literary terms power point

8/2/2019 Literary Terms Power Point

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Literary Terms


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Allegory:

A story which has meaning onboth the literal and

figurative or moral level.

e.g. Young Goodman Brown

Scarlet LetterStar Wars


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Alliteration:

The repetition of sounds in agroup of words as in

Peter Piper Picked a Peck of

Pickled Peppers.


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Allusion:

A reference to a person, place,or thing--often literary,mythological, or historical. The

infinitive of allusion isto allude.

e.g. Romeo alludes to themythological figure Diana in the

balcony scene.


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Antagonist:

A major character whoopposes the protagonist in a

story or play.


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Archetype:

A character who representsa certain type of person.

e.g. mother/father figure

hero/heroinethe know-it-all


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Assonance:The repetition of vowel

sounds as inAnd so, all the night-tide, I lie downby the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life andmy bride.--Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee


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Atmosphere:

The overall feeling of a work,which is related to tone and

mood.


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Audience:The audience for a piece ofliterature may be a single

person or a group of people. To

what person or group is thetext directed?


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Blank verse:

Unrhymed lines of poetryusually in iambic pentameter.Plenty of modern poetry is

written in blank verse.


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Characterization:The means by which an

author establishes character.

An author may directlydescribe the appearance and

personality of character orshow it through action ordialogue.


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Climax:

The point at which the actionin a story or play reaches itsemotional peak.


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Conflict:

The struggle in the story.Traditionally, there are four main

conflicts:person vs. self (internal)

person vs. person (external)person vs. society (external)person vs. nature (external)


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Consonance:

The repetition of consonant sounds

as inThe fair breeze blew, the white

foam flew,The furrow followed free;

--The Rime of the Ancient Mariner


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Contrast:To explain how two things

differ. To compare andcontrast is to explain how

two things are alike and howthey are different.


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Couplets:A pair of rhyming lines in a

poem often set off from therest of the poem.Shakespeares sonnets all end

in couplets.


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Denouement:

The resolution of the conflict in aplot after the climax. It also

refers to the resolution of the

action in a story or play after theprincipal drama is resolved.

e.g. Romeo and Juliets familiesdecide to build statues after

their death.


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Diction

1)Word choice.2) The authors choice of words.

An author has the option ofchoosing any word from our

language, why does he/she chooseto use certain words and notothers? In order to create a

certain tone.


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Denotation

1)The definition of a word foundin the dictionary.

2)Literal meaning of a word.3) The verb form is to denote

which means to mean.e.g. The word indolencedenotes laziness.


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Connotation

1)The definition of a word foundoutside of the dictionary.

2)Figurative meaning of a word.

3) The verb form is to connotewhich means to suggest or imply a

meaning beyond the literal meaning of

a word.e.g. The word cool connotes

an awesome or exciting thing.


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ClaimWhat the writer wants to

prove. Also called anassertion, position, or thesis.


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Counter-claim or

Counter-argumentAn opinion that challenges

the reasoning behind aposition and shows that there

are grounds for having anopposite view.


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Dramatic Monologue:

A poem in which the speakerreveals his or her character

through an extended speechor a one-way dialogue.

e.g. Brownings My Last Duchess


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Elegy:

A poem mourning the dead.


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End rhyme:

Rhyming words that are atthe ends of their respectivelineswhat we typically think

of as normal rhyme.


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Epic:

A long poem narrating theadventures of a heroic figure

e.g. Homers The Odyssey.


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Fable:

A story that illustrates a moraloften using animals as

characters

e.g. The Tortoise and the Hare


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Figurative Language:

Whenever you describe something bycomparing it with something else, you are

using figurative language. Any language that

goes beyond the literal meaning of words inorder to furnish new effects or fresh

insights into an idea or a subject.e.g. Whenever you call something cool,

youre not talking about its temperature but

referring to some other quality it possesses.


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Foreshadowing:

A technique in which an authorgives clues about somethingthat will happen later in the

story.


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Free Verse:

Poetry with no setmeter (rhythm) or

rhyme scheme.


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Genre:A term used to describe a

particular category or type ofliterature. Some literary

genres are mysteries,westerns, and romances.


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Hyperbole:

An extreme exaggeration.

e.g. To say that it took youhours to walk home when in

reality it was only 10 minswould be a hyperbole.


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Iambic pentameter:

Ten-syllable lines in whichevery other syllable is

stressed.-

e.g. With eyes like starsupon the brave night air.

I


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Imagery:

The use of description that helps thereader imagine how something looks,sounds, feels, smells, or tastes. Mostof the time, it refers to appearance.

e.g. Tita was so sensitive to onions, any timethey were being chopped, they say she would

just cry and cry; when she was still in mygreat-grandmothers belly her sobs were soloud that even Nacha, the cook, who was

half-deaf, could hear them easily.--Like Water for Chocolate


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Internal rhyme:

A rhyme that occurs withinone line such as Hes King of

the Swing.


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Irony:

Language that conveys a certainidea by saying just the opposite.

e.g. Saying that you love

someones shirt when you reallythink its ugly is being ironic.


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Literal Language:

Language that means exactlywhat it says.


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Lyric:A type of poetry that

expresses the poetsemotions. It often tells some

sort of brief story, engagingthe reader in the experience.


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Logos:An appeal to the audiences

logiccommon senseinrhetoric.


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Ethos:An appeal to the audiences

ethicsknowing right fromwrongin rhetoric.


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Pathos:An appeal to the audiences

emotions in rhetoric.


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Metaphor:

A comparison of two unlikethings using any form of the

verb to be-i.e. am, are, is,was, were.

Ex: This chair is a rock, orI am an island.


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Meter:

The pattern of stressed andunstressed syllables in thelines of a poem.


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Monologue:

A long speech by onecharacter in a play or story.


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Mood:

The feeling created in the

reader by a literary work orpassage. The mood may besuggested by the writer's choice

of words, by events in the work,or by the physical setting.


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Motif:A recurrent image, word,

phrase, or action that tends tounify the literary work or that

forms the theme in a work ofliterature.


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Myth:

A legend that embodies thebeliefs of people and offerssome explanation for natural

and social phenomena.


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Onomatopoeia:

The use of words that soundlike what they mean such as

buzz, bang, or tic-tock.

P d


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Paradox:

a statement that is apparentlyself-contradictory or absurdbut really contains a possible

truth.

e.g. Cowards die many timesbefore their deaths.--Shakespeares Julius Caesar


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Parallelism:

The use of similar grammatical structure foreffect.

e.g. I came,

I saw,I conquered.

Also, a requirement in grammar to use thesame grammatical form for cojoined ideas.

e.g. We went biking, sailing, and hiking on our trip,

not We went biking, sailing, and hiked on our trip.


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Parody:

A humorous, exaggeratedimitation of a work of

literature.


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Personification:Giving inanimate objects

human characteristics.

e.g. The wind howledthrough the night.


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Plot:

The series of events thatform the story.


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Point of View (P.O.V):

The perspective from which thestory is told. Narrators of stories cantake on three points of view:

1st

person= I/we2nd person= you3rd person= he/she, they/them

Omniscient Point of viewThe narrator is an all-knowingoutsider who can enter the minds of

all of the characters.


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Prose:Writing organized into

sentences and paragraphsthat is not poetry.

e.g. Novels and short storiesare examples of prose.


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Protagonist:

The main character of anovel, play, or story.


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Pun:

The use of a word in a way thatplays on its different meanings.

e.g. Noticing the bunch of

bananas, the hungry gorilla wentape.


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Quatrain:A four-line stanza.


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Rhetorical Question:

A question not meant to be answered butasked solely to produce an effect or to make a

statement. The purpose to such a question,whose answer is obvious, is usually to make a

deeper impression upon the hearer or readerthan a direct statement would. Its effect is to

make the reader stop and think about what is

being asked.e.g. How many times have I asked you to

take out the trash?


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Sarcasm:Language that conveys a

certain idea by saying justthe opposite such as if its

raining outside and you say,My, what a beautiful day.


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Satire:

A work that makes fun of

something or someone.e.g. Swifts A Modest Proposal

The SimpsonsSouth Park


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Simile:

Comparing two unlike thingsusing like or as.

e.g. Im as hungry as a pig, or

Your eyes are like stars thatbrighten my night.


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Soliloquy:

A monologue in which acharacter expresses his or

her thoughts to the audienceand does not intend the

other characters to hearthem.


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Sonnet:

A fourteen-line poem written iniambic pentameter. Different

kinds of sonnets have differentrhyme schemes. The most notableare Shakespeares Sonnets which

employ the abab,cdcd,efef,ggrhyme scheme.


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Stanza:

A major subdivision in a

poem. A stanza of two lines iscalled a couplet; a stanza ofthree lines is called a tercet;

a stanza of four lines iscalled a quatrain.

b l


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Subplot:

The secondary action of a story, completeand interesting in its own right, thatreinforces or contrasts with the main plot.

There may be more than one subplot, andsometimes as many as three, four, or evenmore, running through a piece of fiction.

Subplots are generally either analogous tothe main plot, thereby enhancing our

understanding of it, or extraneous to the

main plot, to provide relief from it.


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Symbolism:The use of one thing to

represent another. Somethingthat stands for something else.

e.g. A dove is a symbol of peace.


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Theme:

The central idea of a work.


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Tone:

The authors attitude towardthe subject of the work. Usually

positive or negative.

e.g. The tone of a piece ofliterature could be pessimistic,optimistic, angry, or sarcastic.


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Voice:

The authorial presence in a

piece of literature whetherin the first, second, or third

person.

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