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| Ad hominem argument | This term comes from the Latin phrase meaning "to the man." It refers to an argument that attacks the opposing speaker or another person rather than addressing the issues at hand. |
| Allegory | An allegory is a fictional work in which the characters represent ideas or concepts. In Paul Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, for example, the characters named Faithful, Mercy, and Mr. Worldly Wiseman are clearly meant to represent types of people rather than to be characters in their own rights. |
| Alliteration | The repetition of consonant sounds, usually at the beginning of words: the repeated "t" and "c" sounds in the sentence, "The tall tamarack trees shaded the cozy cabin," are examples. |
| Allusion | A reference, usually oblique or faint, to another thing, idea, or person. For example, in the sentence, "She faced the challenge with Homeric courage," "Homeric" is a(n) _____ on to Homer's works The Iliad and The Odyssey. |
| Ambiguity | This is uncertain or indefinite; it is subject to more than one interpretation. For example, you might say, "The poet's use of the word is ______" to begin to discuss the multiple meanings suggested by the use of the word and to indicate that there is an uncertainty of interpretation. |
| Analogy | asks a reader to think about the correspondence or resemblance between two |
| Antecedent | Every pronoun refers back to a previous noun or pronoun-- the grammatical term for the noun or pronoun from which another pronoun derives its meaning. For example, in the sentence, "The car he wanted to buy was a green one," the pronoun "one" derives its meaning from "car." |
| Antithesis | opposition or contrast of ideas that is often expressed in balanced phrases or clauses. For example, "Whereas she was boisterous, I was reserved" is a sentence that balances two of these observations. |
| Aphorism | A terse statement of known authorship which expresses a general truth or moral principle. |
| Apostrophe | a figure of speech in which an absent person or personified object is |
| Apotheosis | occurs in literature when a character or a thing is elevated to such a high status that it |
| Appositive | a word or phrase that follows a noun or pronoun for emphasis or clarity. |
| Assonance | type of internal rhyming in which vowel sounds are repeated. For instance, listen to the assonance caused by the repeated short "o" sounds in the phrase, "the pot's rocky, pocked surface." |
| Asyndeton | occurs when the conjunctions (such as "and" or "but") that would normally connect a string of words, phrases, or clauses are omitted from a sentence. For example, the sentence "I came, I saw, I conquered" employs asyndeton. |
| Atmosphere | the emotional feeling--or mood--of a place, scene, or event. |
| Attitude | describes the feelings of a particular speaker or piece of writing toward a subject, person, or idea. This expression is often used as a synonym for tone. |
| Bathos | false or forced emotion that is often humorous. |
| Clause | A group of words containing a subject and verb that may or may not be a complete sentence. Dependent and independent |
| Colloquialism | The use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. |
| Conceit | A fanciful expression usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects |
| Connotation | The non-literal associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning |
| Contrast | Writers often use these, or oppositions, to elaborate ideas. They help writers to expand on their ideas by allowing them to show both what a thing is and what it is not. Take, for instance, images of light and darkness: a reader may better appreciate what it means to have light by considering its absence--darkness. |
| Denotation | The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word |
| Diction | refers to an author's choice of words. For instance, in the sentence, "That guy was really mad!" the author uses informal _____ |
| Didactic | From the Greek, literally means “teaching”. works have the primary aim of teaching or instructing |
| Elegiac | A work (of music, literature, dance, or art) that expresses sorrow. It mourns the loss of something, such as the death of a loved one. |
| Ethos | the characteristic spirit or ideal that informs a work. |
| Euphemism | mild or pleasant sounding expression that substitutes for a harsh, |
| Exposition | refers to writing or speech that is organized to explain. For example, if the novel you read involves a wedding, your ____ might explain the significance of the wedding to the overall work of literature. |
| Fiction | comes from the Latin word meaning to invent, to form, to imagine. Works can be based on actual occurrences, but their status as _____ means that |
| Figurative language | an umbrella term for all uses of language that imply an imaginative comparison. |
| Foreshadowing | a purposeful hint placed in a work of literature to suggest what may |
| Grammar | a set of rules that specify how a given language is used effectively |
| Hyperbole | a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used to achieve emphasis. |
| imagery | a mental picture that is conjured by specific words and associations, but there can be auditory and sensory components to this as well |
| Irony | occurs when a situation produces an outcome that is the opposite of what is |
| Juxtaposition | When two contrasting things--ideas, words, or sentence elements--are placed next to each other for comparison |
| Logos | refers to the use of reason as a controlling principle in an argument. |
| Metaphor | a figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared directly, usually for emphasis or dramatic effect. |
| Metonymy | a figure of speech in which something is referred to by using the name of something that is associated with it |
| Mood | prevailing or dominant feeling of a work, scene, or event. |
| Onomatopoeia | an effect created by words that have sounds that reinforce their meaning. |
| Overview | a brief summary of a whole work |
| Oxymoron | combines two contradictory words in one expression. |
| Pacing | the speed of a story's action, dialogue, or narration. |
| Paradox | seeming contradiction that in fact reveals some truth |
| Parallelism | a literary technique that relies on the use of the same syntactical structures, (phrases, clauses, sentences) in a series in order to develop an argument or emphasize an idea. |
| Parody | an effort to ridicule or make fun of a literary work or an author by writing an imitation of the work or of the author's style. |
| Pathos | a sympathetic feeling of pity or compassion evoked by an artistic work |
| Person | a grammatical term that describes the relationship of a writer or speaker to an audience by examining the pronouns that are used |
| Persona | the character created by the voice and narration of the speaker of a text |
| Personification | a figure of speech in which ideas or objects are described as having |
| Point of view | The particular perspective from which a story is told is called the point of view. |
| Pun | created by using a word that has two different |
| Repetition | reiteration of a word or phrase for emphasis |
| Rhetoric | the art and logic of a written or spoken argument |
| Rhetorical question | question is a question that is asked for the sake of argument. No direct answer is provided |
| Satire | to ridicule or mock ideas, persons, events, or doctrines, or to make fun of human foibles or weaknesses. |
| Simile | a commonly used figure of speech that compares one thing with another using the words "like" or "as." |
| Speaker | the narrator of a story, poem, or drama. |
| Syllogism | a form of deductive reasoning in which pieces of evidence are used to |
| Symbol | something that stands for something else. |
| Synonym | A word that has the same, or nearly the same, meaning as another word is called a |
| Syntax | refers to the way words are arranged in a sentence. |
| Tension | a feeling of excitement and expectation the reader or audience feels because of the conflict, mood, or atmosphere of the work |
| Texture | describes the way the elements of a work of prose or poetry are joined together |
| Theme | is usually considered the central idea |
| Tone | which can also be called attitude, is the way the author presents a subject. An |
| Understatement | When an author assigns less significance to an event or thing than it deserves, the result is an |
| Voice | How the speaker of a literary work presents himself or herself to the reader determines that speaker's unique |
| Zeugma | refers to a particular breech of sense in a sentence. It occurs when a sense with one of them. |
