Flashback: a narrative device that
flashes back to prior events.
Foil: a person or thing that, by
contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent.
Folk Tale: story passed on by
word of mouth.
Foreshadowing: in fiction and
drama, a device to prepare the reader for the outcome of the action; “planning”
to make the outcome convincing, though not to give it away.
Free Verse: verse without
conventional metrical pattern, with irregular pattern or no rhyme.
Genre: a category or class of
artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, or content.
Gothic Tale: a style in
literature characterized by gloomy settings, violent or grotesque action, and a
mood of decay, degeneration, and decadence.
Hyperbole: an exaggerated
statement often used as a figure of speech or to prove a point.
Imagery: figures of speech or
vivid description, conveying images through any of the senses.
Implication: a meaning or
understanding that is to be arrive at by the reader but that is not fully and
explicitly stated by the author.
Incongruity: the deliberate
joining of opposites or of elements that are not appropriate to each other.
Inference: a judgement or
conclusion based on evidence presented; the forming of an opinion which
possesses some degree of probability according to facts already available.
Irony: a contrast or incongruity
between what is said and what is meant, or what is expected to happen and what
actually happens, or what is thought to be happening and what is actually
happening.
Interior Monologue: a form of
writing which represents the inner thoughts of a character; the recording of
the internal, emotional experience(s) of an individual; generally the reader is
given the impression of overhearing the interior monologue.
Inversion: words out of order for
emphasis.
Juxtaposition: the intentional
placement of a word, phrase, sentences of paragraph to contrast with another
nearby.
Lyric: a poem having musical form
and quality; a short outburst of the author’s innermost thoughts and feelings.
Magic(al) Realism: a genre developed in Latin America which
juxtaposes the everyday with the
marvelous or magical.
Metaphor(extended, controlling,
and mixed): an analogy that compare two different
things imaginatively.
Extended: a metaphor that is
extended or developed as far as the writer
wants to take it.
Controlling: a metaphor that runs
throughout the piece of work.
Mixed: a metaphor that
ineffectively blends two or more analogies.
Metonymy: literally “name changing” a device of
figurative language in which the name of an attribute or associated thing is
substituted for the usual name of a thing.
Mode of Discourse: argument (persuasion), narration,
description, and exposition.
Modernism: literary movement characterized by stylistic
experimentation, rejection of tradition, interest in symbolism and psycholog
Monologue: an extended speech by a character in a play,
short story, novel, or narrative poem
Mood: the predominating atmosphere evoked by a
literary piece.
Motif: a recurring feature (name, image, or phrase)
in a piece of literature.
Myth: a story, often about immortals, and sometimes
connected with religious rituals, that attempts to give meaning to the
mysteries of the world.
Narrative: a story or description of events.
Narrator: one who narrates, or tells, a story.
Naturalism: extreme form of
realism.
Novelette/Novella: short story;
short prose narrative, often satirical.
Omniscient Point of View: knowing all things, usually the third person
Onomatopoeia: use of a word whose
sound in some degree imitates or suggests its
meaning.
Oxymoron: a figure of speech in
which two contradicting words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical
effect by means of a concise paradox
Pacing: rate of movement; tempo
Parable: a story designed to convey some religious
principle, moral lesson, or general truth.
Paradox: a statement apparently self-contradictory or
absurd but really containing a possible truth; an opinion contrary to generally
accepted ideas.
Parallelism: the principle in
sentence structure that states elements of equal function should have equal
form.
Parody: an imitation of mimicking of a composition or
of the style of a well-known artist.
Pathos: the ability in literature to call forth
feelings of pity, compassion, and/or sadness.
Pedantry: a display of learning
for its own sake.
Personification: a figure of
speech attributing human qualities to inanimate objects or abstract ideas.
Plot: a plan or scheme to
accomplish a purpose
Poignant: eliciting sorrow or sentiment.
Point of View: the attitude
unifying any oral or written argumentation; in description, the physical point
from which the observer views what he is describing.
Postmodernism: literature
characterized by experimentation, irony, nontraditional forms, multiple
meanings, playfulness and a blurred boundary between real and imaginary.
Prose: the ordinary form of spoken and written
language; language that does not have a regular rhyme pattern.
Protagonist: the central
character in a work of fiction; opposes antagonist.
Pun: play on words; the humorous use of a word
emphasizing different meanings or applications.
Purpose: the intended result
wished by an author.
Realism: writing about the ordinary aspects of life in
a straightfoward manner to reflect life as it actually is.
Refrain: a phrase or verse recurring at intervals in a
poem or song; chorus.
Requiem: any chant, dirge, hymn, or musical service
for the dead.
Resolution: point in a literary work at which
the chief dramatic complication is worked out; denouement.
Restatement: idea repeated for
emphasis.
Rhetoric: use of language, both
written and verbal in order to persuade.
Rhetorical Question: question suggesting
its own answer or not requiring an answer; used in argument or persuasion.
Romanticism: movement in western culture beginning in the
eighteenth and peaking in the nineteenth century as a revolt against
Classicism; imagination was valued over reason and fact.
Satire:
ridicules or condemns the weakness and wrong doings of individuals,
groups, institutions, or humanity in general.
Scansion: the analysis of verse
in terms of meter.
Setting: the time and place in
which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem occur
Simile: a figure of speech comparing two essentially
unlike things through the use of a specific word of comparison.
Soliloquy: an extended speech,
usually in a drama, delivered by a character alone on stage.
Spiritual: a folk song, usually
on a religious theme.
Speaker: a narrator, the one
speaking.
Stereotype: cliché; a simplified,
standardized conception with a special meaning and appeal for members of a
group; a formula story.
Stream of Consciousness: the
style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s
thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images, as the character
experiences them.
Structure: the planned framework
of a literary selection; its apparent organization.
Style: the manner of putting thoughts into words; a
characteristic way of writing or speaking.
Subordination: the couching of
less important ideas in less important
structures of language.
Surrealism: a style in literature
and painting that stresses the subconscious or the nonrational aspects of man’s
existence characterized by the juxtaposition of the bizarre and the banal
Suspension of Disbelief: suspend
not believing in order to enjoy it.
Symbol: something which stands
for something else, yet has a meaning of its own.
Synesthesia: the use of one sense
to convey the experience of another sense.
Synecdoche: another form of name
changing, in which a part stands for the whole.
Syntax: the arrangement and
grammatical relations of words in a sentence.
Theme: main idea of the story; its message(s).
Thesis: a proposition for
consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved
or disproved; the main idea.
Tone: the devices used to create
the mood and atmosphere of a literary work; the
author’s perceived point of view.
Tongue in Cheek: a type of humor
in which the speaker feigns seriousness; a.k.a. “dry” or “dead pan”
Tragedy: in literature: any
composition with a somber theme carried to a disastrous conclusion; a fatal
event; protagonist usually is heroic but tragically (fatally) flawed
Understatement: opposite of
hyperbole; saying less than you mean for emphasis
Vernacular: everyday speech
Voice: The textual features, such as diction and
sentence structures, that convey a writer’s or speaker’s pesona
Zeitgeist: the feeling of a
particular era in history