Literary Terms

1.        allegory: a literary work that has a second meaning beneath the surface, often relating to a fixed, corresponding idea or moral principle.

 

2.        alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds.  It serves to please the ear and bind verses

verses together, to make lines more memorable, and for humorous effect.

·         Already American vessels had been searched, seized, and sunk.  –John F. Kennedy

·         I should like to hear him fly with the high fields/ And wake to the farm forever fled

                from the childless land.  –Dylan Thomas, “Fern Hill”              

3.        allusion: A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. Allusions can originate in mythology, biblical references, historical events, legends, geography, or earlier literary works. Authors often use allusion to establish a tone, create an implied association, contrast two objects or people, make an unusual juxtaposition of references, or bring the reader into a world of experience outside the limitations of the story itself. Authors assume that the readers will recognize the original sources and relate their meaning to the new context.   

·         Brightness falls from the air/ Queens have died young and fair/Dust hath closed

       Helen’s eye.   –from Thomas Nashe’s “Litany in Time of Plague;” refers to Helen of Troy.

4.        alter  ego:  A literary character or narrator who is a thinly disguised representation of the author, poet, or playwright creating a work. 

 

5.        anaphora:  repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginnings of successive clauses.

·         The Lord sits above the water floods.  The Lord remains a King forever.  The Lord

shall give strength to his people.  The lord shall give his people the blessings of peace. –Ps. 29

·         “Let us march to the realization of the American dream.  Let us march on segregated housing.

Let us march on segregated schools.  Let us march on poverty.  Let us march on ballot boxes….

    --Martin Luther King, Jr.

·         Mad world !  Mad king!  Mad composition !

6.        antagonist:  the character or force opposing the protagonist in a narrative; a rival of  the hero

7.        apostrophe: addressing an absent or dead person or a personified abstraction

·         “Eloquent, just, and mighty Death ! whom none could advise….”

·          O WORLD, I cannot hold thee close enough!

8.        approximate rhyme: also known as imperfect rhyme, near rhyme, slant rhyme,  or oblique rhyme. A term used for words in a rhyming pattern that have some kind of sound correspondence but are not perfect rhymes.  Often words at the end of lines at first LOOK like they will rhyme but are not pronounced in perfect rhyme. Emily Dickinson’s poems are famous for her use of approximate rhyme.

 

9.        assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds

·         The child of mine was lying on her side.   [i]

·          "Over the mountains / Of the moon, / Down the valley of the shadow, / Ride, boldly ride,/The shade
replied,-- / "If you seek for Eldorado!"   [o sound]

10.     asyndeton:  deliberate omission of conjunctions between series of related clauses.

·          I came, I saw, I conquered.      -- Julius Caesar

·          The infantry plodded forward, the tanks rattled into position, the big guns swung  their snouts toward the rim of the hills, the planes raked the underbrush with gunfire.

·          ..and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish   from the earth.
                 –Abraham Lincoln

11.    aubade: a poem about dawn; a morning love-song; or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn

 

12.    ballad:   a  song, transmitted orally, which tells a story.  Usually narrator begins with a climactic or traumatic

episode, tells the story tersely by means of action and dialogue and tells it without self-reference

or the expression of personal attitudes or feelings.  Many ballads employ (1) stock repetitive phrases such as “blood-red wine” and “milk white steed,”   (2) a refrain in each stanza, and (3) incremental repetition, in which a line or stanza is repeated, but with an additional verse that advances the story, 4) dialogue between at least 2 characters, 5) quatrains or ballad stanzas  that rhyme of  on lines 2 and 4.  A literary ballad was a favorite form of the Romantic period.  Coleridge’s “Ancient Mariner” is a good example, and “The Ballad of Birmingham” is an American example.

·         “It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long gray beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?'"

 

13.     blank verse:  poetry written in meter but containing no ending rhyme.  Lines of verse contain forms

closest to that of natural speaking, yet are flexible and adaptive.

14.     characterization principles: characters should be 1) consistent in their behaviors, 2)their words and actions should spring from motivations the reader can understand,  and 3) plausible and lifelike

15.     cinquain: a five line stanza

16.     conceit: in literature, fanciful or unusual image in which apparently dissimilar things are shown to have a relationship. The device was often used by the metaphysical poets, who fashioned conceits that were witty, complex, intellectual, and often startling, e.g., John Donne's comparison of two souls with two bullets in “The Dissolution.”

 

17.     conflict: a struggle between two opposing forces in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem. 

18.     connotation: all the emotions and associations that a word or phrase may arouse; what a word suggests beyond its basic definitions; a word’s overtones of meaning.

19.     consonance: repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or at the end of words

20.     continuous form: the form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning.

21.     couplet:  two successive lines of poetry  in which the ending words rhyme

22.     denotation: the literal or "dictionary" meaning of a word or phrase.

23.     doppelganger: in German, this word means “double-goer,” the ghostly shadow that haunts and follows its earthly counterpart; the negative or evil manifestation of what is actually on the “inside” of the haunted character.  The Creature is Victor Frankenstein’s doppelganger.

24.     dramatic monologue: a kind of  lyric poem which has the following elements: 1) a single person, a speaker

(patently not the poet)  utters the entire poem  in a specific situation at a critical moment; and 2) this person addresses and interacts with one or more other people, but we know of the auditor’s presence and what they say and do only from clues in the discourse of the single speaker.  Examples include Tennyson’s “Ulysses” and  Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess.”

25.     dramatic poem: a narrative poem in which one or more characters speak. The dramatic poem consists of the thoughts or spoken statements (or both) of one or more characters other than the poet himself in a particular life situation. It is dramatic rather than narrative since the character is not "written about" by the poet; rather, the poem consists of the character's own thoughts or spoken statements. He may be thinking (or talking) to himself; a poem recording his thoughts or speech to himself is called a soliloquy. Or a character may be speaking to one or more other characters in a given situation; a poem recording his speech is called a dramatic monologue.

26.     elegy: a poem of mourning, usually over  the death of an individual, usually ending in a consolation.

 Originally it included mournful love poems, such as John Donne’s elegies.

27.     ellipsis: deliberate omission of a word or of words which are readily implied by the context.

·         And he to England shall along with you.  from Hamlet,   Act 3,  Scene 3

·          Red light means stop; a green light, go.

28.     end rhyme:  rhymes that occur at the ends of lines

 

29.     end-stopped line: a line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation.

 

30.     fixed form: a poem in which the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage or tradition, such as sonnet, limerick, and villanelle.

31.     flashback: a scene in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem that interrupts the chronological action and provides information about the past.  Often a character’s recollections of the past

32.     foil: a foil is a character who provides a contrast to another character.  In Frankenstein, Robert Walton and Victor Frankenstein are foils.

 

33.     foot: basic unit used in measurement of a line of verse.  A foot usually contains one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables.

 

34.     foreshadowing: clues in a literary work that suggest events that have yet to occur.

35.     form:  external pattern or shape of a poem, describable without reference to its content, such as: continuous form, fixed form,  and free verse.

36.      frame narrative: The result of inserting one or more small stories within the body of a larger story that encompasses the smaller ones. Often this term is used interchangeably with both the literary technique and the larger story itself that contains the smaller ones, which are called "framed narratives" or "embedded narratives." The most famous example is Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, in which the overarching frame narrative is the story of a band of pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. The band passes the time in a storytelling contest. The framed narratives are the individual stories told by the pilgrims who participate.  Frankenstein is  a frame narrative.

 

37.      framing method: Using same features, wording, setting, situation, or topic at both the beginning and end of a literary work so as to "frame" it or "enclose it." This technique often provides a sense of cyclical completeness or closure.  This is also called an envelope structure or circular structure.

38.     free verse: poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern;  non-metrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line and in which pauses, line breaks, and formal patterns develop organically from the requirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms.

39.     heptastich: a seven line stanza

40.     hyperbole: a deliberate exaggeration or overstatement is used in the service of truth.

·         His eloquence could split rocks.

·         My left leg weighs three tons
.

41.     iamb: a metrical foot consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented syllable
              (example:  re – HEARSE)

 

42.     internal rhyme: a rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme words occurs WITHIN THE LINE.



 

43.     irony: a contrast between what is stated and what is really meant

EX:  By Spring, if God was good, all of the proud  privileges  of trench lice, mustard gas,  spattered brains, punctured lungs, ripped guts, mud, and gangrene, might be his.—Thomas Wolfe

44.     litotes: a deliberate understatement, not to deceive someone but to enhance the impressiveness of

what we have to say. 

·         Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered

her appearance for the worse.  –Jonathan Swift

·          It isn’t very serious.  I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.  –J.D. Salinger

45.     lyric poem:  a poem, usually a short one, that expresses a speaker's thoughts or describes an object or emotion.

46.     metaphor: a direct comparison of two unlike things. The two things being compared may be named or unnamed.

·         On the final examination, several students went down in flames.

·          Birmingham lighted a runaway fuse, and as fast as the headlines could record them,
   demonstrations exploded all over the country.

47.     metaphysical poetry: The best metaphysical poetry is honest, unconventional, and reveals the poet's sense of the complexities and contradictions of life. It is intellectual, analytical, psychological, and bold; frequently it is absorbed in thoughts of death, physical love, and religious devotion.  Metaphysical poets such as John Donne wanted to write poems that were not in the style of sentimental Elizabethan love poetry. These poems are known for their use of conceits—unusual analogies such as linking love and a compass.
            *** tendency to psychological analysis of emotion of love and religion
            *** form is frequently an argument
            *** images were “unpoetical”—drawn from commonplace life or intellectual study

48.     meter: rhythmical pattern of a poem

 

49.     metonymy: figure of speech that substitutes something closely related for the thing 

EX:  crown for royalty;  brass for military officers; pen for writer;  White House for the US President; rebels for VHHS students.    

50.     motif: a recurring feature (such as a name, an image, or a phrase) in a work of  fiction . A conspicuous recurring element, such as a type of incident, a device, a reference, or verbal formula, which appears frequently in works of literature. For instance, the ugly girl who turns out to be a beautiful princess is a common motif in folklore, and the man fatally bewitched by a fairy lady is a common folkloric motif.  The mockingbird imagery in To Kill a Mockingbird acts as a motif. The Carpe Diem (seize the day) motif often appears in contemporary literature.

51.     narrative poem:   tells a story in verse. Ballads and epics are two forms of narrative poetry.  An example is Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”

52.     octave: an eight line stanza

53.      onomatopoeia: use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its  meaning.

·         Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn yard.  –Alfred Noyes

·         The birds chirped away.  Fweet, Fweet, Bootchee-Fweet.—Saul Bellow

54.     oxymoron: the yoking of two terms that are ordinarily contradictory

EX:  sweet pain;  cheerful pessimist;  conspicuous by her absence;  thunderous silence;

        make haste slowly;  jumbo shrimp; rational hysteria

55.     paradox: a statement that reveals the truth but at first seems contradictory

·         He is guilty of being innocent.—about Joseph K. in Kafka’s The Trial

·          The past is the prologue.   –Paul Newman

56.     paraphrase: a restatement of the content of a poem designed to make its prose meaning as clear as possible.


 

57.     parallelism: the use of phrases, clauses, or sentences that are similar or complementary in structure or

in meaning.

58.     pentameter: a metrical line containing five feet.  Shakespeare most often wrote in iambic pentameter ( 5 feet per poetry line with each foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.)

 

59.     personification: a figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept.

·         The ground thirsts for rain; the harvester sits carelessly on the granary floor; the wind cried as it raced through the trees.

·          A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/ Against the earth’s sweet-flowing breast. 

60.     point of view: vantage point from which a narrative is told.  These include the personal, private thoughts to the reader.

61.     protagonist:   the central character of a drama, novel, short story, or narrative poem.  The character that the readers USUALLY sympathizes the most with.  Protagonists often have rivals or opposing characters called antagonists

62.     pun:   a play on words.  Involves using a word or a phrase that has two different meanings at the same   time.

·         If we don’t hang together, we’ll  hang separately.  –Ben Franklin

·         Your word is sound,  nothing but  sound.      –Ben Franklin

63.     quatrain: a four line stanza

 

64.     refrain: a repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines, normally at some fixed position in a poem written in stanzaic form.

 

65.     rhetorical question: when a question is asked that requires no one to answer it

        EX:  A good student body is perhaps the most important factor in a great school.  How

        can you possibly make good wine from poor grapes?

66.     rhyme: repetition of the accented vowel sound and all the succeeding sounds in important or importantly positioned words ( examples:   old-cold,  vane-reign,   court-report).  This definition applies to a perfect rhyme.

 

67.     rhyme scheme: regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem or stanza. 

 

68.     rhythm: any wave-like recurrence of motion or sound.

69.     satire: writing that ridicules or holds up to contempt the faults of individuals or groups. 

70.     sentimental poetry: poetry that attempts to manipulate the reader’s emotions in order to achieve a greater emotional response than the poem itself warrants.  (a sentimental novel or film is often called a “tear-jerker.”)

71.     sestet: a six line stanza

72.     setting: the time and place in which a story or poem occurs

73.     simile: the comparison of two unlike things using the words "like" or "as"

EX:  He had a posture like a question mark.

·           Silence settled down over the audience like a block of granite.

·          Like an arrow, the prosecutor went directly to the point.

74.     soliloquy: long speech made by one character who is alone and thus reveals his/her

75.     sonnet: a fourteen-line poem with a single theme.  Two traditional patterns exist.   
        ****Petrarchan or Italian sonnet is divided into two parts-- an eight-line octave and a six line sestet. The octave rhymes abba  abba, while the sestet generally rhymes cde, cde.  The two parts of the sonnet work together.  The octave raises the question, states a problem, or presents a brief narrative.  The sestet answers the question, solves the problem, or comments on the narrative.  The
       ****Shakespearean or English sonnet consists of  3 quatrains  and a concluding couplet, with a rhyme scheme of  abab cdcd  efef  gg.  Each of the 3 quatrains usually explores a different variation of the main theme.  The couplet presents a summarizing or concluding statement.

76.     stanza: a clustered group of lines in a poem.  Many poems are divided into stanzas that have metrical patterns repeated throughout a poem.

synecdoche: (sin- NECK- ta-KEY) a figure of speech in which  a part is used to stand for the whole.

EX:  bread for food;      cutthroat for assassin;     hands for helpers;    roofs for houses

        silver for money; 

·        In Europe, we gave the cold shoulder to DeGaulle, and now he  gives a warm hand to
       the Chinese.  –Richard Nixon

·         Give us this day our daily bread.

·         The face that launched a thousand ships

·         They braved the waves to protect the fatherland.

·         Are there no roofs in this town that will harbor an honorable man?

77.     tercet: a three line stanza

78.     theme: the general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express in a literary work. A central idea or statement that unifies and controls an entire literary work. The theme can take the form of a brief and meaningful insight or a comprehensive vision of life; it may be a single idea such as "progress" (in many Victorian works), "order and duty" (in many early Roman works), "seize-the-day" (in many late Roman works), or "jealousy" (in Shakespeare's Othello).

 

79.     tone: the attitude a writer takes toward his or her subject, characters, or audience.   The means of creating a relationship or conveying an attitude or mood. By looking carefully at the choices an author makes (in characters, incidents, setting; in the work's stylistic choices and diction, etc.), careful readers often can isolate the tone of a work and sometimes infer from it the underlying attitudes that control and color the story or poem as a whole. The tone might be formal or informal, playful, ironic, optimistic, pessimistic, or sensual.

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