| A | B |
|---|
| Realism | 1800s writing style attempting to depict life accurately without idealizing or romanticising. |
| Regionalism | Literature emphasizing specific geographic setting by reproducing speech, behavior, and attitudes of people there. |
| Dialect | A way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or group of people. Used to create local color. |
| Naturalism | An extension of realism that claims to portray life exactly as it was with hapless victims of immutable natural laws. |
| Modernism | Post WWI writers who questioned traditional beliefs and values. Often fragmented and non-traditional writing reflecting the attitude of the times. |
| Imagism | Poetry was believed to be made purer by concentration on precise, clear, and common speech. It relied on the raw power of the image to communicate feeling and thought. |
| Contemporary or Postmodernism | Post WWII, it includes all the writing to this time while exploring new perspectives, cultures, and worlds. |
| Figure of Speech / Figurative Language | Word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of another and that is not meant to be taken literally. |
| Paradox | An apparent contradiction that is actually true. |
| Hyperbole | Figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration, or overstatement, for effect. |
| Metaphor | Figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison as like, as, than, or resembles. |
| Simile | Figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles. |
| Irony | Literary device that shows a discrepancy between appearances and reality. |
| Dramatic Irony | Irony where the reader or audience sees a character’s mistakes or misunderstandings, but the character himself does not. |
| Situational Irony | Irony where a great difference between the purpose of a particular action and its result. |
| Verbal Irony | Irony where the writer or speaker says one thing but means another. |
| Extended Metaphor | A direct comparison that is developed over a number of lines with several examples referring to the same thing. |
| Free Verse | Poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme.Uses cadence,imagery, figures of speech, repetition, internal rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia. |
| Cadence | The natural, rhythmic rise and fall of a language as it is normally spoken. |
| Alliteration | Repetition of the same or similar (usually the beginning) consonant sounds in words that are close together. |
| Onomatopoeia | The use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning. |
| Consonance | Repetition of the same or similar final consonant sounds on accented syllables or in important words. |
| Assonance | Repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds, especially in words close together. |
| Elegy | A poem of mourning for a person, a lifestyle, beauty or something that has come to an end. |
| Parallelism / Parallel Structure | Repetition of the grammatically the same or similar words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. |
| Imagery | The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience. |
| Tone | The attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience. |
| Mood/Atmosphere | The feeling(s) or emotion(s) a work of literature produces in its readers. This is usually created through descriptive details. |
| Stream of Consciousness | Writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character’s mind; a random flow of thoughts as they arise naturally in the mind. |
| First Person (point of view) | One of the characters in the story tells the story, using first person pronouns such as I and we. The reader can know only what the narrator knows. |
| Second Person (point of view) | Informal language using the words “you” or “your.” Not suitable for formal writing. |
| Third Person Limited Omniscient (point of view) | An unknown narrator tells the story focusing in on the thoughts and feelings of only one character-- insight is given for just one character in the story. |
| Third Person Omniscient (point of view) | An “all-knowing” narrator tells the story, also using third person pronouns. He/she may give insight into all the characters directly or indirectly. |
| Inference | To interpret or to draw as a conclusion. |
| Allusion (not an Illusion) | An allusion is a reference to someone or something known from history, literature, religion, etc. outside of the story. |
| Satire | A type of writing that ridicules the short comings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change. |
| Parody | Humorous imitations (and often exaggerations) of another work, sometimes good natured and sometimes not. |
| Ambiguity/Ambiguous | An expression that deliberately suggests two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings. |
| Analogy | An extended comparison made between two situations to show how they are alike. |
| Expository Writing | Writing that seeks to inform, explain, explore, and analyze. |
| Modifier | An adjective or adverb word or word group that makes the meaning of another word or word group more specific. |
