| A | B |
|---|
| aesthetic | a sense of beauty or emotion |
| allusion | a reference to something previously learned |
| aloof | distant or removed |
| anachronism | author's slip on the time period |
| anecodote | a story told to make a point |
| atmosphere | mood |
| flat character | one dimensional |
| foil character | a character that contrasts another |
| hubris | a tragic flaw that deals with excessive pride |
| pathetic fallacy | linking emotions to natural occurrences |
| aside | a character who reveals his thoughts on stage |
| colloquialism | informal writing that isn't allowed in formal writing |
| couplet | two rhyming lines together |
| soliloquy | a character alone on stage who reveals his thoughts |
| sonnet | 14 lined poem; iambic penatameter, ends with a couplet |
| didactic | when a writer writes to convey a lesson or moral |
| empathy | to identify with a character |
| epiphany | a sudden realization |
| humanism | the use of world ideas |
| dynamic character | character who changes |
| narrator | teller of a story |
| round character | multi-dimensional character |
| static character | character who stays the same |
| stock character | common character in literature |
| controlling idea | main thought in an essay |
| eulogy | a speech of praise said at someone's funeral |
| setting | place and time in a literary work |
| realism | true, authentic |
| subjective | based on a person's opinion |
| ambiguity | capable of being understood in more than one way |
| characterization | appearance, actions, what others say |
| foreshadow | hints at future events |
| point of view | perspective |
| bibliography | sources on a certain topic |
| catastrophe | a tragic ending |
| allegory | a literary work with a secondary or deeper meaning |
| chronological | order |
| diary | personal journal |
| ambivalence | mixed emotions; unconcerned |
| consort | pal; friend |
| figurative language | to describe things in a fresh new way |
| form | structure in poetry |
| hyperbole | an exaggeration in a literary work |
| imagery | sensory details |
| structure | form in poetry |
| circular plot | a story that ends the way it begins |
| comic relief | ease the dramatic tension with humor |
| novel | a long narrative |
| euphemism | a positive phrase that lessens a harsher one |
| first person | point of view: I, me, he |
| pun | play on words |
| simile | comparison using like or as |
| character motivation | why a character does something |
| prose | lacks a form, rhythm, rhyme |
| third person | point of view (he, she, they, them) |
| frame story | a story within a story |
| local color | regional characteristics |
| moral | lesson learned |
| motif | a dominant pattern in literature |
| idiom | a phrase with another meaning |
| second person | point of view (you, your) |
| omniscient | all-knowing |
| parallelism | side-by-side |
| comedy | a humorous literary work |
| irony | when the unexpected happens |
| metaphor | a comparison |
| theme | main idea that the author wants the reader to get from a literary work |
| farce | a humorous play with a ridiculous plot |
| fable | fictional story with a moral |
| myth | untrue tale of great feats |
| ballad | a narrative poem, often of folk origin and intending to be sung |
| elegy | a poem expressing sorrow especially for one who is dead |
| lyric | short poem that reveals the speaker's personal feelings and is intended to be sung |
| ode | a poem expressing the writer's thoughts and feelings about a particular person or subject |
| inference | the act or process of reaching a conclusion about something from known facts or evidence |
| parable | a story that teaches a moral or religious lesson |
| rhetoric | language that is intended to influence people and that may not be honest or reasonable |
