| A | B |
|---|
| act | a group of scenes |
| aesthetic | when a writer writes to convey a sense of beauty |
| alliteration | repetition of consonant sounds |
| antagonist | force working against the protagonist (main character) |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds |
| characterization | describing a character's appearance, actions and what others say about him |
| climax | turning point in a story |
| didactic | when a writer writes to convey moral or lesson |
| protagonist | main character |
| scene | a divisioin by setting change in a play |
| falling action | the conflict is resolved |
| irony | when the unexpected happens |
| rising action | trying to solve the conflict |
| nonfiction | writing that is real |
| motif | pattern in literature |
| fiction | writing that is unreal |
| plot | sequence of events that happen in a literary work |
| exposition | beginning; introduces characters, conflict and setting |
| paraphrase | to put into your own words |
| resolution | the ending; tie up loose ends |
| blank verse | unrhymed, metered poem |
| epic | long, narrative poen |
| free verse | unstructured poem |
| hyperbole | an exaggeration in literature |
| controlling idea | main thought in an essay |
| folk tale | a generational story that is often oral, contains a moral to teach you a lesson |
| connotation | feeling or emotion you get from a word |
| critical lens | focus of an essay |
| denotation | dictionary definition of a word |
| flashback | an interruption in a story to go back to a previous time |
| prologue | introduction to a literary work |
| stream of consciousness | a character's thoughts |
| tragedy | A literary work in which a character meets with disaster |
| autobiography | story of a person's life written by that person |
| biography | story of a person's life written by someone else |
| contrast | to show differences |
| comic relief | humor in a serious situation |
| drama | a play |
| dialect | accent from a certain region |
| foreshadow | hints the author gives |
| genre | classification of literature |
| epiphany | a sudden realization |
| explicit | clearly stated |
| implicit | to hint at, unclear |
| imagery | figurative language used to represent objects or ideas in a way that appeals to the senses |
| onomatopoeia | a word whose sound suggests its sense or meaning |
| metaphor | a comparison |
| personification | giving an inanimate object human-like qualities |
| mood | atmosphere of a literary work |
| setting | time and place |
| simile | a comparison using like or as |
| omniscient | all knowing |
| point of view | manner in which a story is being told |
| pun | a play on words |
| script | written form of a play |
| symbolism | when something concrete represents something abstract |
| theme | the author's message |
| tone | the author's feelings |
| aside | when a character on stage reveals his thoughts |
| couplet | two successive rhyming lines |
| soliloquy | when a character on stage alone reveals his thoughts |
| consort | friends |
| foil (character) | a character who contrasts |
| oxymoron | linking opposites |
| pathos | pity |
| catharsis | the act of producing a strong emotion such as pity or fear |
| epiphany | sudden realization |
| tragic flaw | a weakness in character that brings about the downfall of the hero |
| rhyme | the repetition of line ending sounds |
| rhythm | a regular repeated pattern of strong and weak elements in the flow of sound and silence in speech |
| rhyme scheme | a pattern of similar line ending sounds |
| stanza | a group of lines in poetry |
