| A | B |
|---|
| protagonist | hero, main character |
| antagonist | character opposing main character |
| archetype | device that becomes universal |
| microcosm | small symbolic universe |
| epiphany | realization, awakening |
| allusion | reference to another literary work |
| aside | words heard only by audience |
| apostrophe | address to absent figure |
| indirect characterization | show character through actions |
| direct characterization | text directly describes character |
| flat character | one-dimensional characterization |
| round character | complex character |
| static character | unchanging character |
| dynamic character | character undergoes a change |
| climax | turning point, culmination of conflict |
| hyperbole | overstatement |
| irony | an unexpected contrast/outcome |
| verbal irony | contrast what is said &what is meant |
| metaphor | comparison between unlike things |
| simile | comparison using "like," "as" |
| exposition | introductory material |
| denouement | resolution to conflict |
| diction | word choice |
| dialogue | spoken words between characters |
| dialect | unique spoken patois |
| motif | recurrent theme in a work |
| paradox | apparent contradiction |
| oxymoron | a compact paradox |
| rhetorical question | ? with no expected answer |
| rising action | events leading to plot's climax |
| structure | organization of a work |
| stream of consciousness | narrator's unrestricted thoughts |
| thesis | point the writer develops |
| syntax | sentence structure & length |
| tone | prevailing attitude or mood |
| understatement | says less than what is meant |
| point of view | who is narrating |
| first person | use of "I" |
| third person omniscient | knows what all characters think |
| third person limited | knows what 1 character thinks |
| third person objective | does not add personal thoughts |
| third person point of view | unparticipating observer |
| alliteration | repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds |
| inversion | the sentence word order is altered so that the subject doesn't come before the verb |
| internal rhyme | rhyme within a line of poetry |
| metonymy | figurative languange in which a word /phrase stands for something closely related to it |
| onomatopoeia | a word which sounds like what it means |
| personification | giving human qualities to objects, animals, non humans |
| refrain | a repeated line or phrase, often in ballads |
| synecdoche | figurative language in which the whole stands for a part |
| soliloquy | speech by an actor alone on stage |
| heroic couplet | endstopped pair of rhyming lines |
| dramatic exposition | tells action prior to the scene |
| Italian sonnet | 14 line poem w/ octet & sestet |
| English sonnet | 14 line poem rhyming ababcdcdefefgg |
| enjambment | line of poetry in which grammar & sense run into next line |
| end-stopped | line with punctuation at end |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| trochaic | stressed, unstressed |
| anapestic | unstressed, unstressed, stressed |
| dactylic | stressed, unstressed, unstressed |
| iambic | unstressed, stressed |
| alliteration/consonance | repetition of consonant sounds |
| quatrain | stanza of 4 lines |
