| A | B |
|---|
| Imagery | Sensory details in a work; the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, call to mind an idea, or describe an object. Imagery involves any or all of the five senses |
| Euphemism | Substitution of a milder or less direct expression for one that is harsh or blunt. For example, using "passed away" for "dead." |
| Genre | Term used to describe literary forms, such as tragedy, comedy, novel, or essay |
| Voice | The acknowledged or unacknowledged source of words of the story; the speaker, a "person" telling the story or poem. |
| Tone | The attitude a literary work takes towards its subject and theme. It reflects the narrator's attitude. |
| Theme | The central or dominant idea or concern of a work; the main idea or meaning |
| Protagonist | The chief character in a work of literature |
| Denotation | The dictionary definition of a word; the direct and specific meaning |
| Mood | The feeling or ambience resulting from the tone of a piece as well as the writer/narrator's attitude and point of view. The effect is created through descriptions of feelings or objects that establish a particular feeling such as gloom, fear, or hope |
| Realism | The literary practice of attempting to describe life and nature without idealization and with attention to detail |
| Prose | The ordinary of form of written language without metrical structure, as distinguished from poetry or verse |
| Audience | The person(s) reached by a piece of writing. |
| Alliteration | The repetition of initial consonant sounds or any vowel sounds within a formal grouping, such as a poetic line or stanza, or in close proximity in prose |
| Consonance | The repetition of two or more consonants with a change in the intervening vowels, such as pitter-patter, splish-splash, and click-clack. |
| Invective | The use of angry and insulting language in satirical writing |
| Point of view | The view the reader gets of the action and characters in a story |
| Persona | The voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the story and who may or may not share of the values of the actual author. |
| Syntax | The way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. It is sentence structure and how it influences the way a reader perceives a piece of writing. |
| Canon | The works of an author that have been accepted as authentic. |
| Foreshadow | To hint at or present things to come in a story or play |
| Begging the Question | To sidestep or evade the real problem or issue. |
| Personification | Treating an abstraction or nonhuman object as if it were a person by giving it human qualities. |
| Anachronism | Use of historically inaccurate details in a text; for example, depicting a 19th-century character using a computer. |
| Ambiguity | Use of language in which multiple meanings are possible. |
| Connotation | What is implied by a word. |
| Transition words | Words and devices that bring unity and coherence to a piece of writing. Examples: however, in addition, and on the other hand. |
