| A | B |
|---|
| simile | comparison using like or as |
| metaphor | direct comparison of two unalike things |
| Transcendentalism | a literary movement based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought, or a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual; for example Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau |
| Romanticism | emphasizes the imagination and a literary movement of the late 1700s |
| Realism | a literary movement of the 1900s that emphasized the power of the everyday. Writings tended to emphasize coarse language and graphic descriptions |
| Naturalism | a literary movement of the 1900s that grew out of realism that tended to show how society, nature, politics, and big business try to crush the average man |
| hyperbole | a statement of exaggeration |
| personification | giving human qualities to non living things; for example, the clouds cried |
| onomatopoeia | a word that imitates a sound, like meow |
| rhetorical question | a question that either is not meant to be answered or the answer is given in the following sentences; for example, "Do you not hear me?" |
| epic | a long story or poem that celebrates a country's hero; for example, The Odyssey, The Iliad, The Mahabharata |
| sonnet | a fourteen line poem, usually about love. The first 12 lines have alternating rhyme (abab, etc.) and the last two lines form a couplet (both lines rhyme with each other) |
| free verse | poetry that doesn't rhyme |
| rhyme scheme | the pattern of rhyme at the ends of lines of poetry; for example, abab = fun, boy, ton, toy |
| plot | the events that make up a story |
| theme | the message the author wants the reader to understand (for example, love, war, growing up, etc) |
| mood | the feeling the story that the writer wants it to have (for example, sad, scary, funny, philosophical) |
| setting | the time and place of a story |
| antogonist | a person who tries to defeat or thwart the hero/protagonist |
| protagonist | one who faces obstacles that he/she must overcome |
| oxymoron | a pairing of two unalike words - feather of lead |
| understatement | a kind of irony that under plays the speaker's real feelings |
| dynamic character | a character who changes during the course of the story |
| static character | a character who is generally flat; he/she does not change during the story |
| epithet | a title or descriptive name given to someone who is usually famous; for example, Odysseus, the mastermind |
| allusion | a reference to something in history, literature, religion, art, etc that brings more meaning to the text in which is offered |
