Literary Terms Mrs. Stevens

Literary Terms Mrs. Stevens

Term / Definition
1)Allegory / the symbolic expression of a deeper meaning through a story or scene acted out by human, animal, or mythical characters
2)Alliteration: / Repetition of beginning consonant sounds. Ex: While I pondered weak and weary….
3)Archetype: / Character, setting, theme, or symbol that demonstrates a universal human experience. Ex: hero’s journey.

character archetype: mentor, hero, outcast
situational archetype: the task, the quest

symbol archetypes: water, fire, desert, serpent
4)Assonance / Repetition of a vowel sound in a series of words.
5)Attitude/Tone / The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject, character, or audience, and it is conveyed through the author’s choice of words and detail. Tone can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, indignant, objective, etc.
6)Autobiography / an account of somebody's life written by that person
7)Ballad / A song that tells a story. (has characters, setting, plot and conflict)
8)Biography / an account of somebody's life written or produced by another person, e.g. as a book, movie, or television
9)Blank Verse / unrhymed poetry that has a regular rhythm and line length, especially iambic pentameter
10)Cause & Effect / a person or thing that makes something happen or exist or is responsible for something that happens
11)Character/Characterization / The development of a character through actions and dialogue.
Authors use two methods:

direct – author is “directly” telling audience information about character
indirect – reader must infer character traits through speech, thoughts, effect on others, actions, and looks

12)Cliché / a phrase or word that has lost its original effectiveness or power from overuse
13)Climax / turning point in plot marking highest emotional intensity
14)Conflict (Internal/External) / The struggle between opposing forces.
Types of conflict:

internal – struggle within (man vs. himself)
external – struggle outside of character (man vs. man, man vs. nature, man vs. society, man vs. supernatural)

15)Connotation / The feelings and emotions associated with the meaning of a word.
16)Couplet
17)Denotation / The dictionary definition of a word.
18)Denouement / the final outcome
19)Dialect / Speech characteristics of a particular region or culture.
20)Epitaph / an inscription on a tombstone or monument commemorating the person buried there
21)Epithet / a nickname given to someone based on character traits/personality
22)Euphemism / Substituted word or phrase to create a softer tone or to deceive. Ex: The dog passed away.
23)Extended Metaphor / A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.
Ex: Robert Frost uses two roads as an extended metaphor in “The Road Not Taken.”.
24)Falling Action / events following the climax in a narrative
25)Figurative / using or containing a nonliteral sense of a word or words
26)Figurative Language / Words or phrases that describe one thing in terms of something else, not to be taken literally.
27)Flat/Round/Foil Characters / Character types:

flat – one characteristic developed
round – many characteristics developed
dynamic – characters change
static – characters stay the same
foil – contrasting characters used to highlight a characteristic of protagonist

28)Foreshadowing / The use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest future action.
29)Free Verse / verse without a fixed metrical pattern, usually having unrhymed lines of varying length
30)Genre / one of the categories, based on form, style, or subject matter, into which artistic works of all kinds can be divided. For example, the detective novel is a genre of fiction.
31)Hyperbole / An over exaggeration for effect.
Ex: I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.
32)Imagery / Evoking language used by the author to appeal to the reader’s senses; figurative language, especially metaphors and similes, used in poetry, plays, and other literary work
33)Imply / to make something understood without expressing it directly
34)Inference / a conclusion drawn from evidence or reasoning
35)Irony (Dramatic, Verbal,
36)Situational) / When the opposite of what you expect happens.
Types of irony include:

verbal irony – occurs when a speaker or narrator says one thing while meaning the opposite. Ex: It is easy to stop smoking. I’ve done it many times.
situational irony – occurs when a situation turns out differently from what one would normally expect, though often the twist is oddly appropriate: e.g., a deep sea diver drowning in a bathtub is ironic.
dramatic irony – character(s) and audience have insight about something other characters do not. Ex: In a scary movie, the audience knows the murderer is behind the door but character doesn’t.

37)Main Idea / In writing, the writer’s primary point he/she is attempting to convey with a work of literature
38)MLA / Standard Format for Literary Research papers: Modern Language Association
39)Mood / Atmosphere or emotion in a literary work. Ex: the suspenseful mood of a mystery
40)Myth / a traditional story about heroes or supernatural beings, often attempting to explain the origins of natural phenomena or aspects of human behavior
41)Narrative / the part of a literary work that is concerned with telling the story
42)Narrative Poetry / A poem that relates an event/occurrence from beginning to end
43)Onomatopoeia / The use of words that mimic the sounds they describe. Ex: hiss, buzz, bang
44)Organizational/Rhetorical / As relating to argument: Using a sequential method of thought, relating to the skill of using language effectively and persuasively to convey a point using pathos, ethos, and logos
45)Structure/Features
46)Oxymoron / A pair of opposite terms placed together in a single expression.
Ex: bittersweet; jumbo shrimp
47)Parable / a short simple story intended to illustrate a moral or religious lesson
48)Paradox / A contradiction of ideas in the same statement that reveals a hidden truth and may appear illogical, impossible, or absurd.
Ex: It’s a love hate relationship.
49)Parallelism / the deliberate repetition of words or sentence structures for effect
50)Paraphrase / To summarize another’s works in your own words for use in research/writing; must cite original source
51)Parody / a piece of writing or music that deliberately copies another work in a comic or satirical way
52)Persuasion / The written/verbal attempt to sway another to a point of view
53)Plot / The sequence of events or actions in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem.
The parts of plot include:
54)Poetic Form / refers to various sets of "rules" followed by poems of certain types. The rules may describe such aspects as the rhythm or meter of the poem, its rhyme scheme, or its use of alliteration.
55)Point of View
56)First Person POV
57)3rd Person POV
58)Omniscient POV / The perspective from which a narrative is told.

1st person – told from the perspective of a character in story using pronouns (I or me). Audience is limited to the viewpoint of that character.
3rd person omniscient – told from the perspective of an “all knowing” narrator who is not a character.
3rd person limited – told from the perspective of a narrator revealing the thoughts and knowledge of some but not all characters.

59)Primary Source / pertaining to or being a firsthand account, original data, etc., or based on direct knowledge
60)Secondary Source / pertainingtoorbeingaderivedorderivativeaccount,anevaluationoforiginaldata,etc.;notprimaryororiginal
61)Prose / theordinaryformofspokenorwrittenlanguage,withoutmetricalstructure,asdistinguishedfrompoetryorverse.
62)Repetition / The deliberate use of any element of language more than once – sound, word, phrase, sentence, grammatical pattern, or rhythmical pattern.
63)Resolution / The final outcome
64)Rhetorical Question / A rhetorical question is a figure of speech in the form of a question that is asked in order to make a point rather than to elicit an answer.
65)Rhyme / The repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem. Types of rhyme include:

end rhyme occurs at the ends of lines.
internal rhyme occurs within a line.
slant rhymeis approximate rhyme.
exact rhymeis when two words sound the same.
A rhyme scheme is a pattern of end rhyme.
blank verse is unrhymed verse having a regular meter, usually of iambic pentameter.

66)Rhyme Scheme / a pattern of end rhyme.
67)Rhythm / Pattern of beats within a poem.
68)Rising Action / the suspense building up to the climax
69)Satire / Exaggeration or ridicule for the purpose of social change.
70)Sentence Structure / The simplicity or complexity of words that make up a sentences. The four types of sentences are simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.
71)Sensory Detail / include sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. Writers employ the five senses to engage a reader's interest.
72)Setting / The time and place in which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem take place.
73)Sequential Order / The order in which events take place in the story
74)Simile / Comparison of two unlike things/ideas using “like” or “as”.
Ex: the classroom was like a warzone.
75)Speaker / Narrator/person telling the story
76)Stereotype / Ageneralization,usuallyexaggeratedoroversimplifiedandoftenoffensive,thatisusedtodescribeordistinguishagroup.
77)Suspense / An aura of mystery; Genre of writing or mood/tone as applicable
78)Symbolism / the practice of representing things by symbols, or of investing things with a symbolic meaning or character.
79)Theme / The central message in a literary work; the author’s intended message (AIM).
80)Tone / The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject, character, or audience, and it is conveyed through the author’s choice of words and detail. Tone can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, indignant, objective, etc.
81)Tragic Flaw / The hero’s weakness; normally the protagonist must overcome this in order to complete their task; i.e. an internal/external conflict
82)Tragic Hero / Thetragicheroisthemanofinnatenoblenesswhoyethassomeonedefectthatlayshimopentoruin.
83)Understatement / The opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is: e.g., “I could probably manage to survive on a salary of two million dollars per years.”

Objectives/PASS Standards:

OK.11.R.1.2 Use reference material such as glossary, dictionary, thesaurus, and available technology to determine precise meaning and usage.

OK.11.R.1.4 Rely on context to determine meanings of words and phrases such as figurative language, connotations and denotations of words, analogies, idioms, and technical vocabulary.

OK.11.R.3.3.a Figurative Language and Sound Devices - Identify figurative language and sound devices and analyze how they affect the development of a literary work: Identify and explain figurative language including analogy, hyperbole, metaphor, personification, and simile.

OK.11.R.1.5 Use word meanings within the appropriate context and verify these meanings by definition, restatement, example, and analogy.

OK.11.W.3.2.e Mechanics and spelling. Demonstrate appropriate language mechanics in writing: Use correct spelling including:
(I) commonly misspelled words and homonyms
(II) spell consonant changes correctly
(III) spell Greek and Latin derivatives (words that come from a base or common root word) by applying correct spelling of bases and affixes (prefixes and suffixes)