| A | B |
|---|
| Kenning | A two-word metaphor; a figurative, usually compound expression used in place of a name or noun |
| Caesura | Natural pause in the middle of a line of poetry; you know it is there because there is punctuation |
| Assonance | Repetition of vowel sounds to create rhyme |
| Alliteration | Repetition of initial consonant sounds in accented syllables |
| Epic Poem | Long, formal poem; set of values are in danger; larger than life characters; story evolves over a long period of time |
| Epic Hero | the main character or protagonist in an epic that is heroically larger than life, often the source and subject of legend or a national hero; often guided by supernatural forces |
| Epic Quest | Quest that appears in an epic poem, that the epic hero goes on |
| Frame Tale | story that frames other stories; structure containing or connecting a series of otherwise unrelated tales |
| Allegory | Literary work with two or more levels of meaning |
| Exemplum | A brief story used to make a point in an argument or to illustrate a moral truth |
| Sonnet | 14 line lyric poem with a single theme; iambic pentameter |
| Pastoral | Literary works that deal with the pleasures of a simple rural life or with escape to a simpler place and time |
| Couplet | Pair or rhyming lines written in the same meter |
| Quatrain | 4 line stanza |
| Sestet | 6 line stanza |
| Octave | 8 line stanza |
| Tragedy | Drama or literature that shows the downfall or destruction of a noble or outstanding person |
| Tragic Hero | character born noble, but no necessarily virtuous |
| Tragic Flaw/Hamartia | Tragic flaw |
| Reversal | he act or an instance of reversing |
| Recognition | he act of recognizing or condition of being recognized |
| Suffering | An instance of pain or distress |
| Aside | A piece of dialogue intended for the audience and supposedly not heard by the other actors on stage |
| Soliloquy | Long speech in a play or in prose work made by a character who is alone |
| Monologue | Speech or performance given entirely by one person or by one character |
| Iambic Pentameter | consists of a line ten syllables long that is accented on every second beat; one stressed the next unstressed |
| Blank Verse | Unrhymed poetry usually written in iambic pentameter |
| Prose | Not poetry or drama; ordinary form of written language and one of the three major types of literature |
| Comic Relief | A humorous or farcical interlude in a serious literary work or drama, especially a tragedy, intended to relieve the dramatic tension or heighten the emotional impact by means of contrast |
| Foil | t is a character that contrasts the protagonist or main character |
| Apostrophe | The direct address of an absent or imaginary person or of a personified abstraction |
| Carpe Diem | Seize the Day or Make the most of passing time |
| In Medias Res | n or into the middle of a sequence of events |
