Basic Literary Terms

AAct

A main division in drama or opera. Act divisions probably arose in Roman theory and derive ultimately from the Greek practice of separating episodes in a play by choral interludes, but Greek (and probably Roman) plays were performed without interruption, for the choral interludes were part of the plays themselves.

Action

In drama, the physical movement of an actor, whether he is leaping into grave or speaking softly to himself.

Allegory

Allegory is a form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.

One well-known example of an allegory is Dante’s The Divine Comedy. In Inferno, Dante is on a pilgrimage to try to understand his own life, but his character also represents every man who is in search of his purpose in the world.

Alliteration

Alliteration is a pattern of sound that includes the repetition of consonant sounds.  The repetition can be located at the beginning of successive words or inside the words. Poets often use alliteration to audibly represent the action that is taking place.  For instance, in the Inferno, Dante states: "I saw it there, but I saw nothing in it, except the rising of the boiling bubbles". The repetition of the "b" sounds represents the sounds of bubbling, or the bursting action of the boiling pitch.

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Allusion

Allusion is a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature. Allusions are often indirect or brief references to well-known characters or events. Specific examples of allusions can be found throughout Dante’s Inferno. In a passage, Dante alludes to the Greek mythological figures, Phaethon and Icarus, to express his fear as he descends from the air into the eighth circle of hell. He states:

I doubt if Phaethon feared more - that time he dropped the sun-reins of his father's chariot and burned the streak of sky we see today -

or if poor Icarus did - feeling his sides unfeathering as the wax began to melt, his father shouting:  "Wrong, your course is wrong" (Canto XVII: 106-111).

Anagnorisis

Anagnorisis (or disclosure, discovery, recognition). For Aristotle the “recognition” or “disclosure” seems to be merely recognition of who is who, by such tokens as birthmarks, clothes, etc, but the term has been extended to include the tragic hero’s recognition of himself and/or the essence of life.

Anagram

Anagram is a word or phrase made by transposing the letters.

Example: cask to sack; weird to wired.

Analog y

Analogy is the comparison of two pairs which have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites, results of are types of relationships you should find.

Example: hot is to cold as fire is to ice OR hot: cold = fire: ice

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Anapest

In a line of poetry, two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable forming the pattern for the line or perhaps for the entire poem. The following example is by Robert Frost:

.Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of word groups occurring one after the other.

Examples: (1) Give me wine, give me women and give me song.  (2) For everything there is a season . . . a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.–Bible, Ecclesiastes. (3) To die, to sleep; to sleep: perchance to dream.–Shakespeare, Hamlet.

Anastrophe

Anastrophe is the inversion of the normal syntactic order of words.

Example:

To market went she.

Anecdote

A very short tale told by a character in a literary work. In Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," "The Miller's Tale" and "The Carpenter's Tale" are examples.

Antagonist

Antagonist is a character in a story or poem who deceives, frustrates, or works again the main character, or protagonist, in some way. The antagonist doesn’t necessarily have to be a person. It could be death, the devil, an illness, or any challenge that prevents the main character from living “happily ever after."

Anthropomorphism

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Anthropomorphism is used with God or gods. It is the act of attributing human forms or qualities to entities which are not human. Specifically, anthropomorphism is the describing of gods or goddesses in human forms and possessing human characteristics such as jealousy, hatred, or love.

Aphorism

Aphorism is a brief saying embodying a moral, a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words.

Examples: Hippocrates: Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult.Pope: Some praise at morning what they blame at night.Emerson: Imitation is suicide

Apocope

Deleting a syllable or letter from the end of a word. In The Merchant of Venice, one character says, "when I ope my lips let no dog bark," and the last syllable of open falls away into ope before the reader's eyes

Apologue

A moral fable, usually featuring personified animals or inanimate objects which act like people to allow the author to comment on the human condition. Often, the apologue highlights the irrationality of mankind. The beast fable, and the fables of Aesop are examples.

Examples: George Orwell, Animal Farm Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle Book

Apostrophe

Apostrophe is when an absent person, an abstract concept, or an important object is directly addressed.

Example: With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbest the skies. Busy old fool, unruly sun.

Aside

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Aside is an actor’s speech, directed to the audience, that is not supposed to be heard by other actors on stage. An aside is usually used to let the audience know what a character is about to do or what he or she is thinking.

Asyndeton

Use of words or phrases in a series without connectives such as and or so. Examples (1) One cause, one country, one heart.–Daniel Webster. (2) Veni, vidi, vici (Latin: I came, I saw, I conquered).–Julius Caesar.

Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds but not consonant sounds as in consonance.

Example: fleet feet sweep by sleeping geeks.

Autobiography

The story of a person's life written by himself or herself.

B

Ballad

Ballad is a narrative folk song. The ballad is traced back to the Middle Ages. Ballads were usually created by common people and passed orally due to the illiteracy of the time. Subjects for ballads include killings, feuds, important historical events, and rebellion.

Biography

The story of a person's life written by someone other than the subject of the work.

Blank Verse

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A poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Consider the following from "The Ball Poem" by John Berryman:

What is the boy now, who has lost his ball, What, what is he to do? I saw it go Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then Merrily over-there it is in the water!

Burlesque

Burlesque is a work designed to ridicule a style, literary form, or subject matter either by treating the exalted in a trivial way or by discussing the trivial in exalted terms (that is, with mock dignity). Burlesque concentrates on derisive imitation, usually in exaggerated terms.

C

Cacaphony

Cacophony is harsh, discordant sounds. Opposite of euphony.

Example: finger of birth-strangled babe.

Caesura

Caesura is a natural pause or break.

Example: England - how I long for thee!

Canon

In relation to literature, this term is half-seriously applied to those works generally accepted as the great ones.

Canto

A subdivision of an epic poem. Each of the three books of Dante Alighieri's "Divine Comedy" is divided into cantos.

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Carpe Diem

A Latin phrase which translated means "Sieze (Catch) the day," meaning "Make the most of today."

Catastrophe

The scene in a tragedy which includes the death or moral destruction of the protagonist. In the catastrophe at the end of Sophocles' "Oedipus the King," Oedipus, discovering the tragic truth about his origin and his deeds, plucks out his eyes and is condemned to spend the rest of his days a wandering beggar.

Catharsis

Aristotle and countless followers said that tragedy evokes pity and fear, and that it produces in the spectator a catharsis (purgation, or, some scholars hold, purification) of these emotions: it drains or perhaps refines or modifies these emotions, and thus tragedy is socially useful

Character

A person, or anything presented as a person, e. g., a spirit, object, animal, or natural force, in a literary work.

Characterization

Characterization is the method used by a writer to develop a character. The method includes (1) showing the character's appearance, (2) displaying the character's actions, (3) revealing the character's thoughts, (4) letting the character speak, and (5) getting the reactions of others.

Chiasmus 

Words in a second clause or phrase that invert or transpose the order of the first clause or phrase. Here are examples:

I come from the rural north, from the urban south comes she. John is a good worker, and a bright student is Mary. A fop their passion, but their prize a sot.–Alexander Pope. Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike–Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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Chorus

In Greek drama, a group of performers who play a role.

Classicism

In literature, a tradition espousing the ideals of ancient Greece and Rome: objectivity, emotional restraint, systematic thinking, simplicity, clarity, universality, dignity, acceptance of established social standards, promotion of the general welfare, and strict adherence to formal rules of composition.

Cliché

Overused expression. Examples: raining cats and dogs, snug as a bug in a rug, chills running up and down my spine, warm as toast, short and sweet. Writers should avoid using clichés whenever possible.

Climax

The decisive moment in a work of fiction/ story/ play. The climax is the turning point of the story/ play to which the rising action leads.

Closet Drama

A drama written to be read rather than acted on a stage. An example is Samson Agonistes, by John Milton, a 1671 tragedy about the final days of the biblical hero Samson.Comedy

A literary work which is amusing and ends happily. Modern comedies tend to be funny, while Shakespearean comedies simply end well. Shakespearean comedy also contains items such as misunderstandings and mistaken identity to heighten the comic effect. Comedies may contain lovers, those who interfere with lovers, and entertaining scoundrels.

Conceit

A far-fetched simile or metaphor, a literary conceit occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things. In the following example from Act V of Shakespeare's "Richard II," the imprisoned King Richard compares his cell to the world in the following line:

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I have been studying how I may comparethis prison where I live unto the world:

Conclusion

Also called the Resolution" the conclusion is the point in a drama to which the entire play has been leading. It is the logical outcome of everything that has come before it. The conclusion stems from the nature of the characters.

Concrete Poetry

A poem that visually resembles something found in the physical world. A poem about a wormy apple written so that the words form the shape of an apple, as in the following, is an example.

Conflict

Conflict/Plot is the struggle found in fiction. Conflict/Plot may be internal or external and is best seen in (1) Man in conflict with another Man: (2) Man in conflict in Nature; (3) Man in conflict with self.

Connotation

Connotation is an implied meaning of a word. Opposite of denotation.

Example: Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest (burial)

Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, as in assonance.

Example: lady lounges lazily, dark deep dread crept in

Couplet

A stanza of two lines, usually rhyming. The following by Andrew Marvell is an example of a rhymed couplet:

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Had we but world enough and time, This coyness, lady, were no crime.

D

Dactyl

In poetry, a metrical pattern consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables as in the following example from "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred Lord Tennyson:

Denotation

Denotation is the literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning. Opposite of connotation.

Example: Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest (sleep).

Denouement

Pronounced Dee-noo-ma, the denouement is that part of a drama which follows the climax and leads to the resolution.

Deus ex Machina

Deus ex Machina (literally "god out of a machine")) is an improbable contrivance in a story. The phrase describes an artificial, or improbable, character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot (such as an angel suddenly appearing to solve problems). The term is a negative one, and it often implies a lack of skill on the part of the writer.

Deuteragonist

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In Greek drama, the character second in importance to the main character, or protagonist.

Dialogue

In drama, a conversation between characters. One interesting type of dialogue, stichomythia, occurs when the dialogue takes the form of a verbal duel between characters, as in the following between Hamlet and his mother, Gertrude. (William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" - Act 3, scene 4)

QUEEN: Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.HAMLET: Mother, you have my father much offended.QUEEN: Come, Come, you answer with an idle tongue.HAMLET: Go, Go, You question with a wicked tongue.

Diction

An author's choice of words. Since words have specific meanings, and since one's choice of words can affect feelings, a writer's choice of words can have great impact in a literary work. The writer, therefore, must choose his words carefully.

Didactic Literature

A type of literature designed explicitly to instruct as in these lines from Jacque Prevert's "To Paint the Portrait of a Bird."

Paint first a cage with an open door paint then something pretty something simple something handsome something useful for the bird

Digression

The use of material unrelated to the subject of a work. The interpolated narrations in the novels of Cervantes or Fielding may

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be called digressions, and Tristram Shandy includes a digression on digressions.

Dramatic Irony

Failure of a character to see or understand what is obvious to the audience. The most notable example of dramatic irony in all of literature occurs in Oedipux Rex, by Sophocles, when Oedipus fails to realize what the audience knows–that he married his own mother.

Dramatic Monologue

Dramatic monologue is a literary device that is used when a character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings, those that are hidden throughout the course of the story line, through a poem or a speech.

E

Elegy

A lyric poem lamenting death. These lines from Joachim Du Bellay's "Elegy on His Cat" are an example:

I have not lost my rings, my purse, My gold, my gems-my loss is worse, One that the stoutest heart must move. My pet, my joy, my little love, My tiny kitten, my Belaud, I lost, alas, three days ago.

Enjambment

The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line. For example, the first two lines here are enjambed:

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Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove. . . . --Shakespeare

Enlightenment

A philosophical movement of the eighteenth century that celebrated reason - clarity of thought and statement, scientific thinking, and a person's ability to perfect oneself. Leading figures of the Enlightenment include Voltaire, Pope, Swift, and Kant.

Epic

Epic is an extended narrative poem recounting actions, travels, adventures, and heroic episodes and written in a high style (with ennobled diction, for example). It may be written in hexameter verse, especially dactylic hexameter, and it may have twelve books or twenty four books.

Epigram

Wise or witty saying expressing a universal truth in a few words. Following are examples of epigrams from Shakespeare:

There's small choice in rotten apples.–The Taming of the Shrew: Act I, Scene I. A goodly apple rotten at the heart, O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!–The Merchant of Venice: Act I, Scene III.  They are as sick that surfeit with too much as they that starve with nothing.–The Merchant of Venice: Act I, Scene II. 

Epigraph

A brief quotation which appears at the beginning of a literary work.

Epilogue

An epilogue, or epilog, is a piece of writing at the end of a work of literature or drama, usually used to bring closure to the work. The writer or the person may deliver a speech, speaking directly to the reader, when bringing the piece to a close, or the narration may continue normally to a closing scene.

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Epiphany A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.  A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization.

Epitaph 

Inscription on a tomb or a written work praising a dead person; any commemoration, eulogy, or remembrance. 

Epithet

In literature, a word of phrase preceding or following a name which serves to describe the character. Consider the following from Book 1 of Homer's "The Iliad:"

Zeus-loved Achilles, you bid me explainThe wrath of far-smiting Apollo.

Eulogy

Speech or written work paying tribute to a person who has recently died; speech or written work praising a person (living, as well as dead), place, thing, or idea.

Euphemism

Euphemism is the substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one, as in the use of "pass away" instead of "die."

Euphony

Euphony is soothing pleasant sounds. Opposite of cacophony.

Example: O star (the fairest one in sight)

Exeunt

[EX e unt] Stage direction in a play manuscript indicating the departure of two or more characters from the stage. 

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Exposition

Exposition is a technique by which background information about the characters, events, or setting is conveyed in a novel, play, movie or other work of fiction. This information can be presented through dialogue, description, flashbacks, or even directly through narrative.

Expressionism

In literature, expressionism is a writing approach, process, or technique in which a writer depicts a character’s feelings about a subject (or the writer’s own feelings about it) rather than the objective surface reality of the subject. A writer, in effect, presents his interpretation of what he sees.

FFable

A brief tale designed to illustrate a moral lesson. Often the characters are animals as in the fables of Aesop.

Fabliau

Short verse tale with coarse humor and earthy, realistic, and sometimes obscene descriptions that present an episode in the life of contemporary middle- and lower-class people

Falling Action

The falling action is the series of events which take place after the climax.

Farce

A type of comedy based on a humorous situation such as a bank robber who mistakenly wanders into a police station to hide.

Figurative Language

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In literature, a way of saying one thing and meaning something else. Take, for example, this line by Robert Burns, My luv is a red, red rose. Clearly Mr. Burns does not really mean that he has fallen in love with a red, aromatic, many-petalled, long, thorny-stemmed plant. He means that his love is as sweet and as delicate as a rose.

Figure of Speech

An example of figurative language that states something that is not literally true in order to create an effect. Similes, metaphors and personification are figures of speech which are based on comparisons. Metonymy, synecdoche, synesthesia, apostrophe, oxymoron, and hyperbole are other figures of speech.

Flashback

A reference to an event which took place prior to the beginning of a story or play.

Foil

A character in a play who sets off the main character or other characters by comparison.

Folklore

Stories, songs, and sayings transmitted by memory (that is, orally) rather than by books or other printed documents, from one generation to the next. Folklore thrives indepently of polished, sophisticated literature in the form of ballads, fairytales, superstitions, riddles, legends, fables, plays, nursery rhymes, and proverbs.

Foot

The basic unit of measurement in a line of poetry. In scansion, a foot represents one instance of a metrical pattern and is shown either between or to the right or left of vertical lines, as in the following:

The meter in a poem is classified according both to its pattern and the number of feet to the line. Below is a list of classifications:

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monometer = one foot to a lineDimeter = two feet to a lineTrimeter = three feet to a lineTetrameter = four feet to a linePentameter = five feet to a line

Since the line above is written in iambic meter, four feet to the line, the line would be referred to as iambic tetrameter.

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is the use of hints or clues to suggest what will happen later in literature.

Frame Tale

Story with a plot structure in which an author uses two or more narrators to present the action.

Free Verse

Unrhymed Poetry with lines of varying lengths, and containing no specific metrical pattern. The poetry of Walt Whitman provides us with many examples. Consider the following lines from "Song of Myself."

I celebrate myself and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

GGasconade

Excessive boasting; incessant bragging. Perhaps the most famous braggart in all of literature is Sir John Falstaff, the rotund knight (Henry IV Part I, Henry IV Part II) who is brave in words but timid in deeds. 

Genre

A literary type or form. Drama is a genre of literature. Within drama, genre includes tragedy, comedy and other forms.

Gothic Fiction

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Literary genre focusing on dark, mysterious, terrifying events. The story unfolds at one or more spooky sites, such as a dimly lit castle, an old mansion on a hilltop, a misty cemetery, a forlorn countryside, or the laboratory of a scientist conducting frightful experiments.

HHagiography

Book on the lives of saints; scholarly study of the lives of saints.

Haiku

A Japanese poetic form which originated in the sixteenth century. A haiku in its Japanese language form consists of three lines: five syllables in the first and third lines, and seven syllables in the second line.

Consider the following by the seventeenth-century poet, Basho. Note the bringing together of the images of the clouds and the moon.

Clouds come from time to time-and bring to men a chance to restfrom looking at the moon.

Hamartia

This Greek word is variously translated as “tragic flaw” or “error” or “shortcoming” or “weakness”, and in many plays it is a flaw or even a vice such as hubris – Greek for overweening pride, arrogance, excessive confidence. But in other plays it is merely a misstep, such as a choice that turns out badly.

Homily

A clergyman's talk that usually presents practical moral advice rather than a lesson on a scriptural passage, as in a sermon. 

Hyperbole

A figure of speech in which an overstatement or exaggeration occurs

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Example: I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.He's as big as a house.

I

Iamb

A metrical pattern of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. The following is an example:

Idyll

Poem focusing on the simplicity and tranquillity of rural life; prose work with a similar focus. Idyll is derived from the Greek eidýllion (little picture or image). The Greek poet Theocritus (300-260 B.C.) developed this genre. 

Imagery

Imagery is language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.

Inference

A judgment based on reasoning rather than on direct or explicit statement.

Interior Monologue (Stream of Consciousness)

A passage of writing presenting a character's inner thoughts and emotions in a direct, sometimes disjointed or fragmentary manner.

Interlude

In drama, a light entertainment, usually musical, introduced into a play, sometimes while scenery is being shifted.

Internal Rhyme

Internal rhyme is rhyming within a line.

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Example: I awoke to black flak.

Irony

Irony is an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.Three kinds of irony:

1. verbal irony is when an author says one thing and means something else.2. dramatic irony is when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know.3. irony of situation is a discrepency between the expected result and actual results.

J

Jargon

Vocabulary understood by members of a profession or trade but usually not by other members of the general public. Cerebrovascular accident is medical jargon for stroke; perp is police jargon for perpetrator, a person who commits a crime. Jargon can also refer to writing or speech that makes no sense–gibberish. 

K

Kenning

Compound expression, often hyphenated, representing a single noun. For example, the Old English epic Beowulf uses the two-word term whale-road to refer to the sea or ocean. Other examples of kennings include devil's helper for sinner and widow-maker for gun. 

L

Lampoon

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Lampoon is a crude, coarse, often bitter satire ridiculing the personal appearance or character of a person..

Litotes

Creation of a positive or opposite idea through negation. Examples: (1) I am not unaware of your predicament. (2) This is no small problem. (3) I'm not forgetful that you served me well.–John Milton.

Local Color

A detailed setting forth of the characteristics of a particular locality, enabling the reader to "see" the setting.

Lyric Poem

A short poem wherein the poet expresses an emotion or illuminates some life principle. Emily Dickinson's "I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died" is a lyric poem wherein the speaker, on a deathbed expecting death to appear in all its grandeur, encounters a common housefly instead.

MMagnum Opus

Great work; masterpiece; an author's most distinguished work. Latin: magnum, great; opus, work

Malapropism

Malapropism is an act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp. by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.

Melodrama

Originally, in Renaissance Italy, an opera; later, a drama with occasional songs, or with music (melos is Greek for “song”) expressing a character’s thoughts, much as in films today

Metaphor

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Metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be" and not using as or like as in a simile.

Example: He is a pig. Thou art sunshine.

Meter

A regular pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in a line or lines of poetry. Below is an illustration of some commonly used metrical patterns:

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which a word represents something else which it suggests. For example in a herd of fifty cows, the herd might be referred to as fifty head of cattle. The word "head" is the word representing the herd.

Mood

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The atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work, partly by a description of the objects or by the style of the descriptions. A work may contain a mood of horror, mystery, holiness, or childlike simplicity, to name a few, depending on the author's treatment of the work.

Motif

Recurring theme in a literary work; recurring theme in literature in general. Maltreatment of women is a motif that appears in “Hills Like White Elephants,” a short story by Ernest Hemingway; “The Story of an Hour,” a short story by Kate Chopin; and “The Chrysanthemums,” a short story by John Steinbeck.The love of money as the root of evil is a motif that occurs in many works of literature.

Motivation

Reason or reasons behind a character's action; what induces a character to do what he does; motives. In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, love motivates the title characters. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, ambition (lust for power) motivates the title character and his wife to murder the king. 

Myth

An unverifiable story based on a religious belief. The characters of myths are gods and goddesses, or the offspring of the mating of gods or godesses and humans. Some myths detail the creation of the earth, while others may be about love, adventure, trickery, or revenge. In all cases, it is the gods and goddesses who control events, while humans may be aided or victimized.

N

Narrative Poem

A poem which tells a story. Usually a long poem, sometimes even book length, the narrative may take the form of a plotless dialogue as in Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man."

Naturalism

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In literature, an extreme form of realism that developed in France in the 19th Century. It was inspired in part by the scientific determinism of Charles Darwin, an Englishman, and the economic determinism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, both Germans. Four Frenchmen–Hippolyte Taine, Edmond and Jules Goncourt, and Emile Zola–applied the principles of scientific and economic determinism to literature to create literary naturalism.

Nemesis (Poetic Justice)

The principles of retributive justice by which good characters are rewarded and bad characters are appropriately punished;

Nihilism

Nihilism (a term derived from the Latin word nihil, meaning nothing) is a philosophy that calls for the destruction of existing traditions, customs, beliefs, and institutions and requires its adherents to reject all values, including religious and aesthetic principles, in favor of belief in nothing. The term was coined in the Middle Ages to describe religious heretics.

Novel

A fictional prose work of substantial length. The novel narrates the actions of characters who are entirely the invention of the author and who are placed in an imaginary setting. The fact that a so-called historical or biographical novel uses historically real characters in real geographical locations doing historically verifiable things does not alter the fictional quality of the work. Nor does it qualify a work labeled a novel by the author as a historical text.

O

Ode

A poem in praise of something divine or expressing some noble idea.

Oeuvre

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The complete works of an author, a composer, a painter, etc. Oeuvre is a French word for work.

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is a word that imitates the sound it represents.

Example: splash, wow, gush.

Oxymoron

Oxymoron is putting two contradictory words together.

Examples: hot ice, cold fire, wise fool, sad joy, military intelligence, eloquent silence,

P

Parable

A brief story, told or written in order to teach a moral lesson.

Paradox

Paradox reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory. Two opposing ideas.

Example: Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.

Parody

A literary work that imitates the style of another literary work. A parody can be simply amusing or it can be mocking in tone, such as a

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poem which exaggerates the use of alliteration in order to show the ridiculous effect of overuse of alliteration.

Pastoral

A literary work that has to do with shephards and rustic settings. Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shephard to His Love" and Robert Burns' "Sweet Afton" are examples.

Pathetic Fallacy (Extended Personification)

A fallacy of reason in suggesting that nonhuman phenomena act from human feelings, as suggested by the word "pathetic" from the Greek pathos; a literary device wherein something nonhuman found in nature-a beast, plant, stream, natural force, etc.-performs as though from human feeling or motivation.

Peripeteia ( reversal )

The reversal occurs when an action produces the opposite of what was intended or expected, and it is therefore a kind of irony.

Personification

A figure of speech in which something nonhuman is given human characteristics. Consider the following lines from Carl Sandburg's "Chicago:"

Stormy, husky, brawling,City of the big shoulders:

Carl Sandburg description of Chicago includes shoulders. Cities do not have shoulders, people do. Sandburg personifies the city by ascribing to it something human, shoulders. "Justice is blind." is another example.

Plot

The structure of a story. The sequence in which the author arranges events in a story. The structure of a five-act play often includes the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. The plot

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may have a protagonist who is opposed by antagonist, creating what is called, conflict. A plot may include flashback or it may include a subplot which is a mirror image of the main plot.

Poetry

Poetry (from the Greek "ποίησις", poiesis, a "making" or "creating") is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its ostensible meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns or lyrics.

Point of View

A piece of literature contains a speaker who is speaking either in the first person, telling things from his or her own perspective, or in the third person, telling things from the perspective of an onlooker. The perspective used is called the Point of View, and is referred to either as first person or third person. If the speaker knows everything including the actions, motives, and thoughts of all the characters, the speaker is referred to as omniscient (all-knowing). If the speaker is unable to know what is in any character's mind but his or her own, this is called limited omniscience.

Portmanteau

Portmanteau is a combination of two or more words to create a new word.

Example: smog is the combination of smoke and fog

Prologue

Prologue is a prefatory piece of writing, usually composed to introduce a drama. The Greek prologos included the modern meaning of prologue, but was of wider significance, embracing any kind of preface, like the Latin praefatio. The prologue is usually in the beginning of a book.

Protagonist

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The hero or central character of a literary work. In accomplishing his or her objective, the protagonist is hindered by some opposing force either human or nature.

Pun

A play on words wherein a word is used to convey two meanings at the same time. The line below, spoken by Mercutio in Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," is an example of a pun. Mercutio has just been stabbed, knows he is dying and says:

Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.

Mercutio's use of the word "grave' renders it capable of two meanings: a serious person or a corpse in his grave.

Q

Quatrain

A four-line stanza which may be rhymed or unrhymed. A heroic quatrain is a four line stanza rhymed abab. John Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" is a poem of nine heroic quatrains: The following is the first stanza of the poem:

As virtuous men pass mildly away And whisper to their souls, to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, The breath goes now, and some say, no:

R

Realism

In literature, a movement that stressed the presentation of life as it is, without embellishment or idealization. However, it was not as extreme in this presentation as Naturalism.

Resolution

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The part of a story or drama which occurs after the climax and which establishes a new norm, a new state of affairs-the way things are going to be from then on.

Rhyme

In poetry, a pattern of repeated sounds. In end rhyme, the rhyme is at the end of the line, as in these lines from "Ars Poetica" by Archibald MacLeish:

A poem should be palpable and mute As a globed fruit

Dumb As old medallions to the thumb

Rhyme Scheme

The pattern of rhymed words in a stanza or generalized throughout a poem, expressed in alphabetic terms. Consider the following lines from Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening:

Whose woods these are I think I know. - A His house is in the village, though; - A He will not see me stopping here - B To watch his woods fill up with snow. - A My little horse must think it queer - B To stop without a farmhouse near - B Between the woods and frozen lake - C The darkest evening of the year. - B He gives his harness bells a shake - C To ask if there is some mistake. - C The only other sound's the sweep - D Of easy wind and downy flake. - C The woods are lovely, dark and deep. - D But I have promises to keep, - D And miles to go before I sleep, - D And miles to go before I sleep. - D

In an analysis of the poem, the rhyme scheme above would be expressed as AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD.

Rhythm

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Recurrences of stressed and unstressed syllables at equal intervals, similar to meter. However, though two lines may be of the same meter, the rhythms of the lines may be different.

Rising Action

The part of a drama which begins with the exposition and sets the stage for the climax. In a five-act play, the exposition provides information about the characters and the events which occurred before the action of the play began. A conflict often develops between the protagonist and an antagonist. The action reaches a high point and results in a climax, the turning point in the play.

Romance

In the Middle Ages, tales of exciting adventures written in the vernacular (French) instead of Latin. The medieval romances were tales of chivalry or amorous adventure occurring in King Arthur's court. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is an example of a medieval romance.

Romanticism

In literature, a movement that championed imagination and emotions as more powerful than reason and systematic thinking.

S

Saga

A story of the exploits of a hero, or the story of a family told through several generations.

Sarcasm

Form of verbal irony that insults a person with insincere praise. For example, a cruel person might tell a homely woman wearing dowdy clothes, "I see, Miss America, that you are wearing the latest Dior ensemble."

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Satire

A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt. Jonathan swift's "Gulliver's Travels" satirizes the English people, making them seem dwarfish in their ability to deal with large thoughts, issues, or deeds.

Scansion

A close, critical reading of a poem, examining the work for meter.

Scenario

Plot outline of a play, opera, motion picture, or TV program.

Science Fiction

Literary genre focusing on how scientific experiments, discoveries, and technologies affect human beings for better or worse. Science fiction differs from pure fantasy in that it presents events that appear to be scientifically plausible. Traveling to another galaxy in a spaceship is scientifically plausible. Riding to the moon on a winged horse is not scientifically plausible.

Sentimentality

A flaw in a literary work or film in which the author relies on tear-jerking or heart-wrenching scenes rather than writing talent or cinematic skill to evoke a response in readers.

Setting

The time and place in which a story unfolds.

Short Story

A short fictional narrative. It is difficult to set forth the point at which a short story becomes a short novel (novelette), or the page number at which a novelette becomes a novel. Here are some examples which may help in determining which is which: Ernest Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River" is a short story; John Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men" is a

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novelette; and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" is a novel.

Simile

Simile is the comparison of two unlike things using like or as. Related to metaphor

Example: He eats like a pig. Vines like golden prisons.

Soliloquy

In drama, a moment when a character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud. In the line "To be, or not to be, that is the question:" which begins the famous soliloquy from Act 3, scene 1 of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" Hamlet questions whether or not life is worth living, and speaks of the reasons why he does not end his life.

Sonnet

A lyric poem of fourteen lines whose ryhme scheme is fixed. The rhyme scheme in the Italian form as typified in the sonnets of Petrarch is abbaabba cdecde. The Petrarchian sonnet has two divisions: the first is of eight lines (the octave), and the second is of six lines (the sestet). The rhyme scheme of the English, or Shakespearean sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg. (See Rhyme Scheme ). The change of rhyme in the English sonnet is coincidental with a change of theme in the poem.

Spondee

A metrical pattern characterized by two or more successively-placed accented syllables. In the following example from Shakespeare's "Othello," Othello's sleep has been disturbed by a fight. He angrily demands to know who started the fight that disturbed him. Not receiving an immediate answer he says:

Spoonerism

Slip of the tongue in which a speaker transposes the letters of words. Pee little thrigs is a spoonerism for three little pigs.

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Stanza

A major subdivision in a poem. A stanza of two lines is called a couplet; a stanza of three lines is called a tercet; a stanza of four lines is called a quatrain. Robert Frost's "Acquainted with the Night," consists of four rhymed tercets followed by a rhymed couplet. The following illustrates the look of a stanza:

I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain-and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

Stereotype

Character in a literary work or film who thinks or acts according to certain unvarying patterns simply because of his or her racial, ethnic, religious, or social background. A stereotype is usually an image that society projects or imposes on every member of a group as a result of prejudice or faulty information. Examples of stereotypes are the Irish drunk, the Italian mobster, the dishonest car salesman, the plain-Jane librarian, the shyster lawyer, the Machiavellian politician, and the dumb blonde. 

Stichomythia

(stik uh MITH e uh) In a stage play brief, alternating lines of dialogue spoken in rapid-fire succession. It occurs frequently in Greek drama, especially when characters are arguing or expressing strong emotions. Following is an example of stichomythia in The Clouds., by Aristophanes, in which two characters–Unjust Cause and Just Cause–are insulting each other: 

Unj. You are a dotard and absurd.  Just You are debauched and shameless.  Unj. You have spoken roses of me.  Just And a dirty lickspittle. Unj. You crown me with lilies.  Just And a parricide. 

Style

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Many things enter into the style of a work: the author's use of figurative language, diction, sound effects and other literary devices.

Suspense

Suspense in fiction results primarily from two factors: the reader's identification with and concern for the welfare of a convincing and sympathetic character, and an anticipation of violence. The following line from Elizabeth Spencer's "The Name of the Game" is an example of a suspense maker:

He was an innocent, this boy; the other boys were out to get him.

Symbolism

A device in literature where an object represents an idea. In Willaim Blake's "The Lamb," the speaker tells the lamb that the force that made him or her is also called a lamb:

Little lamb, who made thee? Little lamb, who made thee? Little lamb, I'll tell thee, Little lamb, I'll tell thee! He is called by thy name, For he calls himself a lamb;

The symbol of the lamb in the above lines corresponds to the symbolism of the lamb in Christianity wherein Christ is referred to as The Lamb of God.

Syncope

Omitting letters or sounds within a word. The word bos'n as a shortened version of boatswain (a naval officer) is an example of syncope.

Synecdoche

A figure of speech wherein a part of something represents the whole thing. In this figure, the head of a cow might substitute for the whole cow. Therefore, a herd of fifty cows might be referred to as "fifty head

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of cattle."

Synesthesia :

A rhetorical trope involving shifts in imagery. It involves taking one type of sensory input (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) and comingling it with another separate sense in an impossible way. In the resulting figure of speech, we end up talking about how a color sounds, or how a smell looks.

Example: When we talk about a certain shade of color as a "cool green," we mix tactile or thermal imagery with visual imagery the same way. When we talk about a "heavy silence," we also use synaesthesia.

T

Theme

An ingredient of a literary work which gives the work unity. The theme provides an answer to the question What is the work about? There are too many possible themes to recite them all in this document. Each literary work carries its own theme(s).

Tone

Tone expresses the author's attitude toward his or her subject. Since there are as many tones in literature as there are tones of voice in real relationships, the tone of a literary work may be one of anger or approval, pride or piety-the entire gamut of attitudes toward life's phenomena.

Tragedy

A tragedy is a type of drama which is pre-eminently the story of one person, the hero. The story depicts the trouble part of the hero's life in which a total reversal of fortune comes upon a person who formerly stood in high degree, apparently secure, sometimes even happy.

Transcendentalism

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Belief that every human being has inborn knowledge that enables him to recognize and understand moral truth without benefit of knowledge obtained through the physical senses. Using this inborn knowledge, an individual can make a moral decision without relying on information gained through everyday living, education, and experimentation. One may liken this inborn knowledge to conscience or intuition.

Travesty

Play, novel, poem, skit, film, opera, etc., that trivializes a serious subject or composition. Generally, a travesty achieves its effect through broad humor and through incongruous or distorted language and situations. Examples of works that contain travesty are Cervantes’s Don Quixote de La Mancha and Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (the Act V staging of Pyramis and Thisbe by the bumbling tradesmen). Literary works that mock trivial or unimportant subjects are not travesties; travesties mock only serious, dignified, or noble subjects.

Trochee

A metrical pattern in a line of poetry characterized by one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable.

The opening line to Vachel Lindsay's "General William Booth Enters into Heaven" provides an example:

U

Understatement

A statement which lessens or minimizes the importance of what is meant. For example, if one were in a desert where the temperature was 125 degrees, and if one wee to describe thermal conditions saying "It's a little warm today." that would be an understatement.

V

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Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude in its literary context is defined as the fact or quality of being verisimilar, the appearance of being true or real; likeness or resemblance of the truth, reality or a fact’s probability. Verisimilitude comes from Latin verum meaning truth and similis meaning similar.

Z

Zeugma

Use of one word (usually an adjective or a verb) to serve two or more other words with more than one meaning.

Example: The dance floor was square, and so was the bandleader’s personality. Explanation: Square describes the dance floor and the bandleader’s personality with different meanings.

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