| A | B |
|---|
| Allegory | A sorty in which the characters represent abstract qualities or ideas. |
| Alliteration | The repetition of first consonants in a group of words, as in "peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." |
| Allusion | A reference to something or someone, often literary. |
| Antagonist | A major character who opposes the protagonist, or main character, in a story or play. |
| Archetype | A character who represents a certain type of person. |
| Assonance | The repetition of vowel sounds, as on "days wane away." |
| Atmosphere | The overall feeling of a work, related to tone and mood. |
| Blank verse | Unrhymed lines of poerty, usually in iambic pentameter. Plenty of modern poetry is written in blank verse. |
| Characterization | The means by which an author establishes character. An author may directly describe the appearance and personality of a character or show it through action or dialogue. |
| Climax | The point at which the action in a story or play reaches its emotional peak. |
| Conflict | The elements that create a plot.Traditionally, every plot is built from the most basic elements of a conflict and an eventual resolution. |
| Contrast | To explain how two things differ. To compare and contrast is to explain how two things are alike and how they are different. |
| Couplets | A pair of rhyming lines in a poem,often set oof from the rest of the poem. |
| Denouement | The resolution of the conflict in a plot after the climax. It also refers to the resolution ofthe action in a story or play after the the principal drama is resolved. |
| Dramatic monologue | A poem with a fictional narrator, addressed to someone whose identy the audience knows, but who doesn't say anything. |
| Elegy | A poem mourning the dead. |
| End rhyme | Rhyming words that are at the ends of thier respective lines what we typically think of as normal rhyme. |
| Epic | A long poem narrating the adventures of a heroic figure. |
| Fable | A story that illustrates a moral, often using animals as the characters. |
| Figurative language | Language that does not mean exactly what it says. Metaphors and similes are both eamples of figurative language |
| First-person point of view | The point of view of a piece of writing in which the narrator refers to himself as "I". |
| foreshadowing | A technique in which an author gives clues about somthing that will happen later in the story. |
| Free verse | Poetry with no set meter or rhyme scheme. |
| Genre | A kindof style, usually of art or literature. some literary genres are mystery, romance, or western. |
| Hyperbole | A huge exaggeration. |
| Iambic pentameter | Ten-syllable lines in which every other syllable is stressed. |
| Imaagery | The use of description that helps the reader imagine how something looks, sounds, feels, smells, or tastes. Most of the time it refers to appearance. |
| Internal rhyme | A rhyme that occurs within one line, such as "He's the king of swing." |
| Irony | Language that conveys a certain idea by saying just the opposite. |
| Literal language | Language that means exactly what it says. |
| Lyric | A type of poetry that expresses the poet's emotions. |
| Metaphor | A comparison that doesn't use "like" or "as". |
| Meter | The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in the lines of a poem. |
| Mood | The emotiomal atmosphere of a given piece of wrtting. |
| Motif | A theme or pattern that recurs in a work |
| Myth | A legend that embodies the beliefs of people and offers some explanation for natural and social phenomena. |
| Onomatopoeia | The use of words that sound like what they mean, such as "buzz." |
| Oxymoron | A phrase made up of two seemingly opposite words. |
| Paradox | A seeming contradiction. |
| Parody | A humorous, exaggerated imitation of another work. |
| Personification | Giving an inanimate object human characteristics. |
| Plot | The action story.Summarizes the plan or main story of a literary work. |
| Prose | Writing organized into sentences and paragraphs. |
| Protagonist | The main character of a novel, play, or story. |
| Pun | The use of a word in a way that plays on its different meanings. |
| quatrain | A four-line stanza. |
| Rhetorical question | A question not meant to be answered, such as " Why can't we all just get along?" |
| Sarcasm | Laguage that conveys a certain idea by saying just the opposite, such as if it's raining outside and you say, "My,what a beautiful day!" |
| Sensory imagery | Imagery that has to do with somthing you can see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. |
| Simile | A comparison that uses "like" or "as." |
| Soliloquy | A monologue in which a character expresses his of her thoughts to the audience and does not intend the other characters to hear them. |
| Sonnet | A 14-line poem written in iambic pentanmeter. |
| Stanza | A section of poetry separated from the sections before and after it. |
| Subplot | A line of action secondary to the main story. |
| Symbolism | The use of one thing to represent another. |
| Theme | The central idea of a work. |
| Tone | The author's attitude toward his or her subject. |
| Voice | The narrative point of view, whether it's in the first, second, or third person. |
