean different things. |
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