| A | B |
|---|
| Allegory | story in which the characters represent abstract qualities or ideas |
| Alliteration | repetition of first consonants in a group of words |
| Allusion | reference to something or someone often literary- like “Use the force” |
| Antagonist | major character who opposes the protagonist in a story |
| Archetype | character who represents a certain type of person |
| Assonance | repetition of vowel sounds as in “Days wane away.” |
| Atmosphere | the overall feeling of a work related to tone and mood |
| Blank Verse | unrhymed lines of poetry usually in iambic pentameter |
| Characterization | means by which an author establishes character- through description, dialogue, actions, etc. |
| Climax | the point at which the action in a story or play reaches its emotional peak |
| Conflict | elements that create a plot- can be internal (within one character) or external (among or between characters, society, and/or nature) |
| Contrast | to explain how two things differ |
| Couplet | a pair of rhyming lines in a poem often set off from the rest of the poem |
| Denouement | the resolution of the conflict in a plot after the climax- tying up the loose ends |
| Dramatic Monologue | poem with a fictional narrator addressed to someone who identity the audience knows but who does not say anything |
| Elegy | a poem mourning the dead |
| End rhyme | rhyming words that are at the ends of their respective lines |
| Epic | a long poem narrating the adventures of a heroic figure- Homer’s The Odyssey |
| Fable | a story that illustrates a moral often using animals as the character—The Tortoise and the Hare |
| Figurative Language | language that does not mean exactly what it says |
| First person | the point of view of writing which the narrator refers to himself as “I.” |
| Foreshadowing | a technique in which an author gives clues about something that will happen later in the story |
| Free Verse | poetry with no set meter (rhythm) or rhyme scheme |
| Genre | a kind of style usually of art or literature- mysteries, westerns, romances, etc. |
| Hyperbole | a huge exaggeration |
| Iambic Pentameter | ten-syllable lines in which every other syllable is stressed |
| Imagery | description that helps the reader imagine how something looks, sounds, feels, smells, or taste |
| Internal Rhyme | rhyme that occurs within one line such as “He’s King of the Swing.” |
| Irony | language that conveys a certain ideas by saying just the opposite |
| Literal Language | language that means exactly what it says |
| Lyric | type of poetry that expresses the poet’s emotions |
| Metaphor | comparison that doesn’t use “like” or “as” |
| Meter | the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in the lines of a poem |
| Monologue | long speech by one character in a play or story |
| Mood | emotional atmosphere of writing |
| Motif | theme or pattern that recurs in a work |
| Myth | legend that embodies the beliefs of people, offers explanation for natural and social phenomena |
| Onomatopoeia | use of words that sound like what they mean such as “buzz.” |
| Paradox | a seeming contradiction- “It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” |
| Parody | humorous, exaggerated imitation of another work |
| Personification | giving inanimate objects human characteristics |
| Plot | the action in the story |
| Prose | writing organized into sentences and paragraphs- not poetry |
| Protagonist | main character of a novel |
| Pun | use of a word in a way that plays on its different meanings |
| Quatrain | a four-line stanza |
| Rhetorical Question | question not meant to be answered such as “Why can’t we just get along?” |
| Sarcasm | language that conveys a certain idea by saying just the opposite |
| Satire | a work that makes fun of something or someone |
| Sensory Imagery | imagery that has to do with something you can see, hear, taste, smell, or feel |
| Simile | a comparison that uses “like” or “as” |
| Soliloquy | monologue in which a character expresses his or her thoughts to the audience and does not intend the other characters to hear them |
| Sonnet | a fourteen-line poem written iambic pentameter |
| Stanza | a section of poetry separated from the sections before and after it |
| Subplot | a line of action secondary to the main story |
| Symbolism | the use of one thing to represent another |
| Theme | the central idea of a work |
| Tone | author’s attitude toward his or her subject |
| Voice | the narrative point of view whether it’s in the first, second, or third person |
