Poetry/Literary Terms

 

 

Glossary of Poetry Terms

accent-The prominence or emphasis given to a syllable or word. In the word poetry, the accent (or stress) falls on the first syllable.
alexandrine-A line of poetry that has 12 syllables. The name probably comes from a medieval romance about Alexander the Great that was written in 12-syllable lines.
alliteration-The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words: “What would the world be, once bereft/Of wet and wildness?” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”)
anapest-A metrical foot of three syllables, two short (or unstressed) followed by one long (or stressed), as in seventeen and to the moon. The anapest is the reverse of the dactyl.
antithesis-A figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other. An example of antithesis is “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope)
apostrophe-Words that are spoken to a person who is absent or imaginary, or to an object or abstract idea. The poem God's World by Edna St. Vincent Millay begins with an apostrophe: “O World, I cannot hold thee close enough!/Thy winds, thy wide grey skies!/Thy mists that roll and rise!”
assonance-The repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds: “Thou still unravished bride of quietness,/Thou foster child of silence and slow time” (“Ode to a Grecian Urn,” John Keats).
ballad-A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is an example of a ballad.
ballade-A type of poem, usually with three stanzas of seven, eight, or ten lines and a shorter final stanza (or envoy) of four or five lines. All stanzas end with the same one-line refrain.blank
verse-Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse.
caesura-A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line. There is a caesura right after the question mark in the first line of this sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
canzone-A medieval Italian lyric poem, with five or six stanzas and a shorter concluding stanza (or envoy). The poets Petrarch and Dante Alighieri were masters of the canzone.carpe diemA Latin expression that means “seize the day.”
Carpe diem poems urge the reader (or the person to whom they are addressed) to live for today and enjoy the pleasures of the moment. A famous carpe diem poem by Robert Herrick begins “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may…”
chanson de gesteAn epic poem of the 11th to the 14th century, written in Old French, which details the exploits of a historical or legendary figure, especially Charlemagne.
classicism-The principles and ideals of beauty that are characteristic of Greek and Roman art, architecture, and literature. Examples of classicism in poetry can be found in the works of John Dryden and Alexander Pope, which are characterized by their formality, simplicity, and emotional restraint.
conceit-A fanciful poetic image or metaphor that likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different. An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's sonnet “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” and in Emily Dickinson's poem “There is no frigate like a book.”
consonance-The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss.
couplet-In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought. Shakespearean sonnets usually end in a couplet.
       
dactyl-A metrical foot of three syllables, one long (or stressed) followed by two short (or unstressed), as in happily. The dactyl is the reverse of the anapest.
elegy-A poem that laments the death of a person, or one that is simply sad and thoughtful. An example of this type of poem is Thomas Gray's “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”
enjambment-The continuation of a complete idea (a sentence or clause) from one line or couplet of a poem to the next line or couplet without a pause. An example of enjambment can be found in the first line of Joyce Kilmer's poem Trees: “I think that I shall never see/A poem as lovely as a tree.” Enjambment comes from the French word for “to straddle.”
envoy-The shorter final stanza of a poem, as in a ballade.
epic-A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure. Two of the most famous epic poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, which tell about the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus on his voyage home after the war.
epigram-A very short, witty poem: “Sir, I admit your general rule,/That every poet is a fool,/But you yourself may serve to show it,/That every fool is not a poet.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
epithalamium (or epithalamion)-A poem in honor of a bride and bridegroom.feminine
rhymeA rhyme that occurs in a final unstressed syllable: pleasure/leisure, longing/yearning.figure of
speech-A verbal expression in which words or sounds are arranged in a particular way to achieve a particular effect. Figures of speech are organized into different categories, such as alliteration, assonance, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, simile, and synecdoche.foot-Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem. For example, an iamb is a foot that has two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed. An anapest has three syllables, two unstressed followed by one stressed.free verse (also vers libre)Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set meter.
       
haiku-A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku often reflect on some aspect of nature.
heptameter-A line of poetry that has seven metrical feet.heroic couplet.A stanza composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter.
hexameter-A line of poetry that has six metrical feet.
hyperboleA figure of speech in which deliberate exaggeration is used for emphasis. Many everyday expressions are examples of hyperbole: tons of money, waiting for ages, a flood of tears, etc. Hyperbole is the opposite of litotes.
iambA metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long (or stressed). There are four iambs in the line “Come live/ with me/ and be/ my love,” from a poem by Christopher Marlowe. (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The iamb is the reverse of the trochee.iambic
pentameterA type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The prefix penta- means “five,” as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare's plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of meter in English poetry. An example of an iambic pentameter line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is “But soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks?” Another, from Richard III, is “A horse!/ A horse!/ My king/dom for/ a horse!” (The stressed syllables are in bold.)idyll, or idylEither a short poem depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene, or a long poem that tells a story about heroic deeds or extraordinary events set in the distant past. Idylls of the King, by Alfred Lord Tennyson, is about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
layA long narrative poem, especially one that was sung by medieval minstrels called trouvères. The Lais of Marie de France are lays.
limerickA light, humorous poem of five usually anapestic lines with the rhyme scheme of aabba.
litotesA figure of speech in which a positive is stated by negating its opposite. Some examples of litotes: no small victory, not a bad idea, not unhappy. Litotes is the opposite of hyperbole.
lyricA poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. A lyric poem may resemble a song in form or style.masculine rhymeA rhyme that occurs in a final stressed syllable: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve.
metaphorA figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would be expected. Some examples of metaphors: the world's a stage, he was a lion in battle, drowning in debt, and a sea of troubles.
meterThe arrangement of a line of poetry by the number of syllables and the rhythm of accented (or stressed) syllables.metonymyA figure of speech in which one word is substituted for another with which it is closely associated. For example, in the expression The pen is mightier than the sword, the word pen is used for “the written word,” and sword is used for “military power.”narrativeTelling a story. Ballads, epics, and lays are different kinds of narrative poems.
odeA lyric poem that is serious and thoughtful in tone and has a very precise, formal structure. John Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous example of this type of poem.
onomatopoeiaA figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds. Examples of onomatopoeic words are buzz, hiss, zing, clippety-clop, and tick-tock. Keats's “Ode to a Nightingale” not only uses onomatopoeia, but calls our attention to it: “Forlorn! The very word is like a bell/To toll me back from thee to my sole self!” Another example of onomatopoeia is found in this line from Tennyson's Come Down, O Maid: “The moan of doves in immemorial elms,/And murmuring of innumerable bees.” The repeated “m/n” sounds reinforce the idea of “murmuring” by imitating the hum of insects on a warm summer day.
ottava rimaA type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in 8-line “octaves” with the rhyme scheme abababcc.
       
pastoralA poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, idealized way.
pentameterA line of poetry that has five metrical feet.
personificationA figure of speech in which things or abstract ideas are given human attributes: dead leaves dance in the wind, blind justice.
poetryA type of literature that is written in meter.
quatrainA stanza or poem of four lines.
refrainA line or group of lines that is repeated throughout a poem, usually after every stanza.
rhymeThe occurrence of the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more words. When the rhyme occurs in a final stressed syllable, it is said to be masculine: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve. When the rhyme occurs in a final unstressed syllable, it is said to be feminine: longing/yearning. The pattern of rhyme in a stanza or poem is shown usually by using a different letter for each final sound. In a poem with an aabba rhyme scheme, the first, second, and fifth lines end in one sound, and the third and fourth lines end in another.rhyme royalA type of poetry consisting of stanzas of seven lines in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme ababbcc. Rhyme royal was an innovation introduced by Geoffrey Chaucer.
romanticismThe principles and ideals of the Romantic movement in literature and the arts during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romanticism, which was a reaction to the classicism of the early 18th century, favored feeling over reason and placed great emphasis on the subjective, or personal, experience of the individual. Nature was also a major theme. The great English Romantic poets include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
scansionThe analysis of a poem's meter. This is usually done by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables in each line and then, based on the pattern of the stresses, dividing the line into feet.
senryuA short Japanese poem that is similar to a haiku in structure but treats human beings rather than nature, often in a humorous or satiric way.
simileA figure of speech in which two things are compared using the word “like” or “as.” An example of a simile using like occurs in Langston Hughes's poem “Harlem”: “What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?”
sonnetA lyric poem that is 14 lines long. Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line “sestet,” with the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde (or cdcdcd). English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are composed of three quatrains and a final couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. English sonnets are written generally in iambic pentameter.
spondeeA metrical foot of two syllables, both of which are long (or stressed).
stanzaTwo or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme.
stressThe prominence or emphasis given to particular syllables. Stressed syllables usually stand out because they have long, rather than short, vowels, or because they have a different pitch or are louder than other syllables.
synecdocheA figure of speech in which a part is used to designate the whole or the whole is used to designate a part. For example, the phrase “all hands on deck” means “all men on deck,” not just their hands. The reverse situation, in which the whole is used for a part, occurs in the sentence “The U.S. beat Russia in the final game,” where the U.S. and Russia stand for “the U.S. team” and “the Russian team,” respectively.
tankaA Japanese poem of five lines, the first and third composed of five syllables and the rest of seven.
terza rimaA type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines arranged in three-line “tercets” with the rhyme scheme aba bcb cdc, etc. The poet Dante is credited with inventing terza rima, which he used in his Divine Comedy. Terza rima was borrowed into English by Chaucer, and it has been used by many English poets, including Milton, Shelley, and Auden.
tetrameterA line of poetry that has four metrical feet.
trocheeA metrical foot of two syllables, one long (or stressed) and one short (or unstressed). An easy way to remember the trochee is to memorize the first line of a lighthearted poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, which demonstrates the use of various kinds of metrical feet: “Trochee/ trips from/ long to/ short.” (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The trochee is the reverse of the iamb.
tropeA figure of speech, such as metaphor or metonymy, in which words are not used in their literal (or actual) sense but in a figurative (or imaginative) sense.
verseA single metrical line of poetry, or poetry in general (as opposed to prose).



Literary Terms

A
action any event or series of events depicted in a literary work; an event may be verbal as well as physical, so that saying something or telling a story within the story may be an event. See also climax, complication, falling action, inciting incident, and rising action.
alexandrine a line of verse in iambic hexameter, often with a caesura after the third iambic foot.allegory a literary work, whether in verse or prose, in which characters, action, and even aspects of setting signify (or serve as symbols for) a second, correlated order of concepts, persons, and actions. One of the most famous English-language allegories is John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, in which a character named Christian has to make his way through obstacles such as the Slough of Despond to get to the Celestial City.
alliteration the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds through a sequence of words—for example, "While I nodded, nearly napping" in Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Raven."
allusion a brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside the text, whether another text (e.g., the Bible, a myth, another literary work, a painting, or a piece of music) or any imaginary or historical person, place, or thing. Many of the footnotes in this book explain allusions found in literary selections.
amphitheater a theater consisting of a stage area surrounded by a semicircle of tiered seats.
,,,,,anapestic referring to a metrical form in which each foot consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one—for example, "There are mán- | y who sáy | that a dóg | has his dáy" (Dylan Thomas, "The Song of the Mischievous Dog"). A single foot of this type is called an anapest.
antagonist a character or a nonhuman force that opposes or is in conflict with the protagonist.
,,,,,,antihero a protagonist who is in one way or another the very opposite of a traditional hero. Instead of being courageous and determined, for instance, an antihero might be timid, hypersensitive, and indecisive to the point of paralysis. Antiheroes are especially common in modern literary works; examples might include the speaker of T. S. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" or the protagonist of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.
,,,,,,archetype a character, ritual, symbol, or plot pattern that recurs in the myth and literature of many cultures; examples include the scapegoat or trickster (character type), the rite of passage (ritual), and the quest or descent into the underworld (plot pattern). The term and our contemporary understanding of it derive from the work of psychologist Carl Jung (1875– 1961), who argued that archetypes emerge from—and give us a clue to the workings of—the "collective unconscious," a reservoir of memories and impulses that all humans share but aren’t consciously aware of.
arena stage a stage design in which the audience is seated all the way around the acting area; actors make their entrances and exits through the auditorium.
assonance the repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words with different endings—for example, "The death of the poet was kept from his poems" in W. H. Auden’s "In Memory of W. B. Yeats."
,,,,,,aubade a poem in which the coming of dawn is either celebrated, as in Billy Collins’s "Morning," or denounced as a nuisance, as in John Donne’s "The Sun Rising."
,,,,,,auditor an imaginary listener within a literary work, as opposed to the reader or audience outside the work.
author the actual or real author of a work is the historical person who actually wrote it and the focus of biographical criticism, which interprets a work by drawing on facts about the author’s life and career. The implied author, or authorial persona, is the vision of the author’s personality and outlook implied by the work as a whole. Thus when we make a claim about the author that relies solely on evidence from the work rather than from other sources, our subject is the implied author; for example, "In Dubliners, James Joyce heavily criticizes the Catholic church."author time see timeautobiography see biography.


B
ballad a verse narrative that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. Characterized by repetition and often by a refrain (a recurrent phrase or series of phrases), ballads were originally a folk creation, transmitted orally from person to person and age to age. An example is "Sir Patrick Spens."ballad stanza a common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain that alternates four-foot and three-foot lines; lines 1 and 3 are unrhymed iambic tetrameter (four feet), and lines 2 and 4 are rhymed iambic trimester (three feet), as in "Sir Patrick Spens."
,,,,,,,bildungsroman literally, "education novel" (German), a novel that depicts the intellectual, emotional, and moral development of its protagonist from childhood into adulthood; also sometimes called an apprenticeship novel. This type of novel tends to envision character as the product of environment, experience, nurture, and education (in the widest sense) rather than of nature, fate, and so on. Charlotte Bront‘’s Jane Eyre is a famous example.
biography a work of nonfiction that recounts the life of a real person. If the person depicted in a biography is also its author, then we instead use the term autobiography. An autobiography that focuses only on a specific aspect of, or episode in, its author’s life is a memoir. (For examples of biographical criticism, see chapter 8.)
blank verse the metrical verse form most like everyday human speech; blank verse consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter. Many of Shakespeare’s plays are in blank verse, as is William Wordsworth’s "Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey."                                

Ccaesura a short pause within a line of poetry; often but not always signaled by punctuation. Note the two caesuras in this line from Poe’s "The Raven": "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary."
,,,,,canon the range of works that a consensus of scholars, teachers, and readers of a particular time and culture consider "great" or "major."
carpe diem literally, "seize the day" in Latin, a common theme of literary works that emphasize the brevity of life and the need to make the most of the present. Andrew Marvell’s poem "To His Coy Mistress" is a well-known example.
,,,,,central consciousness a character whose inner thoughts, perceptions, and feelings are revealed by a third-person limited narrator who does not reveal the thoughts, perceptions, or feelings of other characters.
character an imaginary personage who acts, appears, or is referred to in a literary work. Major or main characters are those that receive most attention, minor characters least. Flat characters are relatively simple, have a few dominant traits, and tend to be predictable. Conversely, round characters are complex and multifaceted and act in a way that readers might not expect but accept as possible. Static characters do not change; dynamic characters do. Stock characters represent familiar types that recur frequently in literary works, especially of a particular genre (e.g., the "mad scientist" of horror fiction and film or the fool in Renaissance, especially Shakespearean, drama).
characterization the presentation of a fictional personage. A term like "a good character" can, then, be ambiguous—it may mean that the personage is virtuous or that he or she is well presented regardless of his or her characteristics or moral qualities. In fiction, direct characterization occurs when a narrator explicitly tells us what a character is like. Indirect characterization occurs when a character’s traits are revealed implicitly, through his or her speech, behavior, thoughts, appearance, and so on.
,,,,,chorus a group of actors in a drama who comment on and describe the action. In classical Greek theater, members of the chorus often wore masks and relied on song, dance, and recitation to make their commentary.
,,,classical unities as derived from Aristotle’s Poetics, the three principles of structure that require a play to have one plot (unity of action) that occurs in one place (unity of place) and within one day (unity of time); also called the dramatic unities. Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and Sophocles’ Antigone observe the classical unities.
climax the third part of plot, the point at which the action stops rising and begins falling or reversing; also called turning point or (following Aristotle) peripeteia. See also crisis.closet drama see drama.
colloquial diction see diction.
comedy a broad category of literary, especially dramatic, works intended primarily to entertain and amuse an audience. Comedies take many different forms, but they share three basic characteristics: (1) the values that are expressed and that typically cause conflict are determined by the general opinion of society (as opposed to being universal and beyond the control of humankind, as in tragedy); (2) characters in comedies are often defined primarily in terms of their social identities and roles and tend to be flat or stock characters rather than highly individualized or round ones; (3) comedies conventionally end happily with an act of social reintegration and celebration such as marriage. William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a famous example. The term high or verbal comedy may refer either to a particular type of comedy or to a sort of humor found within any literary work that employs subtlety and wit and usually represents high society. Conversely, low or physical comedy is a type of either comedy or humor that involves burlesque, horse play, and the representation of unrefined life. See also farce.coming-of-age story see initation story
complication in plot, an action or event that introduces a new conflict or intensifies the existing one, especially during the rising action phase of plot.conclusion also called resolution, the fifth and last phase or part of plot, the point at which the situation that was destabilized at the beginning becomes stable once more and the conflict is resolved.
....concrete poetry poetry in which the words on the page are arranged to look like an object; also called shaped verse. George Herbert’s "Easter Wings," for example, is arranged to look like two pairs of wings.
conflict a struggle between opposing forces. A conflict is external when it pits a character against something or someone outside himself or herself—another character or characters or something in nature or society. A conflict is internal when the opposing forces are two drives, impulses, or parts of a single character.connotation what is suggested by a word, apart from what it literally means or how it is defined in the dictionary. See also denotationcontrolling metaphor see metaphor
convention in literature, a standard or traditional way of presenting or expressing something, or a traditional or characteristic feature of a particular literary genre or subgenre. Division into lines and stanzas is a convention of poetry. Conventions of the type of poem known as the epic include a plot that begins in medias res and frequent use of epithets and extended similes.
cosmic irony see irony
,,,,,,,couplet two consecutive lines of verse linked by rhyme and meter; the meter of a heroic couplet is iambic pentameter.
crisis in plot, the moment when the conflict comes to a head, often requiring the character to make a decision; sometimes the crisis is equated with the climax or turning point and sometimes it is treated as a distinct moment that precedes and prepares for the climax.criticism see literary criticismcycle see sequence.

D
,,,,,,,dactylic referring to the metrical pattern in which each foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones—for example, "Fláshed all their / sábres bare" (Tennyson, "Charge of the Light Brigade"). A single foot of this type is called a dactyl.
,,,,,denotation a word’s direct and literal meaning, as opposed to its connotation.
,,,,dénouement literally, "untying" (as of a knot) in French; a plot-related term used in three ways: (1) as a synonym for falling action, (2) as a synonym for conclusion or resolution, and (3) as the label for a phase following the conclusion in which any loose ends are tied up.
descriptive poem/structure a poem organized as a description of someone or something.
destabilizing event see inciting incident
,,,,,,,deus ex machina literally, "god out of the machine" (Latin); any improbable, unprepared-for plot contrivance introduced late in a literary work to resolve the conflict. The term derives from the ancient Greek theatrical practice of using a mechanical device to lower a god or gods onto the stage to resolve the conflicts of the human characters.
dialogue (1) usually, words spoken by characters in a literary work, especially as opposed to words that come directly from the narrator in a work of fiction; (2) more rarely, a literary work that consists mainly or entirely of the speech of two or more characters; examples include Thomas Hardy’s poem "The Ruined Maid" and Plato’s treatise Republic.
,,,,,,,diction choice of words. Diction is often described as either informal or colloquial if it resembles everyday speech, or as formal if it is instead lofty, impersonal, and dignified. Tone is determined largely through diction.
,,,,,,discriminated occasion a specific, discrete moment portrayed in a fictional work, often signaled by phrases such as "At 5:05 in the morning . . . ," "It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the carnival season . . . ," or "the day before Maggie fell down. . . ."
,,,,,,,discursive poem/structure a poem structured like a treatise, argument, or essay.
drama a literary genre consisting of works in which action is performed and all words are spoken before an audience by an actor or actors impersonating the characters. (Drama typically lacks the narrators and narration found in fiction.) Closet drama, however, is a subgenre of drama that has most of these features yet is intended to be read, either silently by a single reader or out loud in a group setting. As its name suggests, verse drama is drama written in verse rather than prose.dramatic irony see ironydramatic
monologue a type or subgenre of poetry in which a speaker addresses a silent auditor or auditors in a specific situation and setting that is revealed entirely through the speaker’s words; this kind of poem’s primary aim is the revelation of the speaker’s personality, views, and values. For example, T. S. Eliot’s "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" consists of a middle-aged man’s words to the unidentified person who is about to accompany him to an evening social event; most of Robert Browning’s best-known poems, such as "My Last Duchess," are dramatic monologues.dramatic poem/structure a poem structured so as to present a scene or series of scenes, as in a work of drama, though the term dramatic poem is usually not applied to verse drama. See also dramatic monologuedramatic unities see classical unitiesdramatis personae literally, "persons of the drama" (Latin); the list of characters that appears either in a play’s program or at the top of the first page of the written play.dynamic character see character

,,,,,,,,,Eelegy (1) since the Renaissance, usually a formal lament on the death of a particular person, but focusing mainly on the speaker’s efforts to come to terms with his or her grief; (2) more broadly, any lyric in sorrowful mood that takes death as its primary subject. An example is W. H. Auden’s "In Memory of W. B. Yeats."
end-stopped line a line of verse that contains or concludes a complete clause and usually ends with a punctuation mark. See also enjambmentEnglish sonnet see sonnet
,,,,,,,enjambment in poetry, the technique of running over from one line to the next without stop, as in the following lines by William Wordsworth: "My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky." The lines themselves would be described as enjambed.
,,,,,,,epic a long poem that celebrates, in a continuous narrative, the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, usually in founding a nation or developing a culture, and uses elevated language and a grand, high style. Other epic conventions include a beginning in medias res, an invocation of the muse, a journey to the underworld, battle scenes, and a scene in which the hero arms himself for battle. Examples include Beowulf and Homer’s Iliad. A mock epic is a form of satire in which epic language and conventions are used to depict characters, actions, and settings utterly unlike those in conventional epics, usually (though not always) with the purpose of ridiculing the social milieu or types of people portrayed in the poem. A famous example is Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.
,,,,,,,,,epigram a very short, usually witty verse with a quick turn at the end.
,,,,,,,,,,epigraph a quotation appearing at the beginning of a literary work or of one section of such a work; not to be confused with epigram.
,,,,,,epilogue (1) in fiction, a short section or chapter that comes after the conclusion, tying up loose ends and often describing what happens to the characters after the resolution of the conflict; (2) in drama, a short speech, often addressed directly to the audience, delivered by a character at the end of a play.
,,,,,,,,epiphany a sudden revelation of truth, often inspired by a seemingly simple or commonplace event. The term, originally from Christian theology, was first popularized by the Irish fiction writer James Joyce, though Joyce also used the term to describe the individual short stories collected in his book Dubliners.
episode a distinct action or series of actions within a plot.
,,,,,,,,,,epistolary novel see novel
,,,,,,,,epithet a characterizing word or phrase that precedes, follows, or substitutes for the name of a person or thing, such as slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., or Zeus, the god of trophies (Sophocles, Antigone); not to be confused with epitaph.
,,,,,,,,,epitaph an inscription on a tombstone or grave marker; not to be confused with epigram, epigraph, or epithet.eponymous having a name used in the title of a literary work. For example, Lemuel Gulliver is the eponymous protagonist of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels.
,,,,,,,,exposition the first phase or part of plot, which sets the scene, introduces and identifies characters, and establishes the situation at the beginning of a story or play. Additional exposition is often scattered throughout the work.
extended metaphor see metaphorexternal conflict see conflictexternal narration or narrator see narrator

F
,,,,,,,,,fable an ancient type of short fiction, in verse or prose, illustrating a moral or satirizing human beings. The characters in a fable are often animals that talk and act like human beings. The fable is sometimes treated as a specific type of folktale and sometimes as a fictional
subgenre in its own right. An example is Aesop’s "The Two Crabs."fairy tale see talefalling action the fourth of the five phases or parts of plot, in which the conflict or conflicts move toward resolution.fantasy a genre of literary work featuring strange settings and characters and often involving magic or the supernatural; though closely related to horror and science fiction, fantasy is typically less concerned with the macabre or with science and technology. J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is a well-known example.farce a literary work, especially drama, characterized by broad humor, wild antics, and often slapstick, pratfalls, or other physical humor. See also comedy
fiction any narrative, especially in prose, about invented or imagined characters and action. Today, we tend to divide fiction into three major subgenres based on length—the short story, novella, and novel. Older, originally oral forms of short fiction include the fable, legend, parable, and tale. Fictional works may also be categorized not by their length but by their handling of particular elements such as plot and character. Detective and science fiction, for example, are subgenres that include both novels and novellas such as Frank Herbert’s Dune and short stories such as Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Murders at the Rue Morgue" or Isaac Asimov’s "I, Robot." See also gothic fiction, historical fiction, nonfiction, and romance.figurative language language that uses figures of speech.figure of speech any word or phrase that creates a "figure" in the mind of the reader by effecting an obvious change in the usual meaning or order of words, by comparing or identifying one thing with another; also called tropes. Metaphor, simile, metonymy, overstatement, oxymoron, and understatement are common figures of speech.first-person narrator see narratorflashback a plot-structuring device whereby a scene from the fictional past is inserted into the fictional present or is dramatized out of order.flashforward a plot-structuring device whereby a scene from the fictional future is inserted into the fictional present or is dramatized out of order.flat character see characterfocus the visual component of point of view, the point from which people, events, and other details in a story are viewed; also called focalization. See also voicefoil a character that serves as a contrast to another.folktale see talefoot the basic unit of poetic meter, consisting of any of various fixed patterns of one to three stressed and unstressed syllables. A foot may contain more than one word or just one syllable of a multisyllabic word. In scansion, breaks between feet are usually indicated with a vertical line or slash mark, as in the following example (which contains five feet): "One com- | mon note | on ei- | ther lyre | did strike" (Dryden, "To the Memory of Mr. Oldham"). For specific examples of metrical feet, see anapestic, dactylic, iambic, spondee, and trochaic.foreshadowing a hint or clue about what will happen at a later moment in the plot.formal diction see dictionframe narrative see narrativefree verse poetry characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines.Freytag’s pyramid a diagram of plot structure first created by the German novelist and critic Gustav Freytag (1816–1895).

G-Hgeneral setting see settinggenre a type or category of works sharing particular formal or textual features and conventions; especially used to refer to the largest categories for classifying literature—fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction. A smaller division within a genre is usually known as a subgenre, such as gothic fiction or epic poetry.gothic fiction a subgenre of fiction conventionally featuring plots that involve secrets, mystery, and the supernatural (or the seemingly supernatural) and large, gloomy, and usually antiquated (especially medieval) houses as settings. Examples include Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Fall of the House of Usher."haiku a poetic form, Japanese in origin, that consists of seventeen syllables arranged in three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables, respectively.hero/heroine a character in a literary work, especially the leading male/female character, who is especially virtuous, usually larger than life, sometimes almost godlike. See also antihero, protagonist, and villain.heroic couplet see couplethexameter a line of poetry with six feet: "She comes, | she comes | again, | like ring | dove frayed | and fl ed" (Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes). See alexandrinehigh (verbal) comedy see comedyhistorical fiction a subgenre of fiction, of what ever length, in which the temporal setting, or plot time, is significantly earlier than the time in which the work was written (typically, a period before the birth of the author). Conventionally, such works describe the atmosphere and mores of the setting in vivid detail and explore the influence of historical factors on the characters and action; though focusing mainly on invented or imaginary characters and events, historical fiction sometimes includes some characters and action based on actual historical personages and events. The historical novel is a type of historical fiction of which nineteenth-century Scottish writer Walter Scott pioneered in works such as Rob Roy and Ivanhoe.hyperbole see overstatement. (See also understatement.)

Iiambic referring to a metrical form in which each foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one; this type of foot is an iamb. The most common poetic meter in English is iambic pentameter—a metrical form in which most lines consist of five iambs: "One cóm- | mon nóte | on éi- | ther lýre | did stríke" (Dryden, "To the Memory of Mr. Oldham").image/imagery broadly defined, imagery is any sensory detail or evocation in a work; more narrowly, the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object. Imagery may be described as auditory, tactile, visual, or olfactory depending on which sense it primarily appeals to—hearing, touch, vision, or smell. An image is a particular instance of imagery.imitative poem/structure a poem structured so as to mirror as exactly as possible the structure of something that already exists as an object and can be seen.implied author see authorinciting incident an action that sets a plot in motion by creating conflict; also called destabilizing event.informal diction see dictioninitiation story a kind of short story in which a character—often a child or young person—first learns a significant, usually life-changing truth about the universe, society, people, or himself or herself; also called a coming-of-age story. James Joyce’s "Araby" is a notable example.in medias res "in the midst of things" (Latin); refers to opening a plot in the middle of the action, and then filling in past details by means of exposition or flashback.interior monologue see monologueinternal conflict see conflictinternal narration or narrator see narratorintrusive narration or narrator see narratorirony a situation or statement characterized by a significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant. Verbal irony occurs when a word or expression in context means something different from, and usually the opposite of, what it appears to mean; when the intended meaning is harshly critical or satiric, verbal irony becomes sarcasm. Situational irony occurs when a character holds a position or has an expectation that is reversed or fulfilled in an unexpected way. When there is instead a gap between what an audience knows and what a character believes or expects, we have dramatic irony; when this occurs in a tragedy, dramatic irony is sometimes called tragic irony. Finally, the terms cosmic irony and irony of fate are sometimes used to refer to situations in which situational irony is the result of fate, chance, the gods, or some other superhuman force or entity.Italian sonnet see sonnet

Llegend a type of tale conventionally set in the real world and in either the present or historical past, based on actual historical people and events, and offering an exaggerated or distorted version of the truth about those people and events. American examples might include stories featuring Davy Crockett or Johnny Appleseed or the story about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. British examples are the legends of King Arthur or Robin Hood.limerick a light or humorous verse form consisting of mainly anapestic lines of which the first, second, and fifth are of three feet; the third and fourth lines are of two feet; and the rhyme scheme is aabba.limited narrator see narratorlimited point of view see point of viewliterary criticism the mainly interpretive (versus evaluative) work written by readers of literary texts, especially professional ones (who are thus known as literary critics). It is "criticism" not because it is negative or corrective but rather because those who write criticism ask probing, analytical, "critical" questions about the works they read.litotes a form of understatement in which one negates the contrary of what one means. Examples from common speech include "Not bad" (meaning "good") and "a novelist of no small repute" (meaning "a novelist with a big reputation"), and so on.low (physical) comedy see comedy.lyric originally, a poem meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now, any relatively short poem in which the speaker expresses his or her thoughts and feelings in the first person rather than recounting a narrative or portraying a dramatic situation.                                

Mmagic realism a type of fiction that involves the creation of a fictional world in which the kind of familiar, plausible action and characters one might find in more straightforwardly realist fiction coexist with utterly fantastic ones straight out of myths or dreams. This style of realism is associated especially with modern Latin American writers such as Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges. But the label is also sometimes applied to works by other contemporary writers from around the world, including Italo Calvino and Salman Rushdie.major (main) character see charactermemoir see biographymetafiction a subgenre of works that playfully draw attention to their status as fiction in order to explore the nature of fiction and the role of authors and readers. Margaret Atwood’s "Happy Endings" is an example.metaphor sometimes, a general term for almost any figure of speech involving comparison; more commonly, a particular figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared implicitly—that is, without the use of a signal such as the word like or as—as in "Love is a rose, but you better not pick it." See also simile. An extended metaphor is a detailed and complex metaphor that stretches across a long section of a work. If such a metaphor is so extensive that it dominates or organizes an entire literary work, especially a poem, it is called a controlling metaphor. In Linda Pastan’s "Marks," for example, the controlling metaphor involves the use of "marks" or grades to talk about the speaker’s performance of her familial roles. A mixed metaphor occurs when two or more usually incompatible metaphors are entangled together so as to become unclear and often unintentionally humorous, as in "Her blazing words dripped all over him."meter the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. This is determined by the kind of foot (iambic or dactylic, for example) and by the number of feet per line (e.g., five feet = pentameter, six feet = hexameter).metonymy a figure of speech in which the name of one thing is used to refer to another thing associated with it. When we say, "The White House has promised to veto the bill," for example, we use the White House as a metonym for the president and his administration. Synecdoche is a specific type of metonymy.minor character see charactermock epic see epicmonologue (1) a speech of more than a few sentences, usually in a play but also in other genres, spoken by one person and uninterrupted by the speech of anyone else, or (2) an entire work consisting of this sort of speech. In fiction, an interior monologue takes place entirely within the mind of a character rather than being spoken aloud. A soliloquy is a particular type of monologue occurring in drama, while a dramatic monologue is a type of poem.moral a rule of conduct or a maxim for living (that is, a statement about how one should live or behave) communicated in a literary work. Though fables often have morals such as "Don’t count your chickens before they hatch," more modern literary works instead tend to have themes.motif a recurrent device, formula, or situation within a literary work. For example, the sound of the breaking harp string is a motif of Anton Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard.myth (1) originally and narrowly, a narrative explaining how the world and humanity developed into their present form and, unlike a folktale, generally considered to be true by the people who develop it. Many, though not all, myths feature supernatural beings and have a religious significance or function within their culture of origin. Two especially common types of myth are the creation myth, which explains how the world, human beings, a god or gods, or good and evil came to be (e.g., the myth of Adam and Eve), and the explanatory myth, which explains features of the natural landscape or natural processes or events (e.g., "How the Leopard Got His Spots"); (2) more broadly and especially in its adjectival form (mythic), any narrative that obviously seeks to work like a myth in the first and more narrow sense, especially by portraying experiences or conveying truth that it implies are universally valid regardless of culture or time.

Nnarration (1) broadly, the act of telling a story or recounting a narrative; (2) more narrowly, the portions of a narrative attributable to the narrator rather than words spoken by characters (that is, dialogue).narrative a story, whether fictional or true and in prose or verse, related by a narrator or narrators (rather than acted out onstage, as in drama). A frame narrative is a narrative that recounts the telling of another narrative or story that thus "frames" the inner or framed narrative. An example is Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," in which an anonymous third-person narrator recounts how an old sailor comes to tell a young wedding guest the story of his adventures at sea.narrative poem/structure a poem that tells a story.narrator someone who recounts a narrative or tells a story. Though we usually instead use the term speaker when referring to poetry as opposed to prose fiction, narrative poems include at least one speaker who functions as a narrator. See also narrative. A narrator or narration is said to be internal when the narrator is a character within the work, telling the story to an equally fictional auditor or listener; internal narrators are usually first- or second-person narrators (see below). A narrator or narration is instead said to be external when the narrator is not a character. A first-person narrator is an internal narrator who consistently refers to himself or herself using the first-person pronoun I (or, infrequently, we). A second-person narrator consistently uses the second-person pronoun you (a very uncommon technique). A third-person narrator uses third-person pronouns such as she, he, they, it, and so on; third-person narrators are almost always external narrators. Third-person narrators are said to be omniscient (literally, "all-knowing") when they describe the inner thoughts and feelings of multiple characters; they are said to be limited when they relate the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of only one character (the central consciousness). If a work encourages us to view a narrator’s account of events with suspicion, the narrator (usually first-person) is called unreliable. An intrusive narrator is a third-person narrator who occasionally disrupts his or her narrative to speak directly to the reader or audience in what is sometimes called direct address.narrator time see timenonfiction a work or genre of prose works that describe actual, as opposed to imaginary or fictional, characters and events. Subgenres of nonfiction include biography, memoir, and the essay. See also fictionnovel a long work of fiction (approximately 40,000+ words), typically published (or at least publishable) as a standalone book; though most novels are written in prose, those written as poetry are called verse novels. A novel (as opposed to a short story) conventionally has a complex plot and, often, at least one subplot, as well as a fully realized setting and a relatively large number of characters. One important novelistic subgenre is the epistolary novel—a novel composed entirely of letters written by its characters. Another is the bildungsroman.novella a work of prose fiction that falls somewhere in between a short story and a novel in terms of length, scope, and complexity. Novellas can be, and have been, published either as books in their own right or as parts of books that include other works. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is an example.

Ooctameter a line of poetry with eight feet: "Once u- | pon a | midnight | dreary | while I | pondered | weak and | weary."octave eight lines of verse linked by a pattern of end rhymes, especially the first eight lines of an Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet. See also sestetode a lyric poem characterized by a serious topic and formal tone but without a prescribed formal pattern. Examples include Keats’s odes and Shelley’s "Ode to the West Wind."oeuvre all of the works verifiably written by one author.omniscient narrator see narratoromniscient point of view see point of view.onomatopoeia a word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes; buzz is a good example.orchestra in classical Greek theater, a semicircular area used mostly for dancing by the chorus.ottava rima literally, "octave (eighth) rhyme" (Italian); a verse form consisting of eight-line stanzas with an abababcc rhyme scheme and iambic meter (usually pentameter). W. B. Yeats’s "Sailing to Byzantium" is written in ottava rima.overplot especially in Shakespearean drama, a subplot that resembles the main plot but stresses the political implications of the depicted action and situation.overstatement exaggerated language; also called hyperbole.oxymoron a figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, as in wise fool.                                

Pparable a short work of fiction that illustrates an explicit moral but that, unlike a fable, lacks fantastic or anthropomorphic characters. Especially familiar examples are the stories attributed to Jesus in the Bible—about the prodigal son, the good Samaritan, and so on.parody any work that imitates or spoofs another work or genre for comic effect by exaggerating the style and changing the content of the original; parody is a subgenre of satire. Examples include Scary Movie, which parodies horror films; The Colbert Report, which spoofs conservative talk shows; and Tom Stoppard’s Real Inspector Hound, a parody of both detective fiction and drama.particular setting see setting.pastoral literature a work or category of works—whether fiction, poetry, drama, or nonfiction—describing and idealizing the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a painless life in a world full of beauty, music, and love. An example is Christopher Marlowe’s "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love."pentameter a line of poetry with five feet: "Nuns fret | not at | their con- | vent’s nar- | row room."persona the voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share the values of the actual author; also called implied author.personification a figure of speech that involves treating something nonhuman, such as an abstraction, as if it were a person by endowing it with humanlike qualities, as in "Death entered the room."Petrarchan sonnet see sonnetplot the arrangement of the action. The five main parts or phases of plot are exposition, rising action, climax or turning point, falling action, and conclusion or resolution. See also subplot, overplot.plot summary a brief recounting of the principal action of a work of fiction, drama, or narrative poetry, usually in the same order in which the action is recounted in the original work rather than in chronological order.plot time see timepoetry one of the three major genres of imaginative literature, which has its origins in music and oral performance and is characterized by controlled patterns of rhythm and syntax (often using meter and rhyme); compression and compactness and an allowance for ambiguity; a particularly concentrated emphasis on the sensual, especially visual and aural, qualities and effects of words and word order; and especially vivid, often figurative language.point of view the perspective from which people, events, and other details in a work of fiction are viewed; also called focus, though the term point of view is sometimes used to include both focus and voice. The point of view is said to be limited when we see things only from one character’s perspective; it is said to be omniscient or unlimited when we get the perspective of multiple characters.prop in drama, an object used on the stage.proscenium arch an arch over the front of a stage; the proscenium serves as a "frame" for the action onstage.prose the regular form of spoken and written language, measured in sentences rather than lines, as in poetry.protagonist the most neutral and broadly applicable term for the main character in a work, whether male or female, heroic or not heroic. See also antagonist, antihero, and hero/heroine.psychological realism see realism

Q-Rquatrain a four-line unit of verse, whether an entire poem, a stanza, or a group of four lines linked by a pattern of rhyme (as in an English or Shakespearean sonnet).reader time see timerealism (1) generally, the practice in literature, especially fiction and drama, of attempting to describe nature and life as they are without idealization and with attention to detail, especially the everyday life of ordinary people. See also verisimilitude. Just as notions of how life and nature differ widely across cultures and time periods, however, so do notions of what is "realistic." Thus, there are many different kinds of realism. Psychological realism refers, broadly, to any literary attempt to accurately represent the workings of the human mind and, more specifically, to the practice of a particular group of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century writers including Joseph Conrad, Henry James, James Joyce, and Virginia Woolf, who developed the stream of consciousness technique of depicting the flow of thought. See also magic realism. (2) more narrowly and especially when capitalized, a mid- to late-nineteenth-century literary and artistic movement, mainly in the U.S. and Europe, that championed realism in the first, more general sense, rejected what its proponents saw as the elitism and idealism of earlier literature and art, and emphasized settings, situations, action, and (especially middle- and working-class) characters ignored or belittled in earlier literature and art. Writers associated with the movement include Gustave Flaubert and Emile Zola (in France), George Eliot and Thomas Hardy (in Britain), and Theodore Dreiser (in the United States).reflective (meditative) poem/structure a poem organized primarily around reflection on a subject or event and letting the mind play with it, skipping from one thought or object to another as the mind receives them.resolution see conclusion.rhetoric the art and scholarly study of effective communication, whether in writing or speech. Many literary terms, especially those for figures of speech, derive from classical and Renaissance rhetoric.rhyme repetition or correspondence of the terminal sounds of words ("How now, brown cow?"). The most common type, end rhyme, occurs when the last words in two or more lines of a poem rhyme with each other. Internal rhyme occurs when a word within a line of poetry rhymes with another word in the same or adjacent lines, as in "The Dew drew quivering and chill" (Dickinson). An eye rhyme or sight rhyme involves words that don’t actually rhyme but look like they do because of their similar spelling ("cough" and "bough"). Off, half, near, or slant rhyme is rhyme that is slightly "off" or only approximate, usually because words’ final consonant sounds correspond, but not the vowels that proceed them ("phases" and "houses"). When two syllables rhyme and the last is unstressed or unaccented, they create a feminine rhyme ("ocean" and "motion"); masculine rhyme involves only a single stressed or accented syllable ("cat" and "hat"). See also rhyme scheme.rhyme scheme the pattern of end rhymes in a poem, often noted by small letters, such as abab or abba.rhythm the modulation of weak and strong (or stressed and unstressed) elements in the flow of speech. In most poetry written before the twentieth century, rhythm was often expressed in meter; in prose and in free verse, rhythm is present but in a much less predictable and regular manner.rising action the second of the five phases or parts of plot, in which events complicate the situation that existed at the beginning of a work, intensifying the initial conflict or introducing a new one.romance (1) originally, a long medieval narrative in verse or prose written in one of the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.) and depicting the quests of knights and other chivalric heroes and the vicissitudes of courtly love; also known as chivalric romance; (2) later and more broadly, any literary work, especially a long work of prose fiction, characterized by a nonrealistic and idealizing use of the imagination; (3) commonly today, works of prose fiction aimed at a mass, primarily female, audience and focusing on love affairs (as in Harlequin Romance).round character see character

Ssarcasm see ironysatire a literary work—whether fiction, poetry, or drama—that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure. Examples include Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travels and Stanley Kubrick’s film Dr. Strangelove.scansion the process of analyzing (and sometimes also marking) verse to determine its meter, line by line.scene a section or subdivision of a play or narrative that presents continuous action in one specific setting.second-person narrator see narratorsequence (1) the ordering of action in a fictional plot; (2) a closely linked series or cycle of individual literary works, especially short stories or poems, designed to be read or performed together, as in the sonnet sequences of William Shakespeare and Edna St. Vincent Millay.sestet six lines of verse linked by a pattern of rhyme, as in the last six lines of the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet. See also octavesestina an elaborate verse structure written in blank verse that consists of six stanzas of six lines each followed by a three- line stanza. The final words of each line in the first stanza appear in variable order in the next five stanzas and are repeated in the middle and at the end of the three lines in the final stanza. Elizabeth Bishop’s "Sestina" is an example.set the design, decoration, and scenery of the stage during a play; not to be confused with setting.setting the time and place of the action in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama. The spatial setting is the place or places in which action unfolds, the temporal setting is the time. (Temporal setting is thus the same as plot time.) It is sometimes also helpful to distinguish between general setting—the general time and place in which all the action unfolds—and particular settings—the times and places in which individual episodes or scenes take place. The film version of Gone with the Wind, for example, is generally set in Civil War– era Georgia, while its opening scene takes place on the porch of Tara, Scarlett O’Hara’s family home, before the war begins.Shakespearean sonnet see sonnetshaped verse see concrete poetryshort story a relatively short work of prose fiction (approximately 500 to 10,000 words) that, according to Edgar Allan Poe, can be read in a single sitting of two hours or less and works to create "a single effect." Two types of short story are the initiation story and the short short story. (Also sometimes called microfiction, a short short story is, as its name suggests, a short story that is especially brief; examples include Linda Brewer’s "20/20" and Jamaica Kincaid’s "Girl.")simile a figure of speech involving a direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using the words like or as to draw the connection, as in "My love is like a red, red rose." An analogy is an extended simile. See also metaphor.situation the basic circumstances depicted in a literary work, especially when the story, play, or poem begins or at a specific later moment in the action. In John Keats’s "Ode to a Nightingale," for example, the situation involves a man (the speaker) sitting under a tree as he listens to a nightingale’s song.situational irony see ironyskene a low building in the back of the stage area in classical Greek theaters. It represented the palace or temple in front of which the action took place.soliloquy a monologue in which the character in a play is alone onstage and thinking out loud, as in the famous Hamlet speech that begins "To be or not to be."sonnet a fixed verse form consisting of fourteen lines usually in iambic pentameter. An Italian sonnet consists of eight rhymelinked lines (an octave) plus six rhymelinked lines (a sestet), often with either an abbaabba cdecde or abbacddc defdef rhyme scheme. This type of sonnet is also called the Petrarchan sonnet in honor of the Italian poet Petrarch (1304– 74). An English or Shakespearean sonnet instead consists of three quatrains (four- line units) and a couplet and often rhymes abab cdcd efef gg.spatial setting see settingspeaker (1) the person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of a poem; (2) anyone who speaks dialogue in a work of fi ction, poetry, or drama.Spenserian stanza a stanza consisting of eight lines of iambic pentameter (five feet) followed by a ninth line of iambic hexameter (six feet). The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc. The stanza form takes its name from Edmund Spenser (ca. 1552– 99), who used it in The Faerie Queene.spondee a metrical foot consisting of a pair of stressed syllables ("Déad sét").stage directions the words in the printed text of a play that inform the director, crew, actors, and readers how to stage, perform, or imagine the play. Stage directions are not spoken aloud and may appear at the beginning of a play, before any scene, or attached to a line of dialogue; they are often set in italics. The place and time of the action, the design of the set itself, and at times the characters’ actions or tone of voice are given through stage directions and interpreted by the group of people who put on a per formance.stanza a section of a poem, marked by extra line spacing before and after, that often has a single pattern of meter and/or rhyme. Conventional stanza types include ballad stanza, Spenserian stanza, ottava rima, and terza rima. See also verse paragraph.static character see characterstock character see character.stream of consciousness a type of third-person narration that replicates the thought processes of a character without much or any intervention by a narrator. The term was originally coined by the nineteenth-century American psychologist William James (brother of novelist Henry James) to describe the workings of the human mind and only later adopted to describe the type of narration that seeks to replicate this process. The technique is closely associated with twentieth- century fiction writers of psychological realism such as Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and William Faulkner, who were all heavily influenced by early psychologists such as William James and Sigmund Freud.style a distinctive manner of expression; each author’s style is expressed through his or her diction, rhythm, imagery, and so on.subgenre see genresubplot a secondary plot in a work of fiction or drama. See also overplot and underplot.symbol a person, place, thing, or event that figuratively represents or stands for something else. Often the thing or idea represented is more abstract and general, and the symbol is more concrete and particular. A traditional symbol is one that recurs frequently in (and beyond) literature and is thus immediately recognizable to those who belong to a given culture. In Western literature and culture, for example, the rose and snake traditionally symbolize love and evil, respectively. Other symbols such as the scarlet letter in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter instead accrue their complex meanings only within a particular literary work; these are sometimes called invented symbols.symbolic poem a poem in which the use of symbols is so pervasive and internally consistent that the reference to the outside world being symbolized becomes secondary. William Blake’s "The Sick Rose" is an example.synecdoche a type of metonymy in which the part is used to name or stand in for the whole, as when we refer to manual laborers as hands or say wheels to mean a car.syntax word order; the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.                                

Ttale a brief narrative with a simple plot and characters, an ancient and originally oral form of storytelling. Unlike fables, tales typically don’t convey or state a simple or single moral. An especially common type of tale is the folktale, the conventions of which include a formulaic beginning and ending ("Once upon a time . . . ," ". . . And so they lived happily ever after."); a setting that is not highly particularized in terms of time or place; flat and often stock characters, animal or human; and fairly simple plots. Though the term fairy tale is often and broadly used as a synonym for folktale, it more narrowly and properly designates a specific type of folktale featuring fairies or other fantastic creatures such as pixies or ogres.temporal setting see settingterza rima literally, "third rhyme" (Italian); a verse form consisting of three- line stanzas in which the second line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third of the next. Percy Bysshe Shelley’s "Ode to the West Wind" is written in terza rima.tetrameter a line of poetry with four feet: "The Grass | divides | as with | a comb" (Dickinson).theme (1) broadly and commonly, a topic explored in a literary work (e.g., "the value of all life"); (2) more narrowly, the insight about a topic communicated in a work (e.g., "All living things are equally precious"). Most literary works have multiple themes, though some people reserve the term theme for the central or main insight and refer to others as subthemes. Usually, a theme is implicitly communicated by the work as a whole rather than explicitly stated in it, though fables are an exception. See also moral.thesis the central debatable claim articulated, supported, and developed in an essay or other work of expository prose.third-person narrator see narratorthrust stage a stage design that allows the audience to sit around three sides of the major acting area.time in literature, at least four potentially quite different time frames are at issue: (1) author time, when the author originally created or published a literary text; (2) narrator time, when the narrator in a work of fiction supposedly narrated the story; (3) plot time, when the action depicted in the work supposedly took place (in other words, the work’s temporal setting); and (4) reader (or audience) time, when an actual reader reads the work or an actual audience sees it performed. In some cases, author, narrator, plot, and reader time will be roughly the same—as when, for example, in 2008 we read Sherman Alexie’s "Flight Patterns," a story published in 2003; set some time after September 11, 2001; and presumably narrated not long after the action ends. But in some cases, some or all of these time frames might differ. Walter Scott’s novel Rob Roy, for example, was written and published in the early nineteenth century (1817); this is its author time. But the novel (a work of historical fiction) is set one hundred years earlier (1715); this is its plot time. The novel’s narrator is a character supposedly writing down the story of his youthful adventures in his old age and long after the deaths of many of the principal characters; this is the narrator time. Were you to read the novel today, reader time would be almost two hundred years later than author time and almost three hundred years later than plot time.tone the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject, especially the way this attitude is revealed through diction.traditional symbol see symboltragedy a work, especially of drama, in which a character (traditionally a good and noble person of high rank) is brought to a disastrous end in his or her confrontation with a superior force (fortune, the gods, human nature, universal values), but also comes to understand the meaning of his or her deeds and to accept an appropriate punishment. Often the protagonist’s downfall is a direct result of a fatal fl aw in his or her character. Examples include Sophocles’ Antigone, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horse man.trimeter a line of poetry with three feet: "Little | lamb, who | made thee?" (Blake).trochaic referring to a metrical form in which the basic foot is a trochee—a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one ("Hómer").trope see figure of speechturning point see climax

Uunderplot a particular type of subplot, especially in Shakespeare’s plays, that is a parodic or highly romantic version of the main plot. A good example would be the subplot in A Midsummer Night’s Dream that centers on the character Bottom. See also overplot.understatement language that makes it point by self-consciously downplaying its real emphasis, as in "Final exams aren’t exactly a walk in the park"; litotes is one form of understatement. See also overstatementunity of action see classical unities.unity of place see classical unitiesunity of time see classical unitiesunlimited point of view see point of viewunreliable narrator see narrator

Vverbal irony see ironyverisimilitude from the Latin phrase verisimiles ("like the truth"); the internal truthfulness, lifelikeness, and consistency of the world created within any literary work when we judge that world on its own terms rather than in terms of its correspondence to the real world. Thus, even a work that contains utterly fantastic or supernatural characters or actions (and doesn’t aim at realism) may very well achieve a high degree of verisimilitude.verse drama see drama.verse novel see novelverse paragraph though sometimes used as a synonym for stanza, this term technically designates passages of verse, often beginning with an indented line, that are unified by topic (as in a prose paragraph) rather than by rhyme or meter.villain a character who not only opposes the hero or heroine (and is thus an antagonist) but also is characterized as an especially evil person or "bad guy."villanelle a verse form consisting of nineteen lines divided into six stanzas—five tercets (three-line stanzas) and one quatrain (four- line stanza). The first and third lines of the first tercet rhyme with each other, and this rhyme is repeated through each of the next four tercets and in the last two lines of the concluding quatrain. The villanelle is also known for its repetition of select lines. An example is Dylan Thomas’s "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."voice the verbal aspect of point of view, the acknowledged or unacknowledged source of a story’s words; the speaker; the "person" telling the story and that person’s particular qualities of insight, attitude, and verbal style. See also focus                                


Literary Terms
Absurdist tradition refers to twentieth-century works that depict the absurdity of the modern human condition, often with implicit reference to humanity's loss or lack of religious, philosophical, or cutural roots. The term
may be applied to any work of literature that stress an existential outlook, that one depicting the lonely, confused, and often anguished individual in an utterly bewildering universe. Conventions such as plot and dialogue are routinely flouted--as in the idea that a work of literature should be unified and coherent (in a linear progression).
Allusion: A figure of speech making casual reference to a famous historic or literary figure or event or work of literature. There is an allusion to Lewis's Narnia series and the fantasy world in Paterson's Bridge to Teribithia.
Alterity: the condition of being radically different or unlike some other being, state or thing
Anaphora: A repetition device wherein the same expression (word or words) is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences. "When Jamie saw him throw the baby, saw Van throw the little baby, saw Van throw his little sister Nin, then they moved" (7). E. B. White uses this rhetorical device in his chapter entitled "Escape" in which he enables the reader to develop a point of view of an inhabitant of the barn as he describes its smells.
Aporia: a gap in logic or consciousness or a point at which a text is most explicitly indeterminate (see indeterminacy) or self-contradictory, as in deconstruction. It is never completely solved or closed by the author or in the mind of the reader.
Archetype: A symbol, usually an image, which recurs often enough in literature to be recognizable as an element of one's literary experience as a whole. Carl Jung used the term "archetype" to refer to the generalized patterns of images that form the world of human representations in recurrent motifs, passing through the history of all culture. Since archetypes are rooted in the collective unconscious, they may be conceived through the psychic activity of any individual, be it in the form of dreams, art works, the ancient monuments of religious activity, or the contemporary images of commercial advertising. Such archetypes as the "innocent babe," the "unheeded prophet," the "philosopher's stone," and many others which also have their source in the primitive darkness of the unconscious, are repeated in numerous works of cultural creation.
Black comedy: Black comedy or black humour, not to be confused with comedy about blacks, etc. The use of the morbid the absurd for darkly comic purposes. This is a substantial component of the theatre of the absurd and the anti-novel. The notion of humor with a sadistic element might give further implications to this term.
Boydell was an illustrator "Boydell's picture gallery" of Shakespearean drama. His pictures were famous and I was fortunate to be able to get a copy of Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare that had illustrations by Boyell in it. These illustrations were from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
Caldecott award: An annual award presented by the American Library Association's Children's Services Division to the illustrator of the most distinguished picture book published in the US the preceding year. Unless also the illustrator, the author is not recognized; the award is for illustrations, not text. The award is named after the British illustrator Randolph Caldecott, whose illustrations added narrative and detail to an previously ignored art form.
Chronotope: Mikhail Bakhtin describes this term as "the intrinisic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically expressed in literature"(Discourse in the Novel 84). This is from the Greek "chronos"--time and "topos"--place, meaning literary a new "reality of timespace." In Bakhtin's theory, this term acquires a special meaning, namely, the indivisible unity of time and space. In fairy tales, time and space are beyond our experience while in fantasy the time/space relationship in that world create a contrast to reality. A typical example can be seen in Lewis's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, specifically in the chronotope of Narnia.
Community: A group of people who share common experiences, goals and myths and who provide a context for an individual's identity. Jonas in The Giver works out his identity in opposition to his community. cf phalanx
Connotation: The atmosphere of a word-something about the word that goes beyond what the dictionary delivers. The connotations of a word may include one's personal experiences with that word and other associations which cluster about the word.
Contract and Tutelage: According to Jacques Donzelot in The Policing of Families, the family develops in two registers: contract and tutelage. Contract indicates the autonomy the family enjoys when it observes the accepted norms of society. Tutelage, on the other hand, designates an external apparatus that infiltrates and intervenes in the family when the family breaks the contract. Tutelage consists of number of institutions, such as prisons, social work, discipline. Both contract and tutelage are ways for the society to exert control over the family: contract is the positive dimension of this control, tutelage the negative. (See Donzelot, The
Policing of Families 82-95 and D. A. Miller, The Novel and the Police 102-03).
Denmotation
Diachronic/Synchronic time
Dystopia: Polar opposite of utopia. A society in which social and/or technological trends have contributed to a corrupted or degraded state.
Empathy: The imaginative projection into another's feelings, a state of total identification with another's situation, condition, and thoughts. The action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without explicitly articulating these feelings. Fern empathizes with Wilbur; Charlotte empathizes with Wilbur.
Existential idea of Freedom: This concept of freedom is related to Jean-Paul Sartre's concept of existentialsim, in which the basic tenent is that "man is what he does." The burden of decision to act, the loneliness, and angst, the alienation, and often even the terror that an individual confronts in this world view, explains a character's conflicting emotions regarding what it means to be free. Wilbur leaves his pen before he can fully accept the complete responsibility he finds he must take on for his survival, and so he returns to the barn, happy in the reassurance that some of his needs will be met for him.
Explication: An explication is not a paraphrase, nor a summary, nor a rewording (though it may include succinct paraphrase), but a commentary revealing the meaning of the work. To this end it calls attention, as it proceeds, to the connotations of words, the function of rhymes, the shifts in point of view, the development of contrasts/polarities, and any other contributions to the meaning. cf close reading or explication de texte
Free Indirect Discourse: Moments in the narration where it is not clear whether the thoughts come from a character, the narrator or a combination of the two. In What Jamie Saw, "That very night-or was it early morning?-- some time of day or night that felt like it had no hour at all" (7). Free indirect discourse should not be confused with direct discourse or with indirect discourse.
Illusion: A perception, as of visual stimuli, that represents what is perceived in a way different from the way it is in reality. Elizabeth has the illusion that Zeely is a Watutsi queen. See the excerpts from Hamilton's article on "Illusion and Reality."
Imagination: Coleridge calls it "the shaping and modifying power" which enables a new reality to come into being. Shakespeare writes, "As imagination bodies forth / The forms of things unknown, the poets' pen / Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing / A local habitation and a name." Consider imagination in relation to Elizabeth in Zeely, Lucy in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Jonas in The Giver, among other of our texts.
Intertext: the text within a text. Myth is often used as an intertext in children's and young adult literature. These do not have to be concrete myth sources, but can consist of mythical thinking, manifested in a myth-like organization of time-space relations, or the use of narrative components of myths. See Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising and Virginia Hamilton's works in general.
Irony: One needs to distinguish between three kinds of irony. Dramatic irony, found only in dramatic narratives, is not a figure but a kind of strategy; it established some important disparity betwen what the audience knows and what one or more characters in the narrative know. The classic example here is Oedipus in Oedipus Rex. It raises the question about the disparity between appearance and reality. Socratic irony, is also a strategy, but between a person's real and assumed character. Swift uses it in Tale of the Tub, but for Socrates, it is an argumentative strategy. Verbal irony is a figure; its essence is a disparity between what is said, and what is intended, or really thought. The essence of verbal irony is ambiguity. When one is ironic about a subject, one refuses to assent to the usual view of it, and at the same time one does not flatly condemn the usual view. We do not know, exactly, where the ironist stands.
Karass: a term for a disparate group of people linked together without their knowledge. Your family and friends would not be part of your karass. You wouldn't choose its membership, and you may never know who is in it or what its purpose is. (see Paul Fkeischman's Whirligig)
Kenotype: formed from the ancient Greek words kainos, meaning "new," and typos, meaning "form" or "imprint." "Kenotype," then, is literally a "new form," and in the system of culturological concepts it should stand beside "archetype," to which it offers a specific contrastive meaning. An example of a kenotype is the subway (see the link to the archetype of the underworld?), the bicycle or the computer or the television. Parrot in the Oven has many similies that use kenotypes are part of the comparison.
Litotes: this is when you understate an idea in order to convey the opposite idea. This is normally done through the use of a negative negative before one of the words in order to express a strong affirmative. This style is evident in Karen Hess's Out of the Dust.
Magic: Magic is referred to in The Secret Garden as a natural part of life's growth, that energy which cannot be touched or seen. In Harry Potter books, magic becomes an imaginative tool by which he and others confront the dark powers, magic is sometimes not understood. Magic is another kind of illusion. Magic as a continuum of imagination and infinite possibility is also used in C. S. Lewis's Narnia series.
Magical-realism: Fiction that maintains a discourse appropriate to an objective and realistic narrative, while recounting fantastic or supernatural events alongside commonplace happenings. Magic realism provides much of the power in a number of South American writers, notably Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude, 1967), but the technique has been used by Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Robert Kroetsch, Jack Hodgins and Peter Carey, among others.
Meontic and Mimetic Modes: Art is involved with "experienced reality. --or to adopt Auerbach's rubric, wth the 'representation of reality'--the way it is involved idivded into two contrasted relationships. In the first, artic imitates what is there in reality; in the second, it imitates what is not there. [. . .] ( Thomas McFarland, Romanticism and the Forms of Ruin 383-85. The mimetic mirror reproduces and focuses on experienced reality; the meontic mode attempts to reproduce "what is not there" or what is imagined. The mimetic and meontic modes, though offering contrasting ways of depicting reality, should be viewed in terms of a continuum, rather than absolute opposition, to illuminate things of the spirit rather than material phenomena.
Meta-critical: A critical aspect that draws attention to its own critical apparatus. Meta means more comprehensive, transcending, offers an overarching view of various critical aspects. Meta means above or beyond..
Meta-fiction: Also called "sur-fiction," this is a type of fiction that draws attention to itself as such, severing the traditional mirror-like connections between art and life. Postmodern).
Metanarrative - in the terminology of postmodernism, the term 'narrative' or 'story' is used for what we might ordinarily call a 'theory' about the way the world operates. Many such 'theories' are ordinarily taken to be the objective 'truth'. We know, however, that there have been a variety of truths about the way things are. For example, the 'narrative' of pre-Newtonian physics was overturned by Newton and the 'narrative' of Newtonian physics was replaced by the 'narratives' of relativity and quantum mechanics. We may consider that each of these steps represents a step closer to the 'truth', but that view would be rejected by postmodernists who see such narratives as temporary until another one comes along. Sometimes metanarrative can be used to mean the way in which we do a certain task, such as read.

Metaphor:: A trope consisting of a comparison without using the words "like" or "as," as in "a mighty fortress is our God" or "my love is a rose." Generally, a metaphor poetically conveys an impression about something relatively unfamiliar by drawing an analogy between it and something familiar. The familiar thing is sometimes called the vehicle (i.e., the means by which the new impressions are conveyed), while the unfamiliar idea being expressed is sometimes called the tenor (sense 2). Conservative analysis of metaphor used to lead to conclusions about determinate meaning, but Jacques Derrida maintained that "metaphor is never innocent," implying that unforeseen meanings accrue, leaving the meaning indeterminant.
Metonymy: Like synecdoche, this term refers to figurative language that uses particular words to represent something else with which they are associated. Metonymy is when one term is substituted for another term with which it is closely associated ("crown" or "sceptre" stands duty for "monarch").
Mise-en-abyme: Literally, "placement en abyme," where "en abîme" itself refers to the habit of representing a small shield inside a larger one in traditional heralds and coats-of-arms. This device is often part of the text's self-reflexifivity. By extension, most any "story-within-a-story" situations can be called an example of mise-en-abyme. The device is especially common in modern literature, television and films, but it occasionally appears in art. See some examples in The View from Saturday.
Multistable Image: A symbol which evokes multiple meanings, and which can be viewed from a number of valid perceptions without the image itself altering its basic characteristics. Usually we employ this term in the attempt of avoiding a singular and rigid interpretation of a symbol. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, The narrator describes the room containing the wardrobe; one of the details is "a dead blue-bottle on the window-sill" (5). The image could signify a type of fly, an actual bottle that is blue, an old sentry-soldier, and the name for a flower. A more accurate example can be found in Lawrence Yep's Dragonwings, in his depiction of the stained glass window. In Tuck Everlasting the ferris wheel as circle with a center is a multistable image. Related to the microscopic investigation of crystal in the field of science.
Narrator: One who communicates a story. There are many varieties of narrators and categories of narration. The narrator inThe Lion often interrupts his own story to give his viewpoints and comments to the reader. The narrator should not be confused with the author.
Palimpsest: A parchment or other writing-material written upon twice, the original writing having been erased or rubbed out to make place for the second; a manuscript in which a later writing is written over an effaced earlier writing. Thomas DeQuincey uses this phrase as in What else than a natural and mighty palimpsest is the human brain?
paraleipsis--pretended omission for rhetorical effect. (http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/rhetoric.html#45)
Paradigm: an example, a particular mental set of particulars.In science it refers to a set of tacit assumptions and beliefs within which research goes on. An dynamic working example.
Paradox: A paradox is a statement which contains apparently opposing or incongrous elements which, when read together, turn out to make sense. Emily Dickinson's poem "My Life Closed Twice Before its Close" contains a paradox in both the title and the first line. She says:
   
       
My life closed twice before its close
        It yet remains to see
        If Immortality unveil
        A third event to me. . .
   
This statement is paradoxical in that there are separate meanings for the words closed" and "close"--Dickinson has had experiences in her life which she feels to be equivalent to life's true closing, death itself.
Patten's magic P's: perception, paradigm, polarity, problems, puzzles, patterns, paradox
Perception: Immediate or intuitive cognition or comprehension; a capacity to "see" in light of experience. Our perception including moral, psychological, and/or aesthetic qualities alters of our world according to our understanding, insight, and experience. In The Giver Jonas's perceptions of his family members and his community change.
Phalanx: a group or community to which one belongs but which one may not necessarily know personally.
Poetic faith: Samuel Taylor Coleridge defined this as "the willing suspension of disbelief for the moment." We suspend our comparing power to our comprehension of reality while we engage our imagination in the appreciation of a work of art.
Polysemous text: Roland Barthes (1974) alerted us to the notion that texts operated a plurality of codes that them open to a plurality of readings, and Umberto Eco (1981) offers the most extensive analysis of that plurality. Readers, he argues, have three options: 1) they can assume the ideology of the text and subsume it into their own reading; 2) they can miss or ignore the ideology of the text and import their own, thus producing "aberrant" readings--where "aberrant" means only different from the ones envisaged by the sender; or 3) they can question the text in order to reveal the underlying ideology.
Post-Modern narrative: see Metanarrative novelists who write specifically to reinvigorate the powers of language by dislodging it from conventional constraints. Such writers see this work as crucial to the fundamental work of making and renewing social codes. Postmodern can also be seen as the primary emblem for our fractured current existence, especially when viewed against our parents' "modern" world where meaning seemed consistent and ordered. Post-modernism reconceptualizes previously held notions of reality. see also Post Modern literature
Pretense: To cloak, to give a feigned appearance to, to pretend, profess, allege, esp. falsely. Edmund in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe behaves according a to pattern of pretense before his transformation at the climax of the story: "Edmund (who was the next youngest) wanted to laugh and had to keep on pretending he was blowing his nose to hide it" (2).
Pragmatographic: vivid description of an action or event
Prosopographia: description of imaginary persons or bodies.
Reader Supplementation: Instances in the text wherein the reader supplements information/emotion/attitude to what the author provides. An illustrative example of this strategy is in Lowry's The Giver, "It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to feel frightened" (1). The reader supplements his or her own associations involving December to what the author offers. Authors are aware of this tendency and exploit it to make their work more subtly powerful. Futhermore, Lowry depends on our supplementation in Jonas's perception of the apple. We know that it is red, but he does not yet know how to distinguish red from other colors. It isn't until Jonas mentions that he now can see the color red that we realize we have been supplementing information from our world. That is, we discover that the world in The Giver is a totally colorless world.
symbol: Symbol (Greek, `to throw together'):
something in the world of the senses, including an action, that manifests (reveals) or signifies (is a sign for or a pointer to) something abstract, otherworldly, or numinous. Samuel Johnson (1755) termed it "A type; that which comprehends in its figure a representation of something else." A word denotes, refers to, or labels something in the world, but a symbol, as a thing in the world (to which a word, of course, may point), has a concreteness not shared by language and points to something transcending ordinary experience. Any tree, for example, arguably symbolizes tree-ness, a Platonic form. Any image or action termed a Jungian archetype is also symbolic in that it manifests something in the collective unconscious of human beings. Writers use symbols normally when they believe in a transcendental reality. A metaphor compares two or more things that are no more and no less real than anything else in the world. For a metaphor to be symbolic, one of its pair of elements must manifest or reveal yet something else transcendental. Cleanth Brooks and Robert Penn Warren in Understanding Poetry (3rd edn., 1960) say that "The symbol may be regarded as a metaphor from which the first term has been omitted" (556). Taken from //www.chass.utoronto.ca/~ian/glossary.html. Glossary of Poetic Terms. See also Samuel Taylor Coleridge's own definition:
Synaesthesia: The term is applied in literature to the description of one kind of sensation in terms of another. In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Peter's voice upon entering the Beavers' hiding place is described as being "tired and pale in the darkness" (99). "Pale" is a sight adjective used to describe a sound, "Peter's voice."
Synecdoche: a part is used to signify the whole, as when a ship's captain calls out, "All hands on deck!" (in which "hand" signifies the whole person of each sailor.). P. B. Shelley's poem, "Ozymandias" is built upon the trope of synecdoche.
Tableau Vivant: A freeze-frame moment or living portrait in the story. The action appears to stop momentarily in the story. A visual image is presented with clarity. In Virginia Hamilton's Zeely, Elizabeth has several moments of this type of perception when she beholds Zeely.
Trope: Any of several types of diversion from the literal to the figurative. The so-called "four master tropes" are irony, metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche) A few new ones have recently been invented: see aegis, catachresis, kenosis, perruque. cf figures of speech.
Utopia: An ideal place or state. Any vision of a socially and politically perfect society. From Greek roots, it derives its meaning from the words outopia, meaning "no place" and eutopia, meaning " a place where everything is right." In a sense, a utopian land in fiction becomes both a place that never quite existed as it is portrayed and a place where everything seems perfect. It is an imagined world.




A List of Important Literary Terms
A
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aesthetics: "Philosophical investigation into the nature of beauty and the perception of beauty, especially in the arts; the theory of art or artistic taste." (CB)
allegory: "A story or visual image with a second distinct meaning partially hidden behind its literal or visible meaning. In written narrative, allegory involves a continuous parallel between two (or more) levels of meaning in a story, so that its persons and events correspond to their equivalents in a system of ideas or a chain of events external to the tale." (CB)
allusion: "An indirect or passing reference to some event, person, place, or artistic work, the nature and relevance of which is not explained by the writer but relies on the reader’s familiarity with what is thus mentioned. The technique of allusion is an economical means of calling upon the history or the literary tradition that author and reader are assumed to share. . . ." (CB)
ambiguity: "Openness to different interpretations: or an instance in which some use of language may be understood in diverse ways." Defended by modern literary critics as "a source of poetic richness rather than a fault of imprecision." (CB)
anti-hero: A central figure in a work that repels us by his or her actions or morality, yet who is not a villain. The Anti-hero accomplishes a useful purpose or even does heroic deeds. Max of The Road Warrior epitomizes the 1970-80s anti-hero.
archetype: A term from Jungian psychology that has been applied to literature. Jung meant the symbolic figure of myth and legend, or even a racial memory that we carry in a "collective unconscious." Archetypes embody an entire type of character from many cultures. Thus Hercules is an archetypal flawed hero, Odysseus or the Native-American Coyote are archetypal trickster figures. In literature and film the term can be more broadly applied, so we have the suffering mother of sentimental fiction, the greedy landlord of stage and film, the doomed private writing a letter home the night before the D-Day invasion, and the kind-hearted "tough guy" in many works.
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black comedy: a subgenre of humor that uses cruelty or terrible situations to make the reader or viewer laugh, sometimes uncomfortably. Some Social-Darwinist works (Frank Norris' best known novel, McTeague) are also black comedies.
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camera movement: cameras can remain stationary and move side to side (a pan), up and down (a tilt). It can move along on a vehicle or set of tracks straight backward or forward (a track or tracking shot). The camera can be carried for a wobbly (but often powerful) handheld shot.
canon: A body of works considered authentic (as in the body of works actually written by a particular author) or considered by a particular culture or subculture to be central to its cultural identity.
catharsis: A process in which a character heals, though often the process is painful. It can be a process for the audience of a work, as well.
connotation: "The emotional implications and associations that words may carry, as distinguished from their denotative meanings." (HH)
convention: "An established practice—whether in technique, style, structure, or subject matter—commonly adopted in literary works by customary and implicit agreement or precedent rather than by natural necessity." (CB)
cyberpunk: genre of science fiction pioneered by William Gibson and a few others in the 1980s; Gibson first coined the term "cyberspace." In these texts and films, humans have begun to merge with computer technology and the future is generally dark as major corporations replace governments as oppressive power-brokers. Life is usually short and uncertain with huge gaps between a small corporate elite and the gangs, the poor, and the insane who make up the bulk of the population. Cyberpunk protagonists are often cynical rebels--punks, mercenaries, hackers, spies, and nomads--who work outside the system and the "suits" who run it.
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denotation: The basic dictionary meaning of a word, as opposed to its connotative meaning.
denouement: The "end game" of a work of fiction. More than "how the plot comes out," the denouement (a French term using French pronunciation) suggests the ways in which several plot elements work out toward the end of a text or film.
determinism/deterministic: the quality of a narrative or character that leads only to a single conclusion. We know, for example, that certain characters are doomed to fail, whatever they do.
deus ex machina: The way of closing a story with an off-stage character who suddenly appears to bring about the denouement. This approach to ending a tale has its origins in ancient Greek theater, where an actor in the role of a god might suddenly appear on stage to help bring about the ending of the performance.
diction: Literary word choice.
didactic: A work "designed to impart information, advice, or some doctrine of morality or philosophy." (CB)
discourse: "[A]s a free-standing noun (discourse as such) the term denotes language in actual use within its social and ideological contexts and in institutionalized representations of the world called discursive practices." (CB) Literary works may contain or make use of any number of discourses. Literary language may itself be considered a kind of discourse.
dystopia/utopia: A fictional world so oppressive that it might be a nightmare for someone from our society. Examples of dystopian fiction would be Orwell's 1984. Some post-apocalyptic worlds (see below) are dystopias, but the usual feature of most dystopian fiction and film is that some type of society, however awful, still exists. A utopian world is exactly the opposite--a paradise of some sort. The eternal bliss of the biblical Garden of Eden and the perfect technological future predicted at the 1939 World's Fair in the film The World of Tomorrow are both utopian.
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exegesis: the art of close reading in order to interpret a text. We often utilize this technique for poetry, but for fiction it works as well to tease out the effect of certain words or phrases, uses of repetition, references to earlier events in the text, or hints about what is to come.
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fatal flaw: a character trait that leads to tragedy, both in characters who are otherwise quite admirable and in terrible villains. Examples include King Lear's blind trust in his daughters, Eve's desire for knowledge, Ahab's thirst for revenge, Darth Vader's will to power, or Pandora's curiosity.
figure of speech: "An expression that departs from the accepted literal sense or from the normal order of words, or in which an emphasis is produced by patterns of sound." (CB)
form: As a critical term, form "can refer to a genre. . ., or to an established pattern of poetic devices. . ., or, more abstractly, to the structure or unifying principle of design in a given work. . . When speaking of a work’s formal properties, critics usually refer to its structural design and patterning, or sometimes to its style and manner in a wider sense as distinct from its content." (CB)
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genre: "The French term for a type, species, or class of composition. A literary genre is a recognizable and established category of written work employing such common conventions as will prevent readers or audiences from mistaking it [with] another kind." (CB) Genre as a term is distinguished from mode in its greater specificity as to form and convention.
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hard-boiled: a tone of writing for fiction and film often associated with American detective fiction by Raymond Chandler, Mickey Spillane, and Dashiell Hammett. Often film noir (which has several specific themes and even recurring images, such as spiral staircases) adopts a hard-boiled tone. Hard-boiled narrators are usually male characters that could be described as "tough guys."
homage: a French term pronounced that way, this is "a nod of the head" in a film to a past director or actor. Directors watch lots of good and bad films, so many engage in this practice. Directors of mysteries or suspense films often include an homage to Alfred Hitchcock. The opening shot of Miller's The Road Warrior resembles Benedek's The Wild One closely enough to qualify as an homage.
hubris: the sort of pride that is so inflated that it binds, even destroys a character, even an entire people. Many characters in classical literature and Shakespeare's plays are so prideful that it destroys them; so is Satan in Milton's Paradise Lost.
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ideology: A comprehensive world view pertaining to formal and informal thought, philosophy, and cultural presuppositions usually understood as associated with specific positions within political, social, and economic hierarchies. Many schools of modern literary criticism contend that the ideological context of both reader and author always affects the meanings assigned to or encoded in the work.
irony: "A. . . perception of inconsistency, [usually but not always humorous], in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context so as to give it a very different significance. . . [V]erbal irony. . . involves a discrepancy between what is said and what is really meant. . . .[S]tructural irony. . . involves the use of a naive or deluded hero or unreliable narrator whose view of the world differs widely from the true circumstances recognized by the author and readers. . . . [In] dramatic irony. . . the audience knows more about a character's situation than a character does foreseeing an outcome contrary to a character's expectations, and thus ascribing a sharply different sense to the character's own statements". (CB)
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magical realism: a type of fiction in which the world appears just as ours in all respects but very extraordinary things happen: a poor family finds a sick angel in the back yard and nurses him back to health, one morning a man wakes up in his family's apartment to find that he's become a giant bug. Gabriel Garcia Marquez and many Latin-American writers use the technique well. Unlike science fiction, most magical realism makes no attempt to explain such events. They simply happen, often with people reacting as if such things are not all that unusual.
MacGuffin: Alfred Hitchcock coined this term; he meant plot device that makes the action happen without being important in and of itself. For instance, two strangers sitting next to each other might lead to a murder or a love affair. The plane ride is the MacGuffin. See this page on Hitchcock film techniques for more information
matte shot: The end shot of the 1968 Planet of the Apes provides a perfect example. When Taylor falls to his knees in front of the Statue of Liberty, our actors were (I'm fairly certain) facing a blank background. A painted background was added--a matte painting--of the ruined statue.
metaphor: A figure of speech "in which one thing, idea, or action is referred to by a word or expression normally denoting another thing, idea, or action, so as to suggest some common quality shared by the two." The term, "metaphor" is often reserved for figures of speech in which the comparison is implicit or phrased as an "imaginary identity," but it has become more common in recent years to refer to all figures of speech that depend upon resemblances as metaphors. You will therefore sometimes hear similes, where the comparison is explicit and no identity is implied, referred to as metaphorical figures. All metaphors, in any case, are based on the implicit formula, phrased as a simile, "X is like Y." The primary literal term of the metaphor is called the "tenor" and the secondary figurative term is the "vehicle." "[I]n the metaphor "the road of life", the tenor is "life" and the vehicle is "the road" (CB).
metonymy: "A figure of speech that replaces the name of one thing with the name of something else closely associated with it" (CB). The figure is based upon logical connections other than resemblance. For example, you might use "sail" to refer to "ship," as in "I saw a sail on the horizon." This metonymy replaces the name of the whole thing with the name of one of its constituent parts. This kind of metonymy is called synecdoche. Also very common is replacing the name of a thing with its location, e.g. replacing "President" with "White House," or replacing "Congress" with "Capitol Hill."
mimesis: "The Greek word for imitation. . . . A literary work that is understood to be reproducing an external reality or any aspect of it is described as mimetic." (CB)
mise-en-scene: unlike montage, mise-en-scene is physically what is in a shot or scene and does not involve editing. It can involve camera movement and focus, placement of people or objects, and other elements a director can make happen on the set rather than later on in the editing process.
mode: "An unspecific critical term usually identifying a broad but identifiable literary method, mood, or manner that is not tied exclusively to a particular form or genre. [Some] examples are the satiric mode, the ironic, the comic, the pastoral, and the didactic." (CB)
modernism: a design feature of architecture that strips ornament from structures in favor of clean, geometric design, expanses of glass, and exposed building elements. Modernist buildings do not try to look like older forms. Literary modernism is another matter, but in literature, Modernist works are also realistic (no pretense at being an older form) and can be spare (think of Hemingway's fiction).
montage: how directors connect ideas in a film. The shots are put together deliberately with transitions and by theme so that "elements should follow a particular system, and these juxtapositions should play a key role in how the work establishes its meaning, and its emotional and aesthetic effects" (Manovich 158).
motif: A recurrent image, word, phrase, represented object or action that tends to unify the literary work or that may be elaborated into a more general theme. Also, a situation, incident, idea, image, or character type that is found in many different literary works, folktales, or myths. (CB& HH, adapted)
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naturalism & Social-Darwinism: simple difference here; naturalistic works depict life as it is, "warts and all," without romanticizing. It can depict rich and poor, healthy and ill, young and old without the sentimental treatment one might get, say, in Uncle Tom's Cabin. Social-Darwinist work tends to feature humans under the influence of outside or internal forces that reduce them to the level of animals, prey to their instincts. Consider these lines from Norris' McTeague: "McTeague's mind was as his body, heavy, slow to act, sluggish. Yet there was nothing vicious about the man. Altogether he suggested the draught horse, immensely strong, stupid, docile, obedient." Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath contains both elements; Goldings' Lord of the Flies provides an archetypal example of Social-Darwinism.
novel: Usually an extended realistic fictional prose narrative most often describing "a recognizable secular social world often in a skeptical and prosaic manner. . . ." (CB)
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paradox: "A statement or expression so surprisingly self-contradictory as to provoke us into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true. . . "Paradoxical language is valued in literature as expressing "a mode of understanding [that] . . . challenges our habits of thought." (CB)
point of view: "The position or vantage point from which the events of a story seem to be observed and presented to us." (CB)
polemic: a work that intends to stir up controversy. A polemical work can be didactic and/or entertaining. Technically, it does not have to be a "rant." Still, in popular usage a polemic has come to mean a pointed and heated film or piece of writing intended to stir up its audience.
post-apocalyptic: fictional worlds depicting life after a global disaster such as a nuclear holocaust, alien invasion, or ecological collapse. The tone is usually grim, so The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a comic piece of science fiction occurring after the earth is destroyed, would not be post-apocalyptic. Planet of the Apes, in its original 1968 movie form, is both dystopian and post-apocalyptic (evolved apes running a society with human slaves thousands of years after a nuclear war).
prose: "In its broadest sense the term is applied to all forms of written or spoken expression not having a regular rhythmic pattern." (HH) "[A]lthough it will have some form of rhythm and some devices of repetition and balance, these are not governed by a regularly sustained formal arrangement, the significant unit being the sentence rather than the line." (CB)
protagonist: Central figure(s) in a text or film.
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scene: a series of connected shots that establish location and continuity. The scene ends by cutting (often using a visible transition) to another location, time, or person. A "car-chase scene" is a rather common example where several cameras follow the action from different perspectives and are edited to make one long scene.
shot: part of a film presented without any editing, as seen from a single camera's perspective. A shot can include close-ups, panoramic shots, camera movement, and other techniques.
sign: "A basic element of communication, either linguistic. . . . or non-linguistic . . . .; or anything that can be construed as having a meaning. . . . [E]very sign has two inseparable aspects, the signifier, which is the materially perceptible component such as a sound or written mark, and the signified, which is the conceptual meaning." (CB) The "signified" is the abstract and conceptual content of the sign and can be carried from context to context (e.g., the idea of "chair"). "Referent" is the term used to describe the specific object to which a sign refers in a given context (e.g. "the chair in my office").
story arc: the manner in which films and fiction proceed. These works may have a "turning point" or several of them, a climax, and then an "end game" or denouement.
subjectivity: "The quality originating and existing in the mind of a perceiving subject and not necessarily corresponding to any object outside that mind." (HH) In literary critical usage, texts which explore the nature of such a perceiving subject are said to be interested in subjectivity.
subtext: While not explicitly part of the plot, this novel deals heavily with religious ideas and themes from both Christianity and Buddhism. They are a subtext that runs beneath the plot and influences it.
surrealism: associated with painting and film more than with writing, but the term has grown with use. Surrealist work tends to delve into the nonsensical, or the wildest sides of psychological and physical experiences. Some horror movies become surreal (a man's severed hand begins to stalk him) and even in realistic work, surreal scenes can occur. For example, Wyatt's and Billy's acid-trip in New Orleans toward the end of Easy Rider is filmed from their LSD-soaked points of view, so for the viewer this sequence of scenes is surrealistic. Surrealist work can be absurd, but a film such as the comedy Office Space would more accurately be called black comedy.
symbol: "[S]omething that is itself and also stands for something else. . . . In a literary sense, a symbol combines a literal and sensuous quality with an abstract or suggestive aspect." (HH)
syntax: "The way in which words and clauses are ordered and connected so as to form sentences; or the set of grammatical rules governing such word order." (CB)
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technological sublime: British Romantics and American Transcendentalists felt a power beyond themselves, often a healing and teaching power, in nature. This feeling came to be know as the Sublime. Futurists like Marinetti and the businessmen, planners, and engineers depicted in the film The World of Tomorrow found solace and a power greater than themselves in technology, architecture, and industry. This feeling is a very 20th-century phenomenon; today most of the technologies we use are smaller and ubiquitous.
telling detail: language or a visual element, sometimes seemingly minor, that shows a great deal about a character, setting, or an event. When Ahab tosses his pipe into the sea in Moby Dick, it signals his mania to chase the white whale, even if it means surrendering the domestic comforts of his prior life. Some instances of foreshadowing provide telling details to readers or viewers.
tension: in most texts and films we study, several tensions may exist. These are dramatic or even melodramatic elements of plot, setting, or character that serve to "move things along" well. Unlike a MacGuffin, however, the tension is significant. A love triangle might not be the subject of a film, for instance, but it would certainly be one of the tensions.
theme: "A salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-matter; or a topic occurring in a number of literary works." (CB)
topos (plural, topoi): A term for a type of convention specific to a given genre. Derived from the Greek term for "place," the term usually refers to a convention, motif, trope, or figure of speech that regularly appears at a particular point in the formal structure of works in a given genre, the absence or unconventional treatment or placement of which will always have profound significance for an interpretation of the work. For example, an epic without an invocation.
transition: the type of editing technique used to connect shots. Sometimes there is no transition, and others can be quite complicated. Fading to black is a popular transition, as are wipes and dissolves.
trope: A term often used to denote figures of speech in which words are used in a sense different from their literal meaning. Distinguished from figures of speech based upon word order or sound pattern.


literary devices (literary terms)
Allegory
Definition:
An allegory is a symbolism device where the meaning of a greater, often abstract, concept is conveyed with the aid of a more corporeal object or idea being used as an example. Usually a rhetoric device, an allegory suggests a meaning via metaphoric examples.
Example:
Faith is like a stony uphill climb: a single stumble might send you sprawling but belief and steadfastness will see you to the very top.
Alliteration
Definition:
Alliteration is a literary device where words are used in quick succession and begin with letters belonging to the same sound group. Whether it is the consonant sound or a specific vowel group, the alliteration involves creating a repetition of similar sounds in the sentence. Alliterations are also created when the words all begin with the same letter. Alliterations are used to add character to the writing and often add an element of ‘fun’ to the piece..
Example:
The Wicked Witch of the West went her own way. (The ‘W’ sound is highlighted and repeated throughout the sentence.)
Allusion
Definition:
An allusion is a figure of speech whereby the author refers to a subject matter such as a place, event, or literary work by way of a passing reference. It is up to the reader to make a connection to the subject being mentioned.
Example:
It’s no wonder everyone refers to Mary as another Mother Teresa in the making; she loves to help and care after people everywhere- from the streets to her own friends.
In the example the author uses the mention of Mother Teresa to indicate the sort of qualities that Mary has.
Amplification
Definition:
Amplification refers to a literary practice wherein the writer embellishes the sentence by adding more information to it in order to increase its worth and understandability. When a plain sentence is too abrupt and fails to convey the full implications desired, amplification comes into play when the writer adds more to the structure to give it more meaning.
Example:
Original sentence- The thesis paper was difficult. After amplification- The thesis paper was difficult: it required extensive research, data collection, sample surveys, interviews and a lot of fieldwork.
Anagram
Definition:
Anagrams are an extremely popular form of literary device wherein the writer jumbles up parts of the word to create a new word. From the syllables of a phrase to the individual letters of a word, any fraction can be jumbled to create a new form. Anagram is a form of wordplay that allows the writer to infuse mystery and a little interactive fun in the writing so that the reader can decipher the actual word on their own and discover a depth of meaning to the writing.
Example:
An anagram for "debit card" is "bad credit". As you can see, both phrases use the same letters. By mixing the letters a bit of humor is created.
Analogy
Definition:
An analogy is a literary device that helps to establish a relationship based on similarities between two concepts or ideas. By using an analogy we can convey a new idea by using the blueprint of an old one as a basis for understanding. With a mental linkage between the two, one can create understanding regarding the new concept in a simple and succinct manner.
Example:
In the same way as one cannot have the rainbow without the rain, one cannot achieve success and riches without hard work.
Anastrophe
Definition:
Anastrophe is a form of literary device wherein the order of the noun and the adjective in the sentence is exchanged. In standard parlance and writing the adjective comes before the noun but when one is employing an anastrophe the noun is followed by the adjective. This reversed order creates a dramatic impact and lends weight to the description offered by the adjective.
Example:
He spoke of times past and future, and dreamt of things to be.
Anecdote
Definition:
The word anecdote, phonetically pronounced an.ik.doht, means a short verbal accounting of a funny, amusing, interesting event or incident. The story is usually a reminiscence from the teller's life but at best is a related story of fact, as opposed to a contrived work of fiction. The origin of the word anecdote comes from the Greek Byzantine period, A.D. 527 to 565 during the reign of emperor Justinian. In his court, Justinian had a historian named Procopius who was a gifted writer who wrote many witty, amusing and somewhat bawdy accounts of court life. Never intending for this stories to become public he entitled his writings as “Anecdota” which was Greek for unpublished and kept secret. After his secret writings did indeed become public and published, the term anecdote became commonly used for similar accounts.
Example:
Amusing anecdotes many times find their way into wedding receptions, family reunions and any other gathering of people who know each other well. Teachers and educators often tell classrooms of pupils anecdotes about famous people. The anecdotes are not always flattering, but are usually revealing of character and invariably amusing. Here is an example of an anecdote about Winston Churchill:
Winston Churchill was very fond of his pet dog Rufus. He ate in the dining room with the family on a special cloth and was treated with utmost respect. When enjoying movies, Rufus had the best seat in the house; on Winston Churchill's lap. While watching “Oliver Twist,” Churchill put his hands over Rufus' eyes during the scene where Bill Sike's intends to drown his dog. Churchill is believed to have said to Rufus: “don't look now, dear. I'll tell you about it later.”
Anthropomorphism
Definition:
Anthropomorphism can be understood to be the act of lending a human quality, emotion or ambition to a non-human object or being. This act of lending a human element to a non-human subject is often employed in order to endear the latter to the readers or audience and increase the level of relativity between the two while also lending character to the subject.
Example:
The raging storm brought with it howling winds and fierce lightning as the residents of the village looked up at the angry skies in alarm.
Antithesis
Definition:
An antithesis is used when the writer employs two sentences of contrasting meanings in close proximity to one another. Whether they are words or phrases of the same sentence, an antithesis is used to create a stark contrast using two divergent elements that come together to create one uniform whole. An antithesis plays on the complementary property of opposites to create one vivid picture. The purpose of using an antithesis in literature is to create a balance between opposite qualities and lend a greater insight into the subject.
Example:
When Neil Armstrong walked on the moon it might have been one small step for a man but it was one giant leap for mankind.
Aphorism
Definition:
An aphorism is a concise statement that is made in a matter of fact tone to state a principle or an opinion that is generally understood to be a universal truth. Aphorisms are often adages, wise sayings and maxims aimed at imparting sense and wisdom. It is to be noted that aphorisms are usually witty and curt and often have an underlying tone of authority to them.
Example:
Upon seeing the shoddy work done by the employee the boss told him to “either shape up or ship out”.
Archetype
Definition:
An archetype is a reference to a concept, a person or an object that has served as a prototype of its kind and is the original idea that has come to be used over and over again. Archetypes are literary devices that employ the use of a famous concept, person or object to convey a wealth of meaning. Archetypes are immediately identifiable and even though they run the risk of being overused, they are still the best examples of their kind.
Example:
Romeo and Juliet are an archetype of eternal love and a star-crossed love story.
Assonance
Definition:
Assonance refers to repetition of sounds produced by vowels within a sentence or phrase. In this regard assonance can be understood to be a kind of alliteration. What sets it apart from alliterations is that it is the repetition of only vowel sounds. Assonance is the opposite of consonance, which implies repetitive usage of consonant sounds.
Example:
“A long song”. (Where the ‘o’ sound is repeated in the last two words of the sentence)
Asyndeton
Definition:
Asyndeton refers to a practice in literature whereby the author purposely leaves out conjunctions in the sentence, while maintaining the grammatical accuracy of the phrase. Asyndeton as a literary tool helps in shortening up the implied meaning of the entire phrase and presenting it in a succinct form. This compact version helps in creating an immediate impact whereby the reader is instantly attuned to what the writer is trying to convey. Use of this literary device helps in creating a strong impact and such sentences have greater recall worth since the idea is presented in a nutshell.
Example:
1. Read, Write, Learn.
2. Watch, Absorb, Understand.
3. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Authorial Intrusion
Definition:
Authorial Intrusion is an interesting literary device wherein the author penning the story, poem or prose steps away from the text and speaks out to the reader. Authorial Intrusion establishes a one to one relationship between the writer and the reader where the latter is no longer a secondary player or an indirect audience to the progress of the story but is the main subject of the author’s attention.
Example:
In many olden novels, especially in suspense novels, the protagonist would move away from the stream of the story and speak out to the reader. This technique was often used to reveal some crucial elements of the story to the reader even though the protagonist might remain mystified within the story for the time being.
Bibliomancy
Definition:
As the very name itself suggests, this kind of literary device finds its roots in biblical origins. This term refers to the practice of basing a plot happening or event and anticipating the results it will have on a faction of the Bible. It involves a random selection process wherein the biblical passage is chosen as a founding stone for basing the outcome of the writing. In an overall context, not limited to just literature, bibliomancy refers to foretelling the future by turning to random portions of the Bible for guidance.
Example:
The Vedas serve as a tool for Bibliomancy to the Hindus while Muslims rely on the Koran.
Bildungsroman
Definition:
This is a very popular form of storytelling whereby the author bases the plot on the overall growth of the central character throughout the timeline of the story. As the story progresses, the subject undergoes noticeable mental, physical, social, emotional, moral, and often spiritual advancement and strengthening before the readers’ eyes. It has often been seen that the protagonist begins with views, aims and dreams that are in contrast to the other character’s in the story and then fights his or her way through to achieve them.
Example:
Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With the Wind experiences immense personal growth as she learns the value of friends and hard work under duress, without compromising her own dreams.
Cacophony
Definition:
A cacophony in literature refers to the use of words and phrases that imply strong, harsh sounds within the phrase. These words have jarring and dissonant sounds that create a disturbing, objectionable atmosphere.
Example:
His fingers rapped and pounded the door, and his foot thumped against the yellowing wood.
Caesura
Definition:
This literary device involves creating a fracture of sorts within a sentence where the two separate parts are distinguishable from one another yet intrinsically linked to one another. The purpose of using a caesura is to create a dramatic pause, which has a strong impact. The pause helps to add an emotional, often theatrical touch to the sentence and conveys a depth of sentiment in a short phrase.
Example:
Mozart- oh how your music makes me soar!
Characterization
Definition:
Characterization in literature refers the step by step process wherein an author introduces and then describes a character. The character can be described directly by the author or indirectly through the actions, thoughts, and speech of the character.
Example:
Michael Corleone was not jus' a mafiaso, but a family man. A man who walked the knife's edge to preserve his sanity.
Chiasmus
Definition:
Chiasmus is a figure of speech containing two phrases that are parallel but inverted to each other.
Example:
You can take the patriot out of the country but you cannot take the country out of the patriot.
Circumlocution
Definition:
Circumlocution is a form of writing where the writer uses exaggeratedly long and complex sentences in order to convey a meaning that could have otherwise been conveyed through a shorter, much simpler sentence. Circumlocution involves stating an idea or a view in an indirect manner that leaves the reader guessing and grasping at the actual meaning.
Example:
Instead of writing “At 8 pm he arrived by car for the dinner party.” the author writes, “Around 3 hours after sunset, it was winter at the time, the man arrived in a combustion engine driven piece of technology with for wheels to join other bipedal creatures in the ingestion of somewhat large quantities of food and drink while having discourse around a large wooden mesa designed for such a purpose”.
Conflict
Definition:
It is a literary device used for expressing a resistance the protagonist of the story finds in achieving his aims or dreams. The conflict is a discord that can have external aggressors or can even arise from within the self. It can occur when the subject is battling his inner discord, at odds with his surroundings or it may be pitted against others in the story.
Example:
John tried hard to convince himself that his Hollywood dreams were worth the struggle but his parents, and his inner voice of reason, failed to agree.
Connotation
Definition:
Connotations are the associations people make with words that go beyond the literal or dictionary definition. Many words have connotations that create emotions or feelings in the reader.
Example:
And once again, the autumn leaves were falling.
This phrase uses ‘autumn’ to signify something coming to an end.
Consonance
Definition:
Consonance refers to repetition of sounds in quick succession produced by consonants within a sentence or phrase. The repetitive sound is often found at the end of a word. Consonance is the opposite of assonance, which implies repetitive usage of vowel sounds.
Example:
He struck a streak of bad luck.
Denotation
Definition:
Denotation refers to the use of the dictionary definition or literal meaning of a word.
Example:
They built a house.
In the above sentence, house is meant literally as in a building where a family lives. If the word "home" was used instead in the above sentence in place of "house", the meaning would not be so literal as there are many emotions associated with the word "home" beyond simply the structure where people live.
Deus ex Machina
Definition:
Deus ex Machina is a rather debatable and often criticized form of literary device. It refers to the incidence where an implausible concept or character is brought into the story in order to make the conflict in the story resolve and to bring about a pleasing solution. The use of Deus ex Machina is not recommended as it is seen to be the mark of a poor plot that the writer needs to resort to random, insupportable and unbelievable twists and turns to reach the end of the story.
Example:
If in a suspense novel the protagonist suddenly finds a solution to his dilemmas because of divine intervention.
Diction
Definition:
Diction is the distinctive tone or tenor of an author’s writings. Diction is not just a writer's choice of words it can include the mood, attitude, dialect and style of writing. Diction is usually judged with reference to the prevailing standards of proper writing and speech and is seen as the mark of quality of the writing. It is also understood as the selection of certain words or phrases that become peculiar to a writer.
Example:
Certain writers in the modern day and age use archaic terms such as ‘thy’, ‘thee’ and ‘wherefore’ to imbue a Shakespearean mood to their work.
Doppelganger
Definition:
The term is derived from the German language and literally translates into ‘double walker’. It refers to a character in the story that is actually a counterfeit or a copy of a genuine character. Doppelgangers of the main characters usually bear the ability to impersonate the original but have vastly different spirits and intentions. The doppelganger usually has a different appearance but an earthly soul and supernatural hoodwinking abilities that allow it to fool other unsuspecting characters.
Example:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Ekphrastic
Definition:
Ekphrastic refers to a form of writing, mostly poetry, wherein the author describes another work of art, usually visual. It is used to convey the deeper symbolism of the corporeal art form by means of a separate medium. It has often been found that ekphrastic writing is rhetorical in nature and symbolic of a greater meaning.
Example:
A photograph of an empty landscape can convey desolation, abandon and loss. Similarly, one can convey the same sentiments and concepts by using phrases such as ‘an empty doorway’ or ‘a childless nursery’.
Epilogue
Definition:
Epilogues are an inherent part of any story or poem and are essential to the structure of any written form. The epilogue is an important literary tool that acts as the afterword once the last chapter is over. The purpose of an epilogue is to add a little insight to some interesting developments that happen once the major plot is over. Epilogues often act as a teaser trailer to any possible sequels that might be created later. Sometimes the epilogue is used to add a little bit about the life or future of the main characters after the story itself has unfolded and wrapped up. Epilogues can be written in a number of ways: sometimes the same narrative style as adopted in the story is continued while at other times one of the characters might take up the narrative or speak one to one with the audience.
Example:
In a remarkably contemporary moment at the end of The Tempest, Shakespeare's wizard Prospero addresses the audience directly, breaking down the boundaries of the play. He informs them that the play is over, his powers are gone, and thus his escape from the play's island setting depends on their applause that they, in effect, get to decide his fate.
This serves as a Epilogue for Shakespeare's tragi-comedy The Tempest.
Epithet
Definition:
An epithet is a literary device that is used as a descriptive device. It is usually used to add to a person or place’s regular name and attribute some special quality to the same. Epithets are remarkable in that they become a part of common parlance over time. These descriptive words and phrases can be used to enhance the persona of real and fictitious places, objects, persons and divinities.
Example:
“Alexander the Great” is the epithet commonly used to refer to Alexander III of Macedon. The young king has come to be recognized by this epithet in all of history and popular culture owing to his spectacular achievements in creating one of the largest ever historical empires.
Euphemism
Definition:
The term ‘euphemism’ is used to refer to the literary practice of using a comparatively milder or less abrasive form of a negative description instead of its original, unsympathetic form. This device is used when writing about matters such as sex, violence, death, crimes and things "embarrassing". The purpose of euphemisms is to substitute unpleasant and severe words with more genteel ones in order to mask the harshness.. The use of euphemisms is sometimes manipulated to lend a touch of exaggeration or irony in satirical writing.
Example:
Using “to put out to pasture” when one implies retiring a person because they are too old to be effective.
Below are some more examples of Euphemisms
Downsizing - This is used when a company fires or lays off a larger number of employees
Friendly fire - This is used by the military when soldiers are accidentally killed by other soldiers on the same side.
Tipsy - This is a soft way to say that someone has had to much to drink.
Golden years - This is used to describe the later period of life when someone is of old age.
Gone to heaven - This is a polite way to say that someone is dead.
Enhanced interrogation - This is modern euphemism to minimize what by many people would be viewed as torture.
Euphony
Definition:
The literary device “euphony” refers to the use of phrases and words that are noted for possessing an extensive degree of notable loveliness or melody in the sound they create. The use of euphony is predominant in literary prose and poetry, where poetic devices such as alliterations, rhymes and assonace are used to create pleasant sounds. Euphony is the opposite of cacophony, which refers to the creation of unpleasant and harsh sounds by using certain words and phrases together. This literary devices is based on the use and manipulation of phonetics in literature.
Example:
It has been said that the phrase “cellar door” is reportedly the most pleasant sounding phrase in the English language. The phrase is said to depict the highest degree of euphony, and is said to be especially notable when spoken in the British accent.
Faulty Parallelism
Definition:
In literature, the term ‘parallelism’ is used to refer to the practice placing together similarly structure related phrases, words or clauses. Parallelism involves placing sentence items in a parallel grammatical format wherein nouns are listed together, specific verb forms are listed together and the like. When one fails to follow this parallel structure, it results in faulty parallelism. The failure to maintain a balance in grammatical forms is known as faulty parallelism wherein similar grammatical forms receive dissimilar or unequal weight.
Example:
On the TV show The Simpsons, lead character Bart Simpson says, “they are laughing, not with me”.
Flashback
Definition:
Flashback is a literary device wherein the author depicts the occurrence of specific events to the reader, which have taken place before the present time the narration is following, or events that have happened before the events that are currently unfolding in the story. Flashback devices that are commonly used are past narratives by characters, depictions and references of dreams and memories and a sub device known as authorial sovereignty wherein the author directly chooses to refer to a past occurrence by bringing it up in a straightforward manner. Flashback is used to create a background to the present situation, place or person.
Example:
Back in the day when Sarah was a young girl…
You can see flashbacks used very often in movies. For example, it is common in movies for there to be a flashback that gives the viewer a look into the characters life when they were younger, or when they have done something previously. This is done to help the viewer better understand the present situation.
Foil
Definition:
A foil is another character in a story who contrasts with the main character, usually to highlight one of their attributes.
Example:
In the popular book series, Harry Potter, the character of Hogwarts principal Albus Dumbledore, who portrays ‘good’, is constantly shown to believe in the power of true love (of all forms and types) and is portrayed as a strong, benevolent and positive character while the antagonist Lord Voldemort, who depicts the evil and ‘bad’ in the series is constantly shown to mock and disbelieve the sentiment of love and think of it as a foolish indulgence, a trait that is finally his undoing.
Foreshadowing
Definition:
The literary device foreshadowing refers to the use of indicative word or phrases and hints that set the stage for a story to unfold and give the reader a hint of something that is going to happen without revealing the story or spoiling the suspense. Foreshadowing is used to suggest an upcoming outcome to the story.
Example:
“He had no idea of the disastrous chain of events to follow”. In this sentence, while the protagonist is clueless of further developments, the reader learns that something disastrous and problematic is about to happen to/for him.
Hubris
Definition: Hubris, in this day and age, is another way of saying overly arrogant. You can tell the difference of hubris and just regular arrogance or pride by the fact that the character has seemed to allow reality slip away from them. The character portraying hubris, also commonly referred to as hybris, may have just gained a huge amount of power and the false belief that they are “untouchable”. This term hubris used to have a slightly different meaning and was a very negative subject back in ancient Greek. It used to be closely related to a crime in Athens. In writing and literature hubris is generally considered a “tragic flaw” and it is saved for the protagonist. The reason for this is because at the end of the story you should be able to see that it is this flaw that brings the “bad guy” down.
Example:
A classic example of hubris is featured in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth. Macbeth, the protagonist, overfilled with ambition and arrogance, allows his hubris to think you would be able to kill the valiant Duncan without penalty so he can claim the throne of Scotland for himself. Obviously murder is highly frowned upon, so this eventually leads to Macbeth’s demise as well.
Hyperbaton
Definition:A hyperbaton is a literary device wherein the author plays with the regular positioning of words and phrases and creates a differently structured sentence to convey the same meaning. It is said that by using a hyperbaton, words or phrases overstep their conventional placements and result in a more complex and intriguing sentence structure. This literary device is used to add more depth and interest to the sentence structure.
Example:“Alone he walked on the cold, lonely roads”. This sentence is a variation of the more conventional, “He walked alone on the cold, lonely roads”.
Hyperbole
Definition:
A hyperbole is a literary device wherein the author uses specific words and phrases that exaggerate and overemphasize the basic crux of the statement in order to produce a grander, more noticeable effect. The purpose of hyperbole is to create a larger-than-life effect and overly stress a specific point. Such sentences usually convey an action or sentiment that is generally not practically/ realistically possible or plausible but helps emphasize an emotion.
Example:
“I am so tired I cannot walk another inch” or “I’m so sleepy I might fall asleep standing here”.
Imagery
Definition:
In literature, one of the strongest devices is imagery wherein the author uses words and phrases to create “mental images” for the reader. Imagery helps the reader to visualize more realistically the author’s writings. The usage of metaphors, allusions, descriptive words and similes amongst other literary forms in order to “tickle” and awaken the readers’ sensory perceptions is referred to as imagery. Imagery is not limited to only visual sensations, but also refers to igniting kinesthetic, olfactory, tactile, gustatory, thermal and auditory sensations as well.
Example:
The gushing brook stole its way down the lush green mountains, dotted with tiny flowers in a riot of colors and trees coming alive with gaily chirping birds.
Internal Rhyme
Definition:
In literature the internal rhyme is a practice of forming a rhyme in only one lone line of verse. An internal rhyme is also known as the middle rhyme because it is typically constructed in the middle of a line to rhyme with the bit at the end of the same metrical line.
Example:
The line from the famed poem Ancient Mariner, “We were the first that ever burst”.
Inversion
Definition:
The term ‘inversion’ refers to the practice of changing the conventional placement of words. It is a literary practice typical of the older classical poetry genre. In present day literature it is usually used for the purpose of laying emphasis this literary device is more prevalent in poetry than prose because it helps to arrange the poem in a manner that catches the attention of the reader not only with its content but also with its physical appearance; a result of the peculiar structuring.
Example:
In the much known and read Paradise Lost, Milton wrote:
“Of Man's First Disobedience, and the Fruit
Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste
Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
Sing Heav'nly Muse. . .”
Irony
Definition:
The use of irony in literature refers to playing around with words such that the meaning implied by a sentence or word is actually different from the literal meaning. Often irony is used to suggest the stark contrast of the literal meaning being put forth. The deeper, real layer of significance is revealed not by the words themselves but the situation and the context in which they are placed.
Example:
Writing a sentence such as, “Oh! What fine luck I have!”. The sentence on the surface conveys that the speaker is happy with their luck but actually what they mean is that they are extremely unhappy and dissatisfied with their (bad) luck.
Juxtaposition
Definition:
Juxtaposition is a literary device wherein the author places a person, concept, place, idea or theme parallel to another. The purpose of juxtaposing two directly or indirectly related entities close together in literature is to highlight the contrast between the two and compare them. This literary device is usually used for etching out a character in detail, creating suspense or lending a rhetorical effect.
Example:
In Paradise Lost, Milton has used juxtaposition to draw a parallel between the two protagonists, Satan and God, who he discusses by placing their traits in comparison with one another to highlight their differences.
Kennings
Definition:
The use of Kennings in literature is characteristically related to works in Old English poetry where the author would use a twist of words, figure of speech or magic poetic phrase or a newly created compound sentence or phrase to refer to a person, object, place, action or idea. The use of imagery and indicative, direct and indirect references to substitute the proper, formal name of the subject is known as kennings. The use of kennings was also prevalent in Old Norse and Germanic poetry.
Example:
Kennings are rare in modern day language. Here are a few examples from Beowulf:
Battle-sweat = blood
Sky-candle = sun
Whale-road = ocean
Light-of-battle = sword
Litotes
Definition:
Litotes are figures of rhetoric speech that use an understated statement of an affirmative by using a negative description. Rarely talked about, but commonly used in modern day conversations, litotes are a discreet way of saying something unpleasant without directly using negativity. Sometimes called an ironical understatement and/or an avoidance of a truth which can be either positive or negative. Common examples: “I'm not feeling bad,” or “he's definitely not a rocket scientist.” The actual meanings are: “I am feeling well,” and “he is not smart.” Litotes were used frequently in Old English Poetry and Literature, and can be found in the English, Russian, German, Dutch and French languages.
Example:
In everyday conversations in the 21st century, one may hear expressions like:
“not the brightest bulb”
“not a beauty”
“not bad”
“not unfamiliar”
These are all examples of negative litotes that mean the opposite: “a dim bulb, or dumb,” “plain in appearance,” “good,” and “knows very well.” Perhaps our society is not trying to be humorous or sarcastic, but kinder?
Sometimes double negatives in literature, music and films create a litote that was not intended; for instance in the Rolling Stones hit “I Can't Get No Satisfaction,” actually means “I CAN receive satisfaction.”
Perhaps some best description litotes are found in the bible: take for instance, Jeremiah 30:19:
“I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will make them honored, and they shall not be small.” Correctly interpreted, he is saying “there will be many and they will be great or large.”
Malapropism
Definition:
Malapropism in literature refers to the practice of misusing words by substituting words with similar sounding words that have different, often unconnected meanings, and thus creating a situation of confusion, misunderstanding and amusement. Malapropism is used to convey that the speaker or character is flustered, bothered, unaware or confused and as a result cannot employ proper diction. A trick to using malapropism is to ensure that the two words (the original and the substitute) sound similar enough for the reader to catch onto the intended switch and find humor in the result.
Example:
In the play Much Ado About Nothing, noted playwright William Shakespeare’s character Dogberry says, "Our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two auspicious persons." Instead, what the character means to say is “"Our watch, sir, have indeed apprehended two suspicious persons."
Metaphor
Definition:
Metaphors are one of the most extensively used literary devices. A metaphor refers to a meaning or identity ascribed to one subject by way of another. In a metaphor, one subject is implied to be another so as to draw a comparison between their similarities and shared traits. The first subject, which is the focus of the sentences is usually compared to the second subject, which is used to convey a degree of meaning that is used to characterize the first. The purpose of using a metaphor is to take an identity or concept that we understand clearly (second subject) and use it to better understand the lesser known element (the first subject).
Example:
“Henry was a lion on the battlefield”. This sentence suggests that Henry fought so valiantly and bravely that he embodied all the personality traits we attribute to the ferocious animal. This sentence implies immediately that Henry was courageous and fearless, much like the King of the Jungle.
Metonymy
Definition:
Metonymy in literature refers to the practice of not using the formal word for an object or subject and instead referring to it by using another word that is intricately linked to the formal name or word. It is the practice of substituting the main word with a word that is closely linked to it.
Example:
When we use the name “Washington D.C” we are talking about the U.S’ political hot seat by referring to the political capital of the United States because all the significant political institutions such as the White House, Supreme Court, the U.S. Capitol and many more are located her. The phrase “Washington D.C.” is metonymy for the government of the U.S. in this case.
Mood
Definition:
The literary device ‘mood’ refers to a definitive stance the author adopts in shaping a specific emotional perspective towards the subject of the literary work. It refers to the mental and emotional disposition of the author towards the subject, which in turn lends a particular character or atmosphere to the work. The final tone achieved thus is instrumental in evoking specific, appropriate responses from the reader.
Example:
In Erich Segal’s Love Story, the relationship of the two protagonists is handled with such beauty, delicateness and sensitivity that the reader is compelled to feel the trials and tribulations of the characters.
Motif
Definition:
The literary device ‘motif’ is any element, subject, idea or concept that is constantly present through the entire body of literature. Using a motif refers to the repetition of a specific theme dominating the literary work. Motifs are very noticeable and play a significant role in defining the nature of the story, the course of events and the very fabric of the literary piece.
Example:
In many famed fairytales, the motif of a ‘handsome prince’ falling in love with a ‘damsel in distress’ and the two being bothered by a wicked step mother, evil witch or beast and finally conquering all to live ‘happily ever after’ is a common motif.
Another common motif is the simple, pretty peasant girl or girl from a modest background in fairytales discovering that she is actually a royal or noble by the end of the tale.
Negative Capability
Definition:
The use of negative capability in literature is a concept promoted by poet John Keats, who was of the opinion that literary achievers, especially poets, should be able to come to terms with the fact that some matters might have to be left unsolved and uncertain. Keats was of the opinion that some certainties were best left open to imagination and that the element of doubt and ambiguity added romanticism and specialty to a concept.
Example:
The best references of the use of negative capability in literature would be of Keats’ own works, especially poems such as Ode on a Grecian Urn and Ode to a Nightingale.
Nemesis
Definition:
In literature, the use of a nemesis refers to a situation of poetic justice wherein the positive characters are rewarded and the negative characters are penalized. The word also sometimes refers to the character or medium by which this justice is brought about as Nemesis was the patron goddess of vengeance according to classical mythology.
Example:
In the popular book series Harry Potter, the protagonist Harry Potter is the nemesis of the evil Lord Voldemort.
Onomatopoeia
Definition:
The term ‘onomatopoeia’ refers to words whose very sound is very close to the sound they are meant to depict. In other words, it refers to sound words whose pronunciation to the actual sound they represent.
Example:
Words such as grunt, huff, buzz and snap are words whose
pronunciation sounds very similar to the actual sounds these words represent. In literature such words are useful in creating a stronger mental image. For instance, sentences such as “the whispering of the forest trees” or “the hum of a thousand bees” or “the click of the door in the nighttime” create vivid mental images.
Oxymoron
Definition:
Oxymoron is a significant literary device as it allows the author to use contradictory, contrasting concepts placed together in a manner that actually ends up making sense in a strange, and slightly complex manner. An oxymoron is an interesting literary device because it helps to perceive a deeper level of truth and explore different layers of semantics while writing.
Example:
Sometimes we cherish things of little value.
He possessed a cold fire in his eyes.
Paradox
Definition:
A paradox in literature refers to the use of concepts or ideas that are contradictory to one another, yet, when placed together hold significant value on several levels. The uniqueness of paradoxes lies in the fact that a deeper level of meaning and significance is not revealed at first glace, but when it does crystallize, it provides astonishing insight.
Example:
High walls make not a palace; full coffers make not a king.
Pathetic Fallacy
Definition:
Pathetic fallacy is a type of literary device whereby the author ascribes the human feelings of one or more of his or her characters to nonhuman objects or nature or phenomena. It is a type of personification, and is known to occur more by accident and less on purpose.
Example:
The softly whistling teapot informed him it was time for breakfast.
Periodic Structure
Definition:
In literature, the concept of a periodic structure refers to a particular placement of sentence elements such as the main clause of the sentence and/or its predicate are purposely held off and placed at the end instead of at the beginning or their conventional positions. In such placements, the crux of the sentence’s meaning does not become clear to the reader until they reach the last part. While undeniably confusing at first, a periodic structure lends a flair of drama and romanticism to a sentence and is greatly used in poetry.
Example:
Instead of writing, “brokenhearted and forlorn she waited till the end of her days for his return” one may write, “for his return, brokenhearted and forlorn, waited she till the end of her days”.
Periphrasis
Definition:
The term ‘periphrasis’ refers to the use of excessive language and surplus words to convey a meaning that could otherwise be conveyed with fewer words and in more direct a manner. The use of this literary device can be to embellish a sentence, to create a grander effect, to beat around the bush and to draw attention away from the crux of the message being conveyed.
Example:
Instead of simply saying “I am displeased with your behavior”, one can say, “the manner in which you have conducted yourself in my presence of late has caused me to feel uncomfortable and has resulted in my feeling disgruntled and disappointed with you”.
Personification
Definition:
Personification is one of the most commonly used and recognized literary devices. It refers to the practice of attaching human traits and characteristics with inanimate objects, phenomena and animals.
Example:
“The raging winds”
“The wise owl”
“The warm and comforting fire”
Plot
Definition:
The plot usually refers to the sequence of events and happenings that make up a story. There is usually a pattern, unintended or intentional, that threads the plot together. The plot basically refers to the main outcome and order of the story. There is another kind of plot in literature as well; it refers to the conflict or clash occurring as a part of the story. The conflict usually follows 3 regular formats: a) characters in conflict with one another b) characters in conflict with their surroundings and c) characters in conflict with themselves.
Example:
Many date movies follow a similar simple plot. Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl back in the end.
Point of View
Definition:
Point of view is the manner in which a story is narrated or depicted and who it is that tells the story. Simply put, the point of view determines the angle and perception of the story unfolding, and thus influences the tone in which the story takes place. The point of view is instrumental in manipulating the reader’s understanding of the narrative. In a way, the point of view can allow or withhold the reader access into the greater reaches of the story. Two of the most common point of view techniques are the first person, wherein the story is told by the narrator from his or her standpoint and the third person wherein the narrator does not figure in the events of the story and tells the story by referring to all characters and places in the third person with third person pronouns and proper nouns.
Example:
In the popular Lord of the Rings book series, the stories are narrated in the third person and all happenings are described from an “outside the story” point of view. Contrastingly, in the popular teen book series, Princess Diaries, the story is told in the first person, by the protagonist herself.
Polysyndeton
Definition:
Polysyndeton refers to the process of using conjunctions or connecting words frequently in a sentence, placed very close to one another. Opposed to the usual norm of using them sparsely, only where they are technically needed. The use of polysyndetons is primarily for adding dramatic effect as they have a strong rhetorical presence.
Example:
For example:
a) Saying “here and there and everywhere”, instead of simply saying “here, there and everywhere”.
b) “Marge and Susan and Anne and Daisy and Barry all planned to go for a picnic”, instead of “Marge, Susan, Anne, Daisy and Barry…” emphasizes each of the individuals and calls attention to every person one by one instead of assembling them as a group.
Portmanteau
Definition:
In literature, this device refers to the practice of joining together two or more words in order to create an entirely new word. This is often done in order to create a name or word for something by combining the individual characteristics of 2 or more other words.
Example:
1. The word “smog” is a portmanteau that was built combining “fog” and “smoke” and “smog” has the properties of both fog and smoke.
2. Liger= Lion + Tiger= A hybrid of the two feline species, possessing characteristics of both.
Prologue
Definition:
A prologue can be understood to be a sort of introduction to a story that usually sets the tone for the story and acts as a bit of a backgrounder or a “sneak peek” into the story. Prologues are typically a narrative ‘spoken’ by one of the characters and not from the part of the author.
Example:
1. "The origin of this story is..."
2. “It all began one day when…”
Puns
Definition:
Puns are a very popular literary device wherein a word is used in a manner to suggest two or more possible meanings. This is generally done to the effect of creating humor or irony or wryness. Puns can also refer to words that suggest meanings of similar-sounding words. The trick is to make the reader have an “ah!” moment and discover 2 or more meanings.
Example:
Santa’s helpers are known as subordinate Clauses.
See more examples of puns at http://punjokes.com/
Rhyme Scheme
Definition:
The rhyme scheme is the practice of rhyming words placed at the end of the lines in the prose or poetry. Rhyme scheme refers to the order in which particular words rhyme. If the alternate words rhyme, it is an “a-b-a-b” rhyme scheme, which means “a” is the rhyme for the lines 1 and 3 and “b” is the rhyme affected in the lines 2 and 4.
Example:
Roses are red (a)
Violets are blue (b)
Beautiful they all may be (c)
But I love you (b)
The above is an “a-b-c-b” rhyme scheme.
Rhythm & Rhyme
Definition:
The concept of ‘rhythm and rhyme’ refers to a pattern of rhymes that is created by using words that produce the same, or similar sounds. Rhythm and rhyme together refer to the recurrence of similar sounds in prose and poetry, creating a musical, gentle effect.
Example:
“I am a teapot
Short and stout;
This is my handle
And this is my spout.
When the water’s boiling
Hear me shout;
Just lift me up
And pour me out”

Satire
Definition:
The use of satire in literature refers to the practice of making fun of a human weakness or character flaw. The use of satire is often inclusive of a need or decision of correcting or bettering the character that is on the receiving end of the satire. In general, even though satire might be humorous and may “make fun”, its purpose is not to entertain and amuse but actually to derive a reaction of contempt from the reader.
Example:
An example of satire in modern popculture is the TV series Southpark that uses satire as it primary medium for drawing attention the flaws in society, especially American society at present. The scripts and writing for the show are an excellent example of satire in written form.
Setting
Definition:
In literature, the word ‘setting’ is used to identify and establish the time, place and mood of the events of the story. It basically helps in establishing where and when and under what circumstances the story is taking place.
Example:
In the first installment of the Harry Potter series, a large part of the book takes place at the protagonist, Harry’s, aunt’s and uncle’s place, living in the “muggle” (non-magical) world with the “muggle” folks, and Harry is unaware of his magical capabilities and blood. This setting establishes the background that Harry has a non-magical childhood with other “muggle” people and has no clue about his special powers or his parents and is raised much like, actually worse than, regular people, till his 11th birthday.
Simile
Definition:
Similes are one of the most commonly used literary devices; referring to the practice of drawing parallels or comparisons between two unrelated and dissimilar things, people, beings, places and concepts. By using similes a greater degree of meaning and understanding is attached to an otherwise simple sentence. The reader is able to better understand the sentiment the author wishes to convey. Similes are marked by the use of the words ‘as’ or ‘such as’ or ‘like’.
Example:
He is like a mouse in front of the teacher.
Spoonerism
Definition:
Spoonerism refers to the practice of interchanging the first letters of some words in order to create new words or even to create nonsensical words in order to create a humorous setting. While they are often unintentional and known as a “slip of the tongue”, in literature they are welcomed as witty wordplay.
Example:
The phrase “flesh and blood” being spoken as a character as “blesh and flood” in urgency and heightened emotion.
Stanza
Definition:
The term stanza refers to a single, related chunk of lines in poetry. It basically refers to one unit or group of lines, which forms one particular faction in poetry. The most basic kind of stanza is usually 4 lines per group, with the simplest rhyme scheme “a-b-a-b” being followed.
Example:
“The greedy paddy cat,
Chased after the mice;
She got so round and fat,
But it tasted so nice”
Stream of consciousness
Definition:
The phrase ‘stream of consciousness’ refers to an uninterrupted and unhindered collection and occurrence of thoughts and ideas in the conscious mind. In literature, the phrase refers to the flow of these thoughts, with reference to a particular character’s thinking process. This literary device is usually used in order to provide a narrative in the form of the character’s thoughts instead of using dialogue or description.
Example:
All writings by Virginia Woolff are a good example of literary stream of consciousness.
"Life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life is a luminous halo, a semi-transparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end." The Common Reader (1925)
Suspense
Definition:
Suspense is the intense feeling that an audience goes through while waiting for the outcome of certain events. It basically leaves the reader holding their breath and wanting more information. The amount of intensity in a suspenseful moment is why it is hard to put a book down. Without suspense, a reader would lose interest quickly in any story because there is nothing that is making the reader ask, “What’s going to happen next?” In writing, there has to be a series of events that leads to a climax that captivates the audience and makes them tense and anxious to know what is going to happen.
Example:
A cliffhanger is a great way to create suspense. You remember when you were a kid and very excited to watch those Saturday morning shows. You can probably recall the feeling you had at the pit of your stomach when, after about 25 minutes and lots of commercials, you were hoping to find out what happened to your favorite character. However, you didn’t get to find out. Instead they would make the “Tune In Next Week” announcement and you already knew that you would be there. Same time, same place. Suspense is a powerful literary tool because, if done correctly, you know your audience will be back for more and more.
Symbol
Definition:
A symbol is literary device that contains several layers of meaning, often concealed at first sight, and is representative of several other aspects, concepts or traits than those that are visible in the literal translation alone. Symbol is using an object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.
Example:
The phrase “a new dawn” does not talk only about the actual beginning of a new day but also signifies a new start, a fresh chance to begin and the end of a previous tiring time.
Synecdoche
Definition:
A synecdoche is a literary devices that uses a part of something to refer to the whole. It is somewhat rhetorical in nature, where the entire object is represented by way of a faction of it or a faction of the object is symbolized by the full.
Example:
“Weary feet in the walk of life”, does not refer to the feet actually being tired or painful; it is symbolic of a long, hard struggle through the journey of life and feeling low, tired, unoptimistic and ‘the walk of life’ does not represent an actual path or distance covered, instead refers to the entire sequence of life events that has made the person tired.
Synesthesia
Definition:
While the term synesthesia literally refers to a medical condition wherein one or many of the sensory modalities become joined to one another, in literature it refers to the depiction of a strong connection, link or bond between the different senses. Characters in literature are sometimes described to be experiences synesthesia. Synesthesia is the conflation of the senses.
Example:
The Sound of Blue by Hollu Payne which portrays synesthesia with respect to the Romantic ideal.
Syntax
Definition:
Syntax in literature refers to the actual way in which words and sentences are placed together in the writing. Usually in the English language the syntax should follow a pattern of subject-verb-object agreement but sometimes authors play around with this to achieve a lyrical, rhythmic, rhetoric or questioning effect. It is not related to the act of choosing specific words or even the meaning of each word or the overall meanings conveyed by the sentences.
Example:
The sentence "The man drives the car" would follow normal syntax in the English language. By changing the syntax to "The car drives the man", the sentence becomes awkward.
Theme
Definition:
The theme of any literary work is the base that acts as a foundation for the entire literary piece. The theme links all aspects of the literary work with one another and is basically the main subject. The theme can be an enduring pattern or motif throughout the literary work, occurring in a complex, long winding manner or it can be short and succinct and provide a certain insight into the story.
Example:
The main theme in the play Romeo and Juliet was love with smaller themes of sacrifice, tragedy, struggle, hardship, devotion and so on.
Tone
Definition:
The tone of a literary work is the perspective or attitude that the author adopts with regards to a specific character, place or development. Tone can portray a variety of emotions ranging from solemn, grave, and critical to witty, wry and humorous. Tone helps the reader ascertain the writer’s feelings towards a particular topic and this in turn influences the reader’s understanding of the story.
Example:
In her Harry Potter series, author J.K. Rowling has taken an extremely positive, inspiring and uplifting tone towards the idea of love and devotion.
Tragedy
Definition:
In literature, the concept of tragedy refer to a series of unfortunate events by which one or more of the literary characters in the story undergo several misfortunes, which finally culminate into a disaster of ‘epic proportions’. Tragedy is generally built up in 5 stages: a) happy times b) the introduction of a problem c) the problem worsens to a crisis or dilemma d) the characters are unable to prevent the problem from taking over e) the problem results in some catastrophic, grave ending, which is the tragedy culminated.
Example:
In the play Julius Caesar, the lead character is an ambitious, fearless and power hungry king who ignores all the signs and does not heed the advice of the well-meaning: finally being stabbed to death by his own best friend and advisor Brutus. This moment has been immortalized by the phrase “Et tu Brutus?”, wherein Caesar realizes that he has finally been defeated, and that too through betrayal.
Understatement
Definition:
This literary device refers to the practice of drawing attention to a fact that is already obvious and noticeable. Understating a fact is usually done by way of sarcasm, irony, wryness or any other form of dry humor. Understating something is akin to exaggerating its obviousness as a means of humor.
Example:
The phrase, “Oh! I wonder if he could get any later; I am free all day long”. Said in a sarcastic tone it indicates that the speaker obviously means the opposite of the literal meaning.
Verisimilitude
Definition:
Verisimilitude tends to be based around the appearance or proximity to being real, or the truth. It was a large part of the work of Karl Popper, and can be used in a variety of different ways to describe something, as well. It is a way of implying the believability or likelihood of a theory or narrative. However, just because something can be described as having Verisimilitude does not mean that it is true, only that merely appears to or seems to be true.
Example:
It can be used in a variety of ways, for example;
“While some dislike the content of the novel due to its graphic nature, you cannot deny that the content certainly gives the book some Verisimilitude”
An example of Verisimilitude in concept, though, could be a doubtful statement in a court of law or even a false testimonial for a restaurant. If something “seems” like it’s all well and good, but you can’t quite decide, then it can be said to have Verisimilitude.
Verse
Definition:
The literary term ‘verse’ is used to refer to any single, lone line of a poetry composition. A metrical writing line is known as verse. The word can however, also refer to a stanza or any other part of the poetry.
Example:
A single line or stanza in a poem would be an example of verse.



Exposition- The essential background information at the beginning of a literary work

Rising action- the development of conflict and complications in a literary work

Climax- the turning point in a literary work

Falling action- results or effects of the climax of a literary work

Resolution/denouement- end of a literary work when loose ends are tied up and questions are answered

Alliteration – repetition of the initial consonant sounds of words: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”

Allusion – a reference to something well-known that exists outside the literary work
 Essential Literary Terms

Antagonist- character that is the source of conflict in a literary work

Aside – a dramatic device in which a character makes a short speech intended for the audience but not heard by the other characters on stage

Assonance – repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds: “Anna’s apples,” “the pond is long gone”

Characterization- The manner in which an author develops characters and their personalities

Conflict -  struggle between two or more opposing forces (person vs.  person; nature; society; self; fate/God) 

Dialogue - direct speech between characters in a literary work

Diction -  word choice to create a specific effect

Figurative Language –language that represents one thing in terms of something dissimilar (non-literal language).  Includes simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, symbol)

Flashback- the method of returning to an earlier point in time for the purpose of making the present clearer

Foreshadowing- hint of what is to come in a literary work

Genre – type or category to which a literary work belongs

Hyperbole – extreme exaggeration to add meaning

Imagery – language that appeals to the five senses

Irony -  Dramatic…  when the reader or audience knows something a character does not
             Situational…   when there is a disparity between what is expected and what actually occurs
             Verbal…   when the speaker says one thing but means the opposite

Metaphor – an implied comparison between dissimilar objects:   “Her talents blossomed”

Motif- a recurring feature of a literary work that is related to the theme

Onomatopoeia – use of a word whose sound imitates its meaning: “hiss”

Oxymoron – phrase that consists of two words that are contradictory: “living dead” or “Microsoft works”

Personification – figure of speech in which non-human things are given human characteristics

Plot- The sequence of events in a literary work

Point of view- the vantage point or perspective from which a literary work is told…
1st person point of view- the narrator is a character in the story                 (use of ‘I’)
3rd person point of view- the narrator is outside of the story (use of ‘he’ ‘she’ ‘they’)

Protagonist- the main character in a literary work

Rhyme – repetition of similar or identical sounds: “look and crook”

Rhyme Scheme – pattern of rhyme among lines of poetry [denoted using letters, as in ABAB CDCD EE]

Setting- The time and place of a literary work

Simile – a direct comparison of dissimilar objects, usually using like or as:       “I wandered lonely as a cloud”

Soliloquy -  a dramatic device in which a character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud

Speaker – voice in a poem; the person or thing that is speaking

Stanza – group of lines forming a unit in a poem

Stereotype-  standardized, conventional ideas about characters, plots and settings

Suspense – technique that keeps the reader guessing what will happen next 

Symbol/symbolism – one thing (object, person, place) used to represent something else

Theme – the underlying main idea of a literary work.  Theme differs from the subject of a literary work in that it involves a statement or opinion about the subject.

Tone – the author’s attitude toward the subject of a work.



Abecedarius
Acatalectic
Accent Noun used to describe the stress put on a certain syllable while speaking a word. Ex.- In Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” there has been much controversy over the pronunciation of “Abora” in line 41. According to Herbert Tucker of the website For Better For Verse, the accent is on the first and last syllable of the word, making its pronunciation: AborA. [1][2] Accentual verse Acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. [3] Act Adjective a word or phrase which modifies a noun or pronoun, grammatically added to describe, identify, or quantify the related noun or pronoun. [4][5] Adverb A describing word used to modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Typically ending in -ly, adverbs answer the questions when, how, and how many times. [1][6] Aisling Allegory A specific type of writing in which the settings, characters, and events stand for other specific people, events, or ideas. [7] Alliteration Repetition of the initial sounds of words, as in “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” [8] Allusion A figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. [8] Anachronism Erroneous use of an object, event, idea, or word that does not belong to that time period. [9] Anacrusis Anadiplosis Anagnorisis The point in a plot where a character recognizes the true state of affairs [10] Analects Analepsis An interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached [11] Analogue Analogy Comparison between two things that are otherwise unlike. Ex. The dress is as white as snow. [12] Anapest a version of the foot in poetry in which the first two syllables of a line are unstressed, followed by a stressed syllable. Ex. Intercept (the syllables in and ter are unstressed followed by cept which is stressed) [13] Anaphora Anastrophe Anecdote Annal Annotation Antagonist Antanaclasis Antecedent A word or phrase referred to by any relative pronoun. [4] Antepenult Anthology Anticlimax Anti-hero Anti-masque Anti-romance Antimetabole Antinovel Antistrophe Antithesis Antithetical couplet Antonym Aphorism Apocope Apocrypha Apollonian and Dionysian Apologue Apology Apothegm Aposiopesis Apostrophe A figure of speech in which the speaker addresses an object, concept, or person (usually absent) that is unable to respond. [4] Apron stage Arcadia Archaism Archetype Aristeia Argument Arsis Art for art's sake Asemic writing Aside Assonance Astrophic stanzas having no particular pattern. [1][6] Asyndeton The omission of conjunctions between clauses. An example is when John F. Kennedy said on January the 20th 1961 "...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty." [14] Atmosphere Attitude Aube Aubade Audience Autobiography Autotelic Avant-garde Ballad
'A short narrative folk song that fixes in the most dramatic story, moving to its conclusion by the means of dialogue and a series of incidences.
Ballade Ballad stanza Bard Baroque Bathos Beast fable (beast epic) Beast poetry Beat Generation Beginning rhyme Belles-lettres Bestiary Beta reader Bibliography Bildungsroman Biography Black comedy Blank verse Verse written in iambic pentameter without rhyme. [6][15] Bloomsbury Group Body Bombast (fustian) Boulevard theatre Bourgeois drama Bouts-Rimés Bowdlerize Breviloquence Broadside Burlesque Burletta Burns stanza Buskin Byronic hero Cadence Caesura Calligram Canon Canso Canticum Canto Canzone Capa y espada Captivity narrative Caricature Carmen figuratum Carpe diem Catachresis Catalectic Catalexis Catastrophe Catharsis Caudate sonnet Cavalier drama Cavalier poetry Celtic Renaissance Celtic Revival Celtic Twilight Caesura Chain of Being Chain verse Chanson de geste Chansonnier Chant royal Chantey Chanty Chapbook Character Characterization Charactonym Chaucerian stanza Chiasmus Chivalric romance Choriamb Choriambus Chorus Chronicle Chronicle play Cinquain Classicism Classification (literature) Classification of rhymes (Peter Dale) Clerihew Cliché Climax Cloak-and-sword play Close reading Closed heroic couplet Closet drama Collaborative poetry Colloquialism Comédie larmoyante Comedy Comedy of errors Comedy of humors Comedy of intrigue Comedy of manners Comedic relief Commedia dell'arte Comic relief Commedia erudita Common measure Commonplace book Common rhyme Comparative linguistics Compensation Complaint Conceit Concordance Concrete universal Confessional literature Confidant/confidante Conflict Connotation Consistency Consonance Contradiction Context Contrast Convention Copyright Counterplot Coup de théâtre Couplet Two lines with rhyming ends. Shakespeare often used a couplet to end a sonnet. [6] Courtesy book Courtly love Cowleyan ode Cradle books Craft cycle Crisis Criticism Cross acrostic Crown of sonnets Curtain raiser Curtal sonnet Dactyl Dada Dale's classification of rhymes Dandyism Danrin school School of haikai poetry founded by Nishiyama Sōin in 17th century Japan [16] Débat Death poem Death of the novel Debut novel Decadence Decasyllabic verse Decorum Denotation Dénouement Dependent Clause A group of words containing a subject and a verb, but does not equate to a complete thought. [4] Description Descriptive linguistics Detective story Deus ex machina Deuteragonist Dialect Dialogic A work primarily featuring dialogue; a piece of, relating to, or written in dialogue. [9] Dialogue Dibrach Diction Also known as "lexis" and "word choice," the term refers to the words selected for use in any oral, written, or literary expression. Diction often centers on opening a great array of lexical possibilities with the connotation of words by maintaining first the denotation of words. [17] Didactic Intended to teach, instruct, or have a moral lesson for the reader. [9] Digest Digression Dime novel Diameter Dimeter A line of verse made up of two feet (two stresses). [7] Dipody Dirge Discourse Dissociation of sensibility Dissonance Distich Distributed Stress Dithyramb Diverbium Divine afflatus Doggerel Dolce stil nuove Domestic tragedy Donnée Doppelgänger Double Double rhyme Drama Drama of sensibility Using ones senses as a medium for writing to relay emotion and the perception of sensations of oneself or of others and play upon those sensations to create a relatability stemming from the human condition. [4] Dramatic character Dramatic irony Dramatic lyric Dramatic monologue Dramatic proverb Dramatis personae Dramaturgy Dream allegory Dream vision Droll Dumb show Duodecimo Duologue Duple meter/duple rhythm Dystopia Dynamic Character Echo verse Eclogue Edition Ekphrasis A vivid, graphic, or dramatic written commentary or description of another visual form of art. [1][6] Elegiac couplet Elegiac meter Elegy Elision Emblem Emblem book Emendation Emotive language Encomiastic verse End rhyme End-stopped line A line in poetry that ends in a pause—indicated by a specific punctuation, such as a period or a semicolon. [7] English sonnet Enjambment The continuing of a syntactic unit over the end of a line. Enjambment occurs when the sense of the line overflows the meter and line break. [1] Entr'acte Envoy/envoi Epanalepsis Épater la bourgeoisie Epic poetry A long poem that narrates the victories and adventures of a hero. It can be identified by lofty or elegant diction. [6] Epic simile Epic Theater Epigraph Epilogue Epiphany Episode Episteme Epistle Epistolary novel Epistrophe Epitaph Epithalamion Epithet Epizeuxis Epode Eponymous author Equivalence Erotica Erziehungsroman Essay Ethos Eulogy Euphony Euphuism Evidence Exaggeration Exegesis Exemplum Existentialism Exordium Experimental novel Explication de texte Exposition (literary technique) Exposition (dramatic structure) Expressionism Extended metaphor Extension Extrametrical verse Extravaganza Eye rhyme Fable Fabliau Falling action Falling rhythm Fancy and imagination Fantasy Farce Feeling Feminine ending Feminine rhyme A rhyme with two syllables. One is stressed, one is unstressed. Examples: “Merry”, “Coffee”. [1][6] Fiction Figurative language Figure of speech Fin de siècle Flashback An interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached [11] Flashforward An interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media [11] Flat character Fleshly school Foil Folio Folk drama Folklore Folk tale Foot Foreshadowing Form Four levels of meaning Four meanings of a poem Fourteener Frame story Free indirect discourse Free verse French forms Freytag's pyramid Fugitives and Agrarians Fustian Future Expresses a condition happening in the future by using shall, will, am, is, are and going to with a verb. Adverbs are also used with the present tense of the verb to show future tense. [1][6] Futurism Gallows humor Gamebooks Gathering (literature) Gay literature Genetic fallacy Genius and talent Genre Georgian poetry Georgics Gesta Ghazal Gloss Gnomic verse Golden line Goliardic verse Gongorism Gonzo journalism Gothic novel Grand Guignol Graveyard poetry Graveyard school Greek tragedy Grub Street Grundyism Guignol Gushi Hagiography Hagiology Haibun Prose written in a terse, haikai style, accompanied by haiku [18] Haikai Broad genre comprising the related forms haiku haikai-renga and haibun [18] Haiku Modern term for standalone hokku [18] Half rhyme Hamartia Handwaving Headless line Head rhyme Hemistich Hendecasyllable Hendecasyllabic verse Heptameter Heptastich Heresy of paraphrase Heroic couplets Heroic drama Heroic quatrain Heroic stanza Hexameter A line from a poem hat has six feet in its meter. Another name for hexameter is "The Alexandrine." [6] Hexastich Hiatus High comedy Higher criticism Historical linguistics Historical novel Historic present History play Hokku In Japanese poetry, the opening stanza of a renga or renku (haikai no renga) [19] Holograph Homeric epithet Homily Horatian ode Horatian satire Hornbook Hovering accent Hubris Hudibrastic Humor Humours Hybris Hymn Hymnal stanza Hypallage Hyperbole Hypercatalectic Hypermetrical Hypocorism Hysteron-proteron Hypotactic A term where different subordinate clauses are used in a sentence to qualify a single verb, or modify it. [6] Iambic pentameter Ideology Idiom Idyll Imagery Imagism Impressionism Incipit Indeterminacy Inference In medias res Innuendo Interjection A word that’s tacked onto a sentence in order to add strong emotion. It’s grammatically unrelated to the rest of the sentence. They are usually followed by an exclamation point. [6] Internal conflict Internal rhyme Interpretation Intertextuality Refers to the way in which different works of literature interact with and relate to one another in order to construct meaning. [6] Intuitive description Irony Jacobean era Jeremiad Ji-amari The use of one or more extra syllabic units (on) above the 5/7 standard in Japanese poetic forms such as waka and haiku. [20] Jintishi Jitarazu The use of fewer syllabic units (on) than the 5/7 standard in Japanese poetic forms such as waka and haiku. [21] Journal Judicial criticism Jueju Juggernaut Juncture (literature) Juvenalian satire Juxtaposition Kabuki Kafkaesque Katharsis Kenning Kigo In Japanese poetry, a seasonal word or phrase required in haiku and renku [22] King's English Kireji In Japanese poetry, a "cutting word" required in haiku and hokku [23] Kitsch Künstlerroman Lai Lake Poets Lament Lampoon L'art pour l'art Laureate Lay Leaf Legend Legitimate theater Leonine rhyme Lexis Letters Level stress (even accent) Libretto Light ending Light poetry Light rhyme Light stress Light poetry Limerick Linguistics Linked rhyme Link sonnet Literary ballad Literary criticism Literary epic Literary fauvism Literary realism Literary theory Literature Litotes Litterateur Liturgical drama Living Newspaper Local color Logaoedic Logical fallacy Logical stress Logos Long metre Long poem Loose sentence Lost Generation Low comedy Lullaby Lune Lushi Lyric A short poem with a song-like quality, or designed to be set to music; often conveying feelings, emotions, or personal thoughts. [7] Macaronic language Madrigal (poetry) Magic realism Malapropism Maqama Märchen Marginalia Marinism Marivauge Marxist literary criticism Masculine ending Masculine rhyme Masked comedy Masque Maxim Meaning Medieval drama Meiosis Melic poetry Melodrama A work that is characterized by extravagant theatricality and by the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization [9] Memoir Menippean satire Mesostich Metaphor Making a comparison between two unlike things without using the words like, as, or than. [7] Metaphysical conceit Metaphorical language Metaphysical poets Meter Metonymy Metre Metrical accent Metrical foot Metrical structure Microcosm Middle Comedy Miles gloriosus Miltonic sonnet Mime Mimesis Minnesang Minstrel Mystery play (miracle play) Miscellanies Mise en scène Mixed metaphor Mock-heroic (mock epic) Mode Modernism Monodrama Monody Monogatari Monograph Monologue Monometer (monopody) Monostich Monograph Mood Mora Moral Morality play Motif Motivation Movement Mummery Muses Musical comedy Muwashshah A multi-lined strophic verse form which flourished in Islamic Spain in the 11th century, written in Arabic or Hebrew [24] Mystery play Mythology Narrative point of view Narrator Naturalism A theory or practice in literature emphasizing scientific observation of life without idealization and often including elements of determinism [9] Neologism The creation of new words, some arising from acronyms, word combinations, direct translations, and the addition of prefixes or suffixes. [4] Non-fiction Non-fiction novel Novel A genre of fiction that relies on narrative and possesses a considerable length, an expected complexity, and a sequential organization of action into story and plot distinctively. This genre is flexible in form, although prose is the standard, focuses around one or more characters, and is continuously reshaped and reformed by a speaker. [1] Novelette Novella Novelle Narrative poem Objective correlative Objective criticism Obligatory scene Octameter Octave Octet An eight line stanza of poetry. [6] Ode A lyrical poem, sometimes sung, that focuses on the glorification of a single subject and its meaning. Often has an irregular stanza structure. [9] Oedipus complex Onomatopoeia Open couplet Oulipo Orchestra Ottava rima A verse form in which a stanza has eight iambic pentameter lines following the rhyme scheme abababcc. An ottava rima was often used for long narratives, especially epics and mock heroic poems. [1] Oxymoron Palinode Pantoum Pantun Parable Paraclausithyron Paradelle Paradox Paraphrase Pararhyme Paratactic Combining of various syntactic units, usually prepositions, without the use of conjunctions to form short and simple phrases. [7] Partimen Pastourelle Past Perfect a verb tense that expresses an idea that something [in the past] occurred before another action [also in the past]. This tense [requires] the helping, or auxiliary word "had". For example, "you had studied French before you went to Paris." [6] Past Tense the grammatical form of a verb used to indicate that the time of the action occurred before the moment of writing. [4][25] Pathetic fallacy Pathya Vat Parallelism Parody Pastoral A work depicting an idealized vision of the rural life of shepherds. [6] Pathos Pentameter In poetry, a line of verse containing five metric feet or accents. [9] Phrase A sequence of two or more words, forming a unit.In the poem “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Coleridge, the words “pleasure-dome” is a phrase read not only in this poem, but also in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” when she uses also uses the phrase. [9] Periodical literature Peripetia Perspective Persona Personification Phronesis Pièce bien faite Picaresque novel Plain Style Platonic Plot Poem Poem and song Poetic diction Poetic transrealism Poetry Point of view Polysyndeton Post-colonialism Postmodernism Pound's Ideogrammic Method Present Perfect A verb tense that describes actions just finished or continuing from the past into the present. This can also imply that past actions have present effects. [6] Primal scene Procatalepsis Prolepsis An interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media [11] Prologue Progymnasmata Pronoun Can be used in place of a noun or, in some cases, another pronoun. [4] Prose Prosimetrum Prosody (poetry) Protagonist Proverb Pruning poem Psalm Psychoanalytic literary criticism Psychoanalytic theory Pun Purple prose Purpose for Reading Pyrrhic Quatrain Quintain Reader-response criticism Realism Redaction Red herring Refrain Regency novel Regionalism (literature) Renga A genre of Japanese collaborative poetry [26] Renku In Japanese poetry, a form of popular collaborative linked verse formerly known as haikai no renga, or haikai [27] Renshi A form of collaborative poetry pioneered by Makoto Ooka in Japan in the 1980s [28] Repetition Resolution Reverse chronology Rhapsodes Rhetoric Rhetorical agency Rhetorical device Rhetorical operations Rhetorical question Rhetorical tension Rhyme Rhymed prose Rhyme royal Rhythm A measured pattern of words and phrases arranged by sound, time, or events. These patterns are [created] in verse or prose by use of stressed and unstressed syllables. [1][17] Rising action Robinsonade Romance (heroic literature) Romance novel Romanticism Romanzo d' appendice Roman à clef Round character Round-robin story Ruritanian romance Russian formalism Saj' Satire Scanning Scansion Scene Scènes à faire Sea shanty Semiotic literary criticism Semiotics Senry. Serial Sestet Setting Shadorma Shakespearean sonnet Shanty Sicilian octave Simile A comparison of two different things that utilizes “like” or “as”. [6] Slant rhyme Slice of life Skaz Sobriquet Soliloquy Sonnet A 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter. There are two types of sonnets: Shakespearean and Italian. The Shakespearean sonnet is written with 3 quatrain and a couplet in abab, cdcd, efef, gg rhythmic pattern. An Italian sonnet is written in 2 stanzas with an octave followed by a septet in abba, abba, cdecde or cdcdcd rhythmic pattern. [6] Sonneteer Speaker Spondee A foot consisting of two syllables of approximately equal stress. [6] Spenserian stanza Sprung rhythm Stanza Group of lines offset by a space and then continuing with the next group of lines with a set pattern or number of lines. [6] Static character Stigma of print Stereotype Stichic Adjective describing poetry with lines of the same meter and length throughout, but not organized into regular stanzas. Example: Form of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight" [1] Strambotto Stream of consciousness Structuralism Subjunctive Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred. Subjunctive verbs are often found in "that" phrases. The verb requires "that" to follow it e.g. 'He insisted that was the wrong way'. [4] Sublime Adjective meaning an immeasurable experience, unable to be rationalized. [1] Subplot Syllogism Symbolism Synecdoche A term where an entire idea is expressed by something smaller, such as a phrase or a single word; one part of the idea expresses the whole. This concept can also be reversed. [6] Synaesthesia Syntax The study of how words are arranged in a sentence. Ex.- Line 68 of Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode,” is difficult to determine its syntax because of the way the words are arranged: “Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower.” The word “wedding” could be seen as a verb or a noun. [1] Tautology Tableau Tail rhyme Tagelied Tale Tanka In Japanese poetry, a short poem in the form 5,7,5,7,7 syllabic units [29] Tan-renga In Japanese poetry, a tanka where the upper part is composed by one poet, and the lower part by another [30] Techne Telestich A telestich is a poem or other form of writing in which the last letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message. [31] Tenor Tension Tercet Terza rima Tetrameter Tetrastich Text Textual criticism Textuality Texture Theater of Cruelty Theater of the Absurd Theme Thesis Thesis play Third person narrative Threnody Tirade Tone Tornada In Occitan lyric poetry, a final, shorter stanza (cobla), addressed to a patron, lady, or friend [32] Tract Tractarian Movement Tragedy Tragedy of blood Tragic flaw Tragic hero Tragic irony Tragicomedy Tranche de vie Transcendentalism Transferred epithet Transition Translation Travesty Tribe of Ben Tribrach Trimeter Triolet Triple rhyme Triple meter Triple rhythm Triplet Tristich Tritagonist Trivium Trobar clus Trochee Trochee A two syllable foot with the accent syllable on the first foot. [1][6] Trope (literature) Troubadour Trouvère Tuckerization Truncated line Tumbling verse Type character Type scene Ubi sunt Underground culture Underground press Understatement Unities Unity Universality (disambiguation) University Wits Unobtainium Uta monogatari Utopia Utopian and dystopian fiction Unreliable narrator Variable syllable Variorum Varronian satire (Menippean satire) Vates Vaudeville Vehicle Verb displacement Verbal irony Verisimilitude Verism Vers de société Vers libre Verse Verse paragraph Versiprose Verso Victorianism Viewpoint Vignette Villain Villanelle Virelay Virgule Voice (of the writer) Voice (in phonetics) Volta A turn or switch that emphasizes a change in ideas or emotions. It can be marked by the words “but” or “yet.” In a sonnet, this change separates the octave from the sestet. [33] Vorticism Vulgate The use of informal, common speech, particularly of uneducated people. Similar to the use of vernacular. [9] Waka Wardour Street English Weak ending Weak foot Well-made play Wellerism Western fiction Wit Word accent Wrenched accent Watermark Za The site of a renga session; also, the sense of dialogue and community present in such a session [34] Zappai




The Basics
Characterization: The ways individual characters are represented by the narrator or author of a text. This includes descriptions of the characters’ physical appearances, personalities, actions, interactions, and dialogue.
Dialogue: Spoken exchanges between characters in a dramatic or literary work, usually between two or more speakers.
Genre: A kind of literature. For instance, comedy, mystery, tragedy, satire, elegy, romance, and epic are all genres. Texts frequently draw elements from multiple genres to create dynamic narratives. Alastair Fowler uses the following elements to define genres: organizational features (chapters, acts, scenes, stanzas); length; mood (the gothic novel tends to be moody and dark); style (a text can be high, low, or in-between depending on its audience); the reader’s role (readers of a mystery are expected to interpret evidence); and the author’s reason for writing (an epithalamion is a poem composed for marriage) (Mickics 132-3).
Imagery: A term used to describe an author’s use of vivid descriptions “that evoke sense-impressions by literal or figurative reference to perceptible or ‘concrete’ objects, scenes, actions, or states” (Baldick 121). Imagery can refer to the literal landscape or characters described in a narrative or the theoretical concepts an author employs.
Plot: The sequence of events that occur through a work to produce a coherent narrative or story.
Point of View: The perspective (visual, interpretive, bias, etc) a text takes when presenting its plot and narrative. For instance, an author might write a narrative from a specific character’s point of view, which means that that character is our narrative and readers experience events through his or her eyes.
Style: Comprised of an author’s diction, syntax, tone, characters, and other narrative techniques, “style” is used to describe the way an author uses language to convey his or her ideas and purpose in writing. An author’s style can also be associated to the genre or mode of writing the author adopts, such as in the case of a satire or elegy with would adopt a satirical or elegiac style of writing.
Symbol(ism): An object or element incorporated into a narrative to represent another concept or concern. Broadly, representing one thing with another. Symbols typically recur throughout a narrative and offer critical, though often overlooked, information about events, characters, and the author’s primary concerns in telling the story.
Theme:  According to Baldick, a theme may be defined as “a salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-matter; or a topic recurring in a number or literary works” (Baldick 258). Themes in literature tend to differ depending on author, time period, genre, style, purpose, etc.
Tone: A way of communicating information (in writing, images, or sound) that conveys an attitude. Authors convey tone through a combination of word-choice, imagery, perspective, style, and subject matter. By adopting a specific tone, authors can help readers accurately interpret meaning in a text.
Types of narrative: The narrator is the voice telling the story or speaking to the audience. However, this voice can come from a variety of different perspectives, including:
First person: A story told from the perspective of one or several characters, each of whom typically uses the word “I.” This means that readers “see” or experience events in the story through the narrator’s eyes.
Second person: A narrative perspective that typically addresses that audience using “you.” This mode can help authors address readers and invest them in the story.
Third person: Describes a narrative told from the perspective of an outside figure who does not participate directly in the events of a story. This mode uses “he,” “she,” and “it” to describe events and characters.
Types of Prose Texts
Bildungsroman: This is typically a type of novel that depicts an individual’s coming-of-age through self-discovery and personal knowledge. Such stories often explore the protagonists’ psychological and moral development. Examples include Dickens’ Great Expectations and Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.
Epistolary: A novel comprised primarily of letters sent and received by its principle characters. This type of novel was particularly popular during the eighteenth century.
Essay: According to Baldick, “a short written composition in prose that discusses a subject or proposes an argument without claiming to be a complete or thorough exposition” (Baldick 87). A notable example of the essay form is Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” which uses satire to discuss eighteenth-century economic and social concerns in Ireland.
Novella: An intermediate-length (between a novel and a short story) fictional narrative.
Terms for Interpreting Authorial Voice
Apology: Often at the beginning or conclusion of a text, the term “apology” refers to an instance in which the author or narrator justifies his or her goals in producing the text.
Irony: Typically refers to saying one thing and meaning the opposite, often to shock audiences and emphasize the importance of the truth.
Satire: A style of writing that mocks, ridicules, or pokes fun at a person, belief, or group of people in order to challenge them. Often, texts employing satire use sarcasm, irony, or exaggeration to assert their perspective.
Stream of consciousness: A mode of writing in which the author traces his or her thoughts verbatim into the text. Typically, this style offers a representation of the author’s exact thoughts throughout the writing process and can be used to convey a variety of different emotions or as a form of pre-writing.
Terms for Interpreting Characters
Antagonist: A character or characters in a text with whom the protagonist opposes.
Anti-hero: A protagonist of a story who embodies none of the qualities typically assigned to traditional heroes and heroines. Not to be confused with the antagonist of a story, the anti-hero is a protagonist whose failings are typically used to humanize him or her and convey a message about the reality of human existence.
Archetype: “a resonant figure or mythic importance, whether a personality, place, or situation, found in diverse cultures and different historical periods” (Mickics 24). Archetypes differ from allegories because they tend to reference broader or commonplace (often termed “stock”) character types, plot points, and literary conventions. Paying attention to archetypes can help readers identify what an author may posit as “universal truths” about life, society, human interaction, etc. based on what other authors or participants in a culture may have said about them.
Epithet: According to Taafe, “An adjective, noun, or phase expressing some characteristic quality of a thing or person or a descriptive name applied to a person, as Richard the Lion-Hearted” (Taafe 58). An epithet usually indicates some notable quality about the individual with whom it addresses, but it can also be used ironically to emphasize qualities that individual might actually lack.
Personification: The use of a person to represent a concept, quality, or object. Personification can also refer to “a person who is considered a representative type of a particular quality or concept” (Taafe 120).
Protagonist: The primary character in a text, often positioned as “good” or the character with whom readers are expected to identify. Protagonists usually oppose an antagonist.
Terms for Interpreting Word Choice, Dialogue, and Speech
Alliteration: According to Baldick, “The repetition of the same sounds—usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllabus—in any sequence of neighboring words” (Baldick 6). Alliteration is typically used to convey a specific tone or message.
Apostrophe: This figure of speech refers to an address to “a dead or absent person, or an abstraction or inanimate object” and is “usually employed for emotional emphasis, can become ridiculous [or humorous] when misapplied” (Baldick 17).
Diction: Word choice, or the specific language an author, narrator, or speaker uses to describe events and interact with other characters.
Terms for Interpreting Plot
Climax: The height of conflict and intrigue in a narrative. This is when events in the narrative and characters’ destines are most unclear; the climax often appears as a decision the protagonist must make or a challenge he or she must overcome in order to for the narrative obtain resolution.
Denouement: The “falling action” of a narrative, when the climax and central conflicts are resolved and a resolution is found. In a play, this is typically the last act and in a novel it might include the final chapters.
Deus Ex Machina: According to Taafe, “Literally, in Latin, the ‘god from the machine’; a deity in Greek and Roman drama who was brought in by stage machinery to intervene in the action; hence, any character, event, or device suddenly introduce to resolve the conflict” (43).
Exposition: Usually located at the beginning of a text, this is a detailed discussion introducing characters, setting, background information, etc. readers might need to know in order to understand the text that follows. This section is particularly rich for analysis because it contains a lot of important information in a relatively small space.
Frame Narrative: a story that an author encloses around the central narrative in order to provide background information and context. This is typically referred to as a “story within a story” or a “tale within a tale.” Frame stories are usually located in a distinct place and time from the narratives they surround. Examples of stories with frame narratives include Canterbury Tales, Frankenstein, and Wuthering Heights.
In media res: Beginning in “the middle of things,” or when an author begins a text in the midst of action. This often functions as a way to both incorporate the reader directly into the narrative and secure his or her interest in the narrative that follows.
Terms for Interpreting Layers of Meaning
Allegory: a literary mode that attempts to convert abstract concepts, values, beliefs, or historical events into characters or other tangible elements in a narrative. Examples include, Gulliver’s Travels, The Faerie Queene, Pilgrim’s Progress, and Paradise Lost.
Allusion: When a text references, incorporates, or responds to an earlier piece (including literature, art, music, film, event, etc). T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) offers an extensive example of allusion in literature. According to Baldick, “The technique of allusion is an economical means of calling upon the history or the literary tradition that author and reader are assumed to share” (7).
Hyperbole: exaggerated language, description, or speech that is not meant to be taken literally, but is used for emphasis. For instance, “I’ve been waiting here for ages” or “This bag weighs a ton.”
Metaphor: a figure of speech that refers to one thing by another in order to identify similarities between the two (and therefore define each in relation to one another).
Metonymy: a figure of speech that substitutes one aspect or attribute for the whole itself. For instance, referring to a woman as “a skirt” or the sea as “the deep.” Doing so can not only evoke a specific tone (determined by the attribute being emphasized or the thing to which it refers), but also comments on the importance of the specific element that is doing the substituting.
Parody: a narrative work or writing style that mocks or mimics another genre or work. Typically, parodies exaggerate and emphasize elements from the original work in order to ridicule, comment on, or criticize their message.
Simile: a figure of speech that compares two people, objects, elements, or concepts using “like” or “as.”