English II Literary Terms

English II Literary Terms

Harlan High School English II Literary Terms 2015-2016

  1. abstract language
/ language that refers to things that are intangible (i.e. which are perceived not through the senses but by the mind: truth, God, education, vice, transportation, poetry, war, love.)
  1. ad hominem argument
/ appealing to personal interests, prejudices, or emotions rather than to reason
  1. allegory
/ a form of extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy. Thus an allegory is a story with two meanings, a literal meaning and a symbolic meaning.
  1. alliteration
/ the repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words. Example: In cliches: sweet smell of success, a dime a dozen, bigger and better, jump for joy
Wordsworth: "And sings a solitary song/ That whistles in the wind."
  1. allusion
/ a brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art. Casual reference to a famous historical or literary figure or event. An allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion. Example: Stephen Vincent Benet's story "By the Waters of Babylon" contains a direct reference to Psalm 137 in the Bible.
  1. anachronisms
/ the representation of something as existing or happening at other than its proper or historical time
  1. analogy
/ the comparison of two pairs that have the same relationship. The key is to ascertain the relationship between the first so you can choose the correct second pair. Part to whole, opposites, results of are types of relationships you should find. Example: hot is to cold as fire is to ice OR hot::cold::fire:ice
  1. analogous
/ comparable
  1. anecdote
/ a short account of an incident
  1. anaphora
/ the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs.
Example: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I have a dream that."
  1. antonym
/ a word having a meaning opposite to that of another word. Example: The word wet is an antonym of the word dry
  1. aphorisms
/ a brief saying embodying a moral, a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words. Example:
Pope: "Some praise at morning what they blame at night." Franklin: "Lost Time is never Found again."
  1. assonance
/ the repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of nearby words. “The monster spoke in a low mellow tone” has assonance in its repetition of the “o” sound.
  1. apostrophe
/ an absent person, an abstract concept, or an important object is directly addressed.
Example: “With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbest the skies. Busy old fool, unruly sun.”
  1. asyndeton
/ the omission of a conjunction from a list Example: 'chips, beans, peas, vinegar, salt, pepper'.
  1. chiasmus
/ a type of rhetoric in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first. (Greek X ) Example: "There's a bridge to cross the great divide. There's a cross to bridge the great divide. "
  1. chronological order
/ a sequence of events arranged in the order in which they occurred
  1. cognate
/ descended from or related to a common ancestor. (Said of words or languages: derived from the same original form.) Synonyms for "cognate": alike, similar, related, kindred, analogous, allied, associated, affiliated, matching, parallel; Antonyms for "cognate": disparate, unconnected.
  1. concrete language
/ language that describes specific, generally observable, persons, places, or things; in contrast to abstract language
  1. conceit
/ an elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious, poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, for example, a beloved is compared to a ship, planet, etc. The comparison may be brief or extended.
  1. connotation
/ additional, suggested meaning of a word as opposed to its literal, direct meaning
  1. consonance
/ a repetition of consonants, especially those after a stressed vowel (e.g., march, lurch)
  1. denotation
/ the literal, dictionary definition of a word
  1. dialect
/ a regional or social variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary, especially a variety of speech differing from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists. Cockney is a dialect of English.
  1. diction
/ the selection and arrangement of words in a literary work. Either or both may vary depending on the desired effect. There are four general types of diction: "formal," used in scholarly or lofty writing; "informal," used in relaxed but educated conversation; "colloquial," used in everyday speech; and "slang," containing newly coined words and other terms not accepted in formal usage.
  1. ellipses
/ the omission of a word or phrase necessary for a complete syntactical construction but not necessary for understanding (May also be defined as three spaced periods indicating the omission of text.)
  1. euphemism
/ the substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one, as in the use of "pass away" instead of "die."
  1. figurative language
/ the use of words, phrases, symbols, and ideas in such a way as to evoke mental images and sense impressions by using words in a nonliteral way, giving them a meaning beyond their ordinary one
  1. generalization
/ a broad statement or belief based on a limited number of facts, examples, or statistics. A product of inductive reasoning, generalizations should be used carefully and sparingly in essays.
  1. homily
/ a sermon or a tedious moralizing lecture or admonition
  1. hyperbole
/ exaggeration or overstatement. Example:
I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.
He's as big as a house.
  1. idiom
/ a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements, as in keep tabs on.
  1. imagery
/ any poetic reference to the five senses (sight, touch, smell, hearing, and taste). Essentially, imagery is a group of words that create a mental image. Such images can be created by using figures of speech such as similes, metaphors, and personification.
  1. inference
/ the process of drawing a conclusion from given evidence
  1. irony
/ a form of speech in which the real meaning is concealed or contradicted by the words used. Irony involves the perception that things are not what they are said to be or what they seem. Dramatic irony lies in the audience's deeper perceptions of a coming fate, which contrast with the character's perceptions.
  1. imperative
/ expressing a command or plea
  1. inverted word order
/ the use of words out of their normal order.
Example: In "Chartless" Emily Dickenson writes "Yet know I how the heather looks" and "Yet certain am I of the spot." Instead of saying "Yet I know" and "Yet I am certain" she reverses the usual order and shifts the emphasis to the more important words.
  1. jargon
/ language that is used or understood only by a select group of people. Jargon may refer to terminology used in a certain profession, such as computer jargon, or it may refer to any nonsensical language that is not understood by most people.
  1. literal language
/ language that does not exaggerate or embellish the subject matter and uses no tools of figurative language. To say "He ran very quickly down the street" is to use literal language, whereas to say "He ran like a hare down the street" would be using figurative language.
  1. litotes
/ a figure of speech in which an affirmative is expressed by the negation of its opposite, as in no small problem.
  1. loaded words
/ words or phrases which have strong emotional overtones or connotations and which evoke strongly positive (or negative) reactions far beyond the specific meaning of the word which is listed in the dictionary
  1. metaphor
/ comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be" and not using like or as in a simile. Example: “He is a pig. Thou art sunshine.”
  1. metonymy
/ Substitution of a word for another word closely associated with it. Example:
“bowing to the sceptered isle” (Great Britain)
  1. moral
/ the significance of a story or event: "the moral of the story is to love thy neighbor"
  1. non sequiturs
/ a statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it
  1. order of importance
/ rank ing events or items in the order of their significance (importance)
  1. onomatopoeia
/ a word that imitates the sound it represents. Example: splash, wow, gush, kerplunk
  1. oxymoron
/ two contradictory words used together.
Examples: hot ice, cold fire, wise fool, sad joy, military intelligence, eloquent silence,
  1. parody
/ an imitation of a serious literary work or the signature style of a particular author in a ridiculous manner. A typical parody adopts the style of the original and applies it to an inappropriate subject for humorous effect. Parody is a form of satire and could be considered the literary equivalent of a caricature or cartoon.
  1. paradox
/ a kind of truth that at first seems contradictory. Example: Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.
  1. parallelism
/ the use of corresponding syntactical forms
  1. personification
/ human qualities assigned to animals or objects. Example: a smiling moon, a jovial sun
  1. polysyndeton
/ the repetition of connectives or conjunctions in close succession for rhetorical effect, as in the phrase here and there and everywhere.
  1. satire
/ a piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt. Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels satirizes the English people, making them seem dwarfish in their ability to deal with large thoughts, issues, or deeds.
  1. simile
/ the comparison of two unlike things using like or as. Related to metaphor. Example: He eats like a pig. Vines like golden prisons.
  1. spatial order
/ a method of description that begins at one geographical point and moves onward in an orderly fashion.
  1. subjunctive
/ a grammatical mood of the verb that expresses wishes, commands (in subordinate clauses), and statements that are contrary to fact. Example: "If I were a rich man…"
  1. syllogism
/ a form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion; for example, All men are foolish (major premise); Smith is a man (minor premise); therefore, Smith is foolish (conclusion).
  1. symbolism
/ the practice of representing things by means of symbols or of attributing symbolic meanings or significance to objects, events, or relationships.
  1. synecdoche
/ use of a part to represent the whole.
Example: "lend me your ears" (give me your attention).
  1. synonym
/ a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in a language. Example: "Error" and "mistake" are synonyms.
  1. syntax
/ the way in which words can be arranged and modified to construct sentences. Writers characteristically use syntactic sub-ordination when they aim for a highly formal effect, and syntactic co-ordination when they aim for a simpler, more straight-forward effect.

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