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| a style in writing that is typically complex, discusses intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points. |
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| as an adjective describing style, this word means dry and theoretical writing when a piece of writing seems to be sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis. |
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| in poetry, refers to the stressed portion of a word. |
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| can be used as an adjective meaning "appealing to the senses." as a noun, it is a coherent sense of taste. |
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| a story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself. Many fables have this kind of quality. |
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| the repetition of initial consonant sounds. in other words, consonant clusters coming closely cramped and compressed. |
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| a reference to another work or famous figure. a classical one refers to Greek and Roman mythology or literature. they can be topical or popular as well. |
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| derived from Greek, meaning "misplaced in time." |
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| a comparison. usually involves two or more symbolic parts, and are employed to clarify an action or a relationship. |
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| the word, phrase, or clause that determines what a pronoun refers to. |
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| a group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose. |
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| standard or cliched character types: the drunk, the miser, the foolish girl, etc. |
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| method is like first-person narration but, instead of the character telling the story, the author places the reader inside the main character's head and makes the ready privy to all of the character's thoughts as they scroll through her consciousness. |
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| this type of treatment uses the interior or personal view of a single observer and is typically colored with that observer's emotional responses. |
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| express wishes, commands, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or statements that are contrary to fact at present. |
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| to imply, infer, indicate. it goes along with the concept of implicit. as the reader, you have to do all the work to pull out the meaning. |
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| a simple retelling of what you've just read. it's mechanical, superficial, and a step beyond the paraphrase in that it covers much more material and is more general. it includes all the facts. |
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| the demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with imagination. also, the acceptance on an audience's or reader's part of the incidents of plot in a play or story. if there are too many coincidences or improbable occurrences, the viewer/reader can no longer suspend disbelief and subsequently loses interest. |
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| a device in literature where an object represents an idea. |
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| the author's choice of words. refers to the ordering and structuring of the words. |
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| the methods, the tools of the author. these are not the elements. concrete details are not these, but tone is. |
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| the main idea of the overall work; the central idea. it is the topic of discourse or discussion. |
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| the main position of an argument. the central contention that will be supported. |
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| in a tragedy, this is the weakness of character in an otherwise good individual that ultimately leads to his demise. |
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| when the first-person narrator is crazy, a liar, very young, or for some reason not entirely credible. |
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| an idealized place. imaginary communities in which people are able to live in happiness, prosperity, and peace. several works of fiction have been written about these. |
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| the use of a word to modify two or more words, but used for different meanings. |
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| in literature, when inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behavior, or motivation, this is at work. it is often confused with personification. |
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| occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been lead to expect. it is frequently comic. |
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| a protagonist who is markedly unheroic: morally weak, cowardly, dishonest, or any number of other unsavory qualities. |
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| a short and usually witty saying. |
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| a figure of speech wherein the speaker talks directly to something that is nonhuman. |
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| the use of deliberately old-fashioned language. authors sometimes use archaisms to create a feeling of antiquity. |
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| a speech made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage. |
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| a trait or characteristic. |
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| the repeated use of vowel sounds. |
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| the emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene. |
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| a long, narrative poem, usually in very regular meter and rhyme. it typically has a naive folksy quality, a characteristic that distinguishes it from epic poetry. |
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| when writing strains for grandeur it can't support and tries to jerk tears from every little hiccup. |
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| when the writing of a scene evokes feelings of dignified pity and sympathy. |
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| this is the use of disturbing themes in comedy. |
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| this is pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language. when one tries to be eloquent by using the largest, most uncommon words, this occurs. |
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| a broad parody, one that takes a style or a form, such as tragic drama, and exaggerates it into ridiculousness. a parody usually takes on a specific work. |
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| in poetry,it is using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds. |
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| the beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense. |
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| the perspective from which the action of a novel is presented, whether the action is presented by one character or from different vantage points over the course of the novel. |
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| a third-person narrator who sees into each character's mind and understands all the action going on. |
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| limited omniscient narrator |
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| a third-person narrator who generally reports only what one character sees, and who only reports the thoughts of that one character. |
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| a third-person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera. he does not know what the character is thinking. |
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| a narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his or her point of view. |
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| an introductory poem to a longer work of verse. |
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| the main character of a novel or play. |
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| the usually humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings. |
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| a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem. |
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| a song of prayer for the dead. |
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| an intensely passionate verse or section of verse, usually of love or praise. |
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| a question that suggests an answer. in theory, the effect is that it causes the listener to feel she has to come up with the answer herself. |
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| exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor. |
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| a comparison, or analogy that states one thing is another, but softens the full-out equation of things by using like or as. |
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| a speech spoken by a character alone on stage. it is meant to convey the impression that the audience is listening to the character's thoughts. Unlike an aside, it is not meant to imply that the actor acknowledeges the audience's presence. |
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| the name for a section division in a long work of poetry. it divides a long poem into parts the way chapters divide a novel. |
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| a portrait that exaggerates a facet of personality. |
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| a term drawn from Aristotle's writings on tragedy. it refers to the "cleansing" of emotion an audience member experiences, having lived (vicariously) through the experiences presented on stage. |
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| in drama, the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it. |
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| typical. an accepted masterpiece. |
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| a new word, usually one invented on the spot. the technical term is neologism. |
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| a word or phrase used in everyday conversational English that isnt a part of accepted English. |
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| suggesting that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words; there are subtleties and variations; there are multiple layers of interpretation; the meaning is both explicit and implicit. |
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| conceit, controlling image |
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| refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or to a metaphor developed and expanded upon several lines. when the image dominates and shapes the entire work, it is called this. |
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| everything beside a words literal meaning that the word suggests or implies. |
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| repetition of consonant sounds within words. |
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| a pair of lines that end in rhyme. |
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| a word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality. |
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| when sounds blend harmoniously. |
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| to say or write something directly and clearly. |
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| refers to extremely broad humor. |
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| lines rhymed by their final two syllables. |
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| a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast. |
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| the basic rhythmic unit of a line of poetry. it is formed by a combination of two or three syllables. |
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| an event or statement in a narrative that in miniature suggests a larger event that comes later. |
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| poetry written without a regular rhyme scheme or metrical pattern. |
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| a subcategory of literature. |
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| the sensibility derived from gothic novels. |
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| the excessive pride or ambition that leads to the main character's downfall. |
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| exaggeration or deliberate overstatement. |
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| to say or write something that suggests and implies but never says it directly or clearly. |
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| latin for "in the midst of things." epic poetry usually begins this way. |
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| a term for novels and poetry not dramatic literature. it refers to writing that records the mental talking that goes on inside a character's head. it is related to stream of consciousness. |
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| a character's speech must be styled according to her social station, and in accordance with the occasion. |
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| the author's choice of words. |
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| the grating of incompatible sounds. |
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| crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme. |
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| when the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not. |
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| when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience. |
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| a type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner. |
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| the basic techniques of each genre of literature. |
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| an argument which provides poor reasoning in support of its conclusion. |
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| the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause. |
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| in a broad sense, a very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style. they typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter. |
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| lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place. |
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| switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase. |
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| a statement that means the opposite of what it seems to mean. |
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| a poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss. |
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| not grammatically complete until it has reached its final phrase. |
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| a type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world. |
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| a rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable |
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| discovering what makes sense and what's important. |
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| a form of cheesy theater in which the hero is very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine. |
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| a comparison, or analogy. |
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| meant for metaphysical poems only. |
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| a word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with. |
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| the protagonist's archenemy or supreme and persistent difficulty. |
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| the technical term for a coinage. |
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| an impersonal or outside view of events. |
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| words that sounds like what they mean. |
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| having a pair of elements that contrast sharply. not necessarily conflict but rather a pairing of images, whereby each becomes more striking and informative because it's placed in contrast to the other one. |
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| a phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction. |
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| like a fable or an allegory, a story that instructs. |
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| a situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection does not. |
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| repeated syntactical similarities used for effect. |
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| to restate phrases and sentences in your own words, to rephrase. |
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| a phrase set off by commas that interrupts the flow of a sentence with some commentary or added detail. |
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| the work that results when a specific work is exaggerated to ridiculousness. |
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| a poem set in tranquil nature or even more specifically, one about shepherds. |
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| the narrator in a non-first person novel. |
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| giving an inanimate object human qualities or form. |
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| a poem or speech expressing sorrow. |
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