Literary TermsFlashcards

This occurs when the reader/ audience knows something that

the character(s) in the story do not know.

Dramatic Irony

The series of related events that make up a story.

Plot

Literature (along with film and music) is broken down into these

different categories.

Genre

A person, a place, a thing, or an event (a concrete visible object) that has its own meaning AND

stands for something beyond itself (an invisible object or idea with a

deeper meaning) as well.

Symbol

A figure of speech in which a nonhuman or nonliving thing or

quality is talked about as if it were human or alive.

Personification

A person or character that is considered to be the main character

in a novel, play, story, or poem.

Protagonist

This is a very broad term and refers to a type of language or writing that does

not want the reader to take things literally. It is a word or a phrase that

describes one thing in terms of another and is not literally true.

Figurative Language

The literal dictionary definition of a word.

Denotation

The repetition of the same or very similar consonant sounds at the

beginning of words that are close together.

Alliteration

A person or character that deceives, frustrates, or somehow works against the main character.

Antagonist

An interruption in the action of a plot to tell something of importance which happened at an earlier time.

Flashback

The feelings, emotions, and associations that a word suggests. (positive, negative, or neutral)

Connotation

A person or animal who takes part in the action of a story, play, or other literary work. (The ways in which the author develops that

person or animal in a story.)

Character/ Characterization

This term is a type of figurative language where one uses an extreme exaggeration for dramatic effect.

Hyperbole

A struggle or clash between opposing characters or opposing

forces. This type is when a character struggles against some outside force.

External Conflict

An imaginative comparison between two unlike things in which one thing is said to be another thing. A figure of speech.

Metaphor

A truth about life revealed in a work of literature.

Theme

An all-knowing perspective from which a story is told.

Omniscient Point of View

A perspective from which a story is told where the narrator only focuses on one characters thoughts and feelings.

3rd Person Point of View

A perspective from which a story is told in which the narrator is telling the story him or herself, using the person pronoun “I”.

1st Person Point of View

A story that attempts to explain something about the world or how something was created and typically involves gods or other

superhuman beings.

Myth

Involving a contrast between what is said or written and what is meant: sarcasm.

Verbal Irony

The use of clues to suggest events that will happen later in the plot.

Foreshadowing

A struggle or clash between opposing characters or opposing forces. This type

is when the struggle is within the character’s own mind.

Internal Conflict

An example of figurative language in which a comparison between two unlike things is made, using a connecting word such

as “like” or “as”.

Simile

The time and place in which the events of a work of literature take place.

Setting

An educated guess, a conclusion that makes sense because it is supported by evidence. (What you know + what you read =

inference)

Inference

A reference, found in a story, to a statement a person, a place, or an event

from literature, history, religion, mythology, politics, sports, or science.

Allusion

Occurs when what happens in a story is very different than what was expected to occur.

Situational Irony

A conversation between two or more characters.

Dialogue