English 11 HonorsLiterary TermsMr. Albert
Literary Terms:
1. Allusion: a reference to a well-known person, even, or place from history, music, art, or another literary work. For example: when MLK, Jr. says “five score years ago” he is alluding to Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” and when he says “Free at last. Thank God almighty we are free at last.” He is alluding to slave spirituals based on the Psalms.
2. Ambiguity: The expression of an idea with more than one meaning. (for example, in the poem “Peonies,” lines like, “You stand alone in the middle of the balcony in the end of Spring.” make it unclear whether he is talking about a woman or a flower.
3. Analogy: (argument by analogy) a comparison of two similar situations, implying that the outcome of one will resemble the outcome of the other.
4. Anaphora The repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginnings of two or more clauses or lines. For example: “into our past / into the river crossing at five / into the spinach fields / into the plainview cotton rows / into tuberculosis wards / into braids” from “My Mother Pieced Quilts.”
5. Anecdotal Evidence: evidence based on personal accounts
6. Appeals:
Ethos: focusses on ethics, character, or the qualifications of the speaker
Logos: uses logic and reason (watch for numbers and stats)
Pathos: appeals to emotion (watch for safety and children)
7. Archetype: Universal symbols – images, characters, motifs, or patterns – that recur in myths, art and literature. For example, the creation, the great flood, Bra Spider, the search for the fountain of youth. Archetypes can also be the original or ideal form, such as Odysseus and Achilles as the archetypal epic heroes and Romeo and Juliet as the archetypal love story.
8. Argumentation: the structure of an argument including:
Claim: opinion, thesis or idea the argument is ultimately trying to prove
Support: evidence (facts, statistics, examples, expert opinions, etc.) that logically back up the claim
Warrant: commentary and elaboration that develop the support and tie it to the claim
9. Bias: an inclination or leaning for or against something that prevents impartial judgment.
10. Cliché: an overused expression or idea (avoid them as they are often seen as trite and unoriginal, for example, “love can conquer all.” I mean, I just threw up a little in my mouth simply by typing that)
11. Climax: The point at which the action reaches its peak, tensions reach their peak, and the outcomes of the conflict come into view.
12. Dialect: The language, including sounds, spelling, grammar, and diction of a specific group or class of people. For example, an author may choose to use a’ight instead of alright to give us a clearer, more authentic picture of a character or setting.
13.Diction: The writer’s choice of words. Diction is important to convey style, voice, tone, and layered meaning through connotation.
Connotation: The associations and emotional overtones words carry. For example, we associate steadfast with a positive compliment, whereas pig headed is a negative put down.
Denotation: The literal meaning of a word.
14. Empirical Evidence: evidence based on observations through experience or research
15. Epigram: A brief, clever, and memorable statement containing a moral. (for example: “Better with the learned dwell, / Even though it be in hell / Than with vulgar spirits roam / Palaces that gods call home.”)
16. Epithet: An adjective or descriptive phrase that is used regularly to characterize a person, place, or thing. For example, Achilles is often given the epithet “the great runner”
17. Euphemism: The use of an innocent word or phrase to replace a more suggestive one. For example, between jobs, big boned, pushing up daisies, go all the way.
18. Exposition: events or speech that gives a reader background information needed to understand a story. – introduces setting, characters, conflicts, etc.
19. Fallacy: A false or misleading argument that can undermine the logic of your argument.
Slippery slope:This is a conclusion based on the premise that if A happens, then eventually through a series of small steps, through B, C,..., X, Y, Z will happen, too, basically equating A and Z. So, if we don't want Z to occur A must not be allowed to occur either. For example, “If we ban Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars, so we should not ban Hummers.”
Hasty Generalization:This is a conclusion based on insufficient or biased evidence; rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts. For example, Even though it's only the first day, I can tell this is going to be a boring course.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc:mixing up correlation and causation: this is a conclusion that assumes that if 'A' occurred after 'B' then 'B' must have caused 'A.' For example, I drank bottled water and now I am sick, so the water must have made me sick.
Genetic Fallacy:A conclusion is based on an argument that the origins of a person, idea, institute, or theory determine its character, nature, or worth. For example, The Volkswagen Beetle is an evil car because it was originally designed by Hitler's army.
Circular Argument:This restates the argument rather than actually proving it. For example, George Bush is a good communicator because he speaks effectively.
Either/or:This is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it to only two sides or choices. For example, We can either stop using cars or destroy the earth.
Ad hominem:This is an attack on the character of a person rather than their opinions or arguments. For example, Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty, lazy hippies.
Ad populum:This is an emotional appeal that speaks to positive (such as patriotism, religion, democracy) or negative (such as terrorism, communism or fascism) concepts rather than the real issue at hand. For example, If you were a true American you would support the rights of people to choose whatever vehicle they want.
Red Herring:This is a diversionary tactic that avoids the key issues, often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them. For example, The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe, but what will fishermen do to support their families?
20. Falling Action: events after the climax that lead to and set up the resolution
21. Flashback: when an author breaks from a linear progression of events to tell of something that happened in the past.
22. Flash forward: when an author breaks from a linear progression of events to tell of something that will happen in the future
23. Foreshadowing: Hints or clues suggesting something that may happen in future action
Graphic Novel: a book-length narrative in the form of a comic strip (Persepolis, Maus, Watchmen)
24. Hyperbole: exaggeration used to show strong emotion or create a comic effect. For example, “Here once the embattled farmers stood, / And fired the shot heard round the world.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
25. Imagery: Language that appeals to the senses in order to create an image in the mind’s eye of the reader. For example, “The crimson liquid spilled from the neck of the white dove, staining and matting its pure, white feathers.”
26. Irony: a disparity between meaning and representation
Situational: Something happens that is different from normal expectation
Verbal: saying the opposite of what you mean
Dramatic: occurs as a result of the audience knowing something characters don’t
27. Juxtaposition: The arrangement of two or more things to create contrast and incite comparison. For example, an old character and a young one, a romantic character and an emotionless one, or an innocent character and a guilty one.
28. Memoir: a type of autobiography focusing on a single time period or event; often more personal, reflective, and theme oriented than a traditional autobiography. For example, A Long Way Gone, Night.
29. Metaphor: A figure of speech that compares seemingly unlike things without using connecting words like, resembles, than, like, or as. For example, “His teeth were hardened blue cheese nuggets, speckled with green and blue.
30. Mood: The overall emotion evoked by a work of literature
31. Motif: a recurrent image, symbol, theme, character type, subject or detail that becomes a unifying element in works of art. (Yes, literature is art.)
32. Onomatopoeia: Words whose sounds suggest their meanings. For example, woof, meow
33. Paradox: a seemingly contradictory statement which reveals a truth: “Nobody goes to that restaurant because it’s too busy.”
34. Parallelism: Grammatical or structural similarity between sentences or parts of sentences. For example, "It is by logic we prove, but by intuition we discover" – Leonardo DiVinci
35. Personification: treating or talking about a nonhuman thing or quality as if it were human. For example, representing the concept of justice with a blindfolded woman holding a scale or “The angry clouds marched across the sky”
Anthropomorphism: giving human characteristics such as motivation or behavior to gods, nature or animals. The most common examples would be fables in which animals talk, wear clothes, etc. just like a human, or the Greek and Roman gods
Apostrophe: The speaker directly addresses an absent or dead person, deity, or abstract quality as if it were capable of responding. For example, “O Death where is your victory? O Death where is your sting?”
36. Plot: the sequence of events.
37. Point of View: The perspective from which a story is told. Narrators can be omniscient (knowing everything), semi-omniscient, limited, or sometimes even unreliable.
First Person: the narrator is a character in the story. (told using I)
Second Person: very rare, but you are a character in the story (told using you)
Third Person: the narrator is outside the story (told using he or she)
38. Prose: ordinary language using sentences or paragraphs as opposed to a song or poem
39. Pun: a play on words, usually making humor about the double meanings and associations with words. “Is your refrigerator running? You better catch it.”
40. Resolution: the end of a play, story, or novel in which the main conflict is resolved
41. Rising Action: the movement of a plot toward a climax; a building up of conflict and tension
42. Setting: Time and place of a story used to establish mood and atmosphere
43. Simile: A direct comparison between unlike things, often using like, as, than, or resembles.
44. Speaker: not to be confused with author, the speaker is a fictional character created by first person narration or poetry (the person or thing “speaking” the poem)
45. Symbol: A person, place, thing or event that stands both for itself and for something else. (Ex.: Dove = Peace, Lion = Power)
46. Synecdoche: a type of figurative language in which the part represents the whole: “ten hired hands”
47. Synesthesia: a switching or combining of the senses: “the smell of red was everywhere,” “petals of laughter fell all around the playground in spring”
48. Syntax: the arrangements of words and grammatical elements; the way in which words are put together to create meaning and subtext (that reading between the lines stuff)
Balanced Sentence: a sentence that presents ideas of equal weight in similar grammatical forms to emphasize the similarity or contrast the difference between the idea. For example, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)
Complex Sentence: a sentence containing one independent clause and one or more subordinating clauses. For example, “When he handed in his homework, he forgot to give the teacher the last page.”
Compound Sentence: a sentence containing two independent clauses. For example, “I tried to do my homework, but I left my book at school.”
Compound-Complex Sentence: a sentence containing two or more independent clauses and two or more subordinating clauses. For example, “Although I love exercise, I have been sick, so I haven’t worked out in almost a month.”
Cumulative (or loose) Sentence: a sentence in which the main clause comes first, followed by subordinate clauses. – kind of like a meandering though, for example, "I write this at a wide desk in a pine shed as I always do these recent years, in this life I pray will last, while the summer sun closes the sky to Orion and to all the other winter stars over my roof." (Annie Dillard)
Independent Clause: a group of words containing a subject and verb and representing a complete though (could stand alone as a sentence)
Parallelism: grammatical or structural similarity between sentences or clauses to give each element similar emphasis. For example, "When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative."(Martin Luther King, Jr.)
Periodic Sentence:a sentence that only makes sense when the end of the sentence is reached – the main clause comes last. For example, "To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, that is genius."(Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Subordinate (or dependent) Clause: a group of words containing a subject and verb, but needing something else to become a complete thought
49. Theme: an author’s central idea or message; a repeated idea or subject throughout a work
50. Tone: The attitude a writer takes toward the reader, a subject, or a character (Ex.: formal, personal, indifferent, sarcastic, etc.)
51. Voice: the way in which writers use diction, syntax, and tone to express ideas and create a persona
52. Understatement: representing something as something as smaller or less significant than it is – a form of verbal irony. For example, when visiting a friend in the hospital with cancer he says “I’ve had better days,” or calling Scarlett Johansson “not unattractive”
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