| A | B |
|---|
| A summary of an article or book | Abstract |
| An extended narrative within the story presented that actually represents another story with universal meaning. | Allegory |
| A repetition of consonant sounds | Alliteration |
| Something placed in the wrong time period, such as the clock in Julius Caesar | Anachronism |
| A word or phrse formed from the transposition of letters | Anagram |
| Using one event or thing to express another | Analogy |
| The major character wh opposes the main character | Antagonist |
| A short narrative poem originally designed to be sung | Ballad |
| A style dominant between the Renaissance and Neoclassical periods that seeks to resolve the tension between the sacred and the secular through extraordinaary means. | Baroque |
| A group of American writers during the 1950s and 1960s who sought to express their alienation from society through their art. | Beat Generation (Authors such as Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corse, Lawrence Ferlinghetti among others) |
| Derived from Dr. Thomas Bowdler's expurgation of certain offensive passages from a collection of Shakespeare's plays. | Bowdlerize, named after Dr. Thomas Bowdler, used as a synonmy for expurgation to the point of diminishing the work. |
| Harsh or discordant sounds | Cacophony |
| "Seize the day" a plea to enjoy the pleasures of life | Carpe Diem |
| A term used to describe a piece of writing whose primary function is to instruct in some way. | Didactic |
| A poem mourning the death of an individual | Elegy |
| An extended narrative poem of heroic quality | Epic |
| A short ingenious statement usualy associated with satire | Epigram |
| A short thematic quotation at the beginning of a work. | Epigraph |
| The conclusion of a speech or work | Epilogue |
| A term used to describe a person or thing | Epithet |
| A literatary movement stressing humans place in reality, the that reason along cannot decipher the universe | Existentialism |
| A brief narrative structure using impossible events or characters | Fable |
| Romantic literature which evokes a medieval , super natural theme | Gothic Novel (Ex. The Fall of the House of Usher) |
| An unrhymed Japanese poem consisting of 17 syllables | Haiku |
| Extreme Exaggeration for effect | Hyperbole |
| A poetic meter consists of five verse feet,one unstressed syllabe follwed by one stressed syllable | Iambic Pentameter |
| A person or object who achieves mythical stature in literature or culture | Icon |
| A structure that allows a writer to subvert the literal meaning of a text to something unexpected. | Irony |
| The dominant literary movemnt of the first part of the of the 20th century | Modernism |
| A literary movement of the late 19th century that emphasizes an extreme realism | Naturalism |
| The 18th century literary and philosophical movement that suggest that human kind is limited in its attempt to understand the infinite. | Neoclassicism |
| A lengthy lyric poem that is serious and dignified in content and style | Ode |
| Words whose sounds echo their meanings such as hiss, buzz or bang | Onomatopoeia |
| A statement that appears self-contradictory but hwihc contains some elementof truth that reconciles the opposites | Paradox |
| The traditional idea that good is rewarded and evil is punished | Poetic Justice |
| An approach that emphasizes the truthfulness of real experience vs imagination | Realism |
| The literary movement of the early 19th century that stressed the inherent goodness of humankind and its place in rustic nature | Romanticism |
| A comparison of objects using like or as | Simile |
| An essentially religious movement from, roughly, 1835-1845, that emphasizes the importance of the individiual conscience. | Transcendentalism |
