Literary Terms
125 flashcards by MentisLibrary
Figurative language, sound devices, poetic forms and meter, rhetoric, style and tone, genre, narrative technique, character, plot structure, and drama, for high school and early college readers of literature.
- What is a metaphor?
- A figure of speech that describes one thing as if it were another, without like or as, to transfer qualities between them.
- What is a simile?
- A comparison between two unlike things made explicit with the word like or as.
- What is personification?
- Giving human qualities, actions or feelings to something non-human: an animal, an object, an idea, or nature.
- What is alliteration?
- The repetition of the same initial consonant sound in nearby words.
- What is onomatopoeia?
- A word whose sound imitates the sound it names.
- What is hyperbole?
- Deliberate exaggeration for emphasis or comic effect, not meant literally.
- What is foreshadowing?
- Hints or clues early in a story about what will happen later.
- What is symbolism?
- The use of an object, person, colour or action to represent an idea beyond its literal meaning.
- What is imagery?
- Language that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, touch) to create a mental picture or sensation.
- What is theme?
- The central idea or insight a work explores, stated as a complete thought rather than a single word.
- What is point of view?
- The vantage point from which a story is told: first person, second person, third-person limited or third-person omniscient.
- What is mood?
- The atmosphere or emotional feeling a work creates in the reader, built from setting, imagery, diction and pace.
- What is conflict?
- The struggle between opposing forces that drives a story; it can be external (person against person, society, nature or fate) or internal (person against self).
- What is exposition?
- The part of a narrative that supplies background: the setting, the main characters and the situation before the conflict begins.
- What is plot?
- The arrangement of events in a story so that they are connected by cause and effect.
- What is setting?
- The time, place and social environment in which a story happens.
- What is satire?
- Writing that uses humour, irony, exaggeration or ridicule to expose and criticize folly or vice, usually with the aim of reform.
- What is allegory?
- A narrative in which characters, settings and events stand for abstract ideas or historical events, so the story works on two levels at once.
- What is meter?
- The regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of verse, measured in units called feet.
- What is an extended metaphor?
- A metaphor developed across several lines, a stanza, or a whole work rather than a single phrase.
- What is a conceit?
- An elaborate, surprising, often intellectually ingenious extended metaphor, associated with the metaphysical poets.
- What is understatement?
- Presenting something as less significant than it is, often for irony or dry humour; litotes is understatement by denying the opposite.
- What is an oxymoron?
- A figure of speech that joins two contradictory terms in one phrase.
- What is a paradox?
- A statement that appears self-contradictory or absurd but, on reflection, expresses a truth.
- What is synecdoche?
- A figure of speech in which a part stands for the whole, or the whole for a part.
- What is metonymy?
- Replacing the name of something with the name of something closely associated with it.
- What is apostrophe (the figure of speech)?
- Directly addressing an absent person, an abstraction, or an inanimate object as if it could hear.
- What is an allusion?
- A brief, indirect reference to a well-known person, event, place or work that the reader is expected to recognize.
- What is a pun?
- A play on words that exploits two meanings of a word, or two words that sound alike.
- What is a euphemism?
- A mild or indirect expression substituted for one considered blunt, harsh or embarrassing.