| A | B |
|---|
| anthology | a book or other collection of selected writings |
| oxymoron | self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness” |
| narrative | a story or account of events |
| prose | ordinary form of spoken or written language |
| universality | universal character or range of knowledge |
| analogy | a similarity between like features of two things, on which a comparison may be based: |
| point of view | the vantage point from where a story is told |
| nom de plume | a fictitious name used by an author to remain anonymous |
| mood | a prevailing emotional tone or general attitude: the country's mood. |
| motivation | internal or external impules that cause a character to act |
| parable | a short allegorical story designed to illustrate or teach some truth, religious principle, or moral lesson. |
| poetic justice | an ideal distribution of rewards and punishments such as is common in some poetry and fiction. |
| verisimilitude | the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability: |
| tragedy | A serious work of fiction that presents the downfall of the protagonist, a person who through some error or twist of fate suffers defeat or death. |
| tone | a particular style or manner, as of writing or speech; mood: the macabre tone of Poe's stories. |
| stereotype | to characterize or regard as a stereotype: The actor has been stereotyped as a villain. |
| aside | when a character speaks briefly to the audience without being heard by the other characters |
| dynamic character | in literature or drama, a character who undergoes a permanent change in outlook or character during the story; |
| flat character | an easily recognized character type in fiction who may not be fully delineated but is useful in carrying out some narrative purpose of the author |
| static character | a literary character who remains basically unchanged throughout a work |
| artistic license | license or liberty taken by an author, prose writer, or other artist in deviating from rule, conventional form, logic, or fact, in order to produce a desired effect. |
| litotes | understatement, esp. that in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary, as in “not bad at all.” |
| apostrophe | a digression in the form of an address to someone not present, or to a personified object or idea, as “O Death, where is thy sting?” |
| alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds |
| foil | a character who provides a contrast to another character (the fiery temper of Tybalt serves as a foil to the good nature of Benvolio in Romeo & Juliet) |
| tragic flaw | error or flaw that causes the downfall of the hero of a tragedy |
| caricature | a picture, description, etc., ludicrously exaggerating the peculiarities or defects of persons or things: His caricature of the mayor in this morning's paper is the best he's ever drawn. |
| catharsis | the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music. |
| soliloquy | the act of talking while or as if alone. |
| paradox | a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth. |
| synecdoche | a part of something stands for the whole thing. I've got wheels. |
