| A | B |
|---|
| Alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds |
| Allusion | reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art. |
| Anecdote | a brief story about an interesting, amusing, or strange event |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonants in two or more stressed syllables |
| blank verse | poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter lines |
| couplet | a pair of rhyming lines usually of the sme lenght and meter |
| epic | a long narrative poem about the deeds of gods or heroes |
| figurative language | writing or speech not meant to be interpreted literally |
| foreshadowing | the use in a literary work of clues that suggest events that have yet to occur |
| free verse | poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern, or meter |
| genre | category or type of literature |
| haiku | a three-line verse form. 5-7-5 syllables |
| imagery | the descriptive or figurative language used in literature to create word pictures for the reader |
| verbal irony | words are used to suggest the opposite of what is meant |
| dramatic irony | there is a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true |
| irony of situation | an event occurs that directly contradicts the expectations of the characters |
| lyric poem | a highly musical verse that expresses the observations and feelings of a single speaker |
| metaphor | a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else |
| meter | a poem's rhythmical patter |
| mood | the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage |
| moral | a lesson taught by a literary work |
| narrative poem | a poem that tells a story |
| narrator | a speaker or character who tells a story |
| onomatopoeia | the use of words that imitate sounds |
| personification | a type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics |
| plot | the sequence of events in a literary work |
| poetry | Writing that is used to express emotions or ideas |
| prose | the ordinary form of written language |
| quatrain | a stanza or poem made up of four lines, usually with a definite rhythm and rhyme scheme |
| repetition | the use of any element of language--a sound, a word, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence--more than once |
| rhyme | the repetition of sounds at the ends of words |
| rhyme scheme | a regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem |
| rhythm | the patter of beats, or stresses, in spoken or written language |
| simile | a figure of speech in which like or as is used to make a comparison between two basically unlike ideas |
| soliloquy | a long speech expressing the thoughts of a character alone on stage |
| sonnet | a fourteen-line lyric poem, usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter |
| speaker | the imaginary voice assumed by the writer of a poem |
| stanza | a formal division of lines ina poem, considered as a unit |
| symbol | anything that stands for or represents something else |
| theme | a central message or insight into life revealed through the literary work |
| tone | the writer's attitude toward his or her audience and subject of a literary work |
