Shared Flashcard Set

Details

English Comp II
Lit Terms
59
Literature
Undergraduate 1
10/11/2010

Additional Literature Flashcards

 


 

Cards

Term
Allegory
Definition
A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning.
Term
Alliteration
Definition
The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. Ex:Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.
Term
Antagonist
Definition
A character or force against which another character struggles.
Term
Assonance
Definition
The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose.
Term
Ballad
Definition
A narrative poem written in 4 line stanzas, characterized by swift action; narrated in direct style.
Term
Blank verse
Definition
A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Term
Characterization
Definition
The means by which writers present & reveal character.
Term
Climax
Definition
The turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story.
Term
Closed form
Definition
A type of form or structure in poetry characterized by regularity;consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, and metrical pattern.
Term
Complication
Definition
An intensification of the conflict in a story or play.
Term
Conflict
Definition
A struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, usually resolved by the end of the work.
Term
Connotation
Definition
The associations called up by a word that go beyond its dictionary meaning.
Term
Couplet
Definition
A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem.
Term
Denotation
Definition
The dictionary meaning of a word.
Term
Denouement
Definition
The resolution of the plot of a literary work.
Term
Dramatic Monologue
Definition
A type of poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener.
Term
Elegy
Definition
A lyric poem that laments the dead.
Term
Elision
Definition
The omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry.
Term
Enjambment
Definition
A run-on line of poetry in which logical & grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next.
Term
Epigram
Definition
A brief witty poem, often satirical.
Term
Fallen action
Definition
In the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement
Term
Fiction
Definition
An imagined story, whether in prose, poetry, or drama, or an imagined character-a "fiction"
Term
Figurative language
Definition
A form of language use in which writers & speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words.
Term
Flashback
Definition
An interruption of a work's chronology to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time frame of a work's action.
Term
Foot
Definition
A metrical unit composed of stressed & unstressed syllables.
Term
Foreshadowing
Definition
Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or story.
Term
Free verse
Definition
Poetry w/o a regular pattern of meter or rhyme.
Term
Hyperbole
Definition
A figure of speech involving exaggeration.
Term
Iambic pentameter
Definition
A poetic line of 5 iambic feet.
Term
Image
Definition
The pattern of related comparative aspects of language, particularly of images, in a literary work.
Term
Irony
Definition
A contrast or discrepancy between what is said what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life & in literature.
Term
Literal language
Definition
A form of language in which writers & speakers mean exactly what their words denote.
Term
Meter
Definition
The measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems.
Term
Narrative poem
Definition
A poem that tells a story.
Term
Narrator
Definition
The voice & implied speaker of a fictional work, to be distinguished from the actual living author.
Term
Octave
Definition
An eight-line unit, which may constitute a stanza or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet.
Term
Ode
Definition
A long, stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, & form.
Term
Onomatopoeia
Definition
The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe.
Term
Open form
Definition
A type of structure or form in poetry characterized by freedom from regularity & consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, metrical pattern, & overall poetic structure.
Term
Parody
Definition
A humorous, mocking imitation of a literally of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often playful & even respectful in its playful imitation.
Term
Personification
Definition
The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts w/animate or living qualities.
Term
Plot
Definition
The unified structure of incidents in a literary work.
Term
Point of view
Definition
The angle of vision from which a story is narrated.
Term
Props
Definition
Articles or objects that appear on stage during a play.
Term
Protagonist
Definition
The main character of a literary work.
Term
Pyrrhic
Definition
A metrical foot w/ 2 unstressed syllables.
Term
Quatrain
Definition
A 4-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines & the second 4 lines in a Petrarchan sonnet.
Term
Recognition
Definition
The point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is.
Term
Resolution
Definition
The sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the of a play, novel, or story.
Term
Rhyme
Definition
The matching of final vowel or consonants in two or more words.
Term
Rhythm
Definition
The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse.
Term
Rising action
Definition
A set of conflicts & crises that constitute that part of a play's or story's plot leading up to the climax.
Term
Setting
Definition
The time & place of a literary work that establish its context.
Term
Simile
Definition
A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as though.
Term
Sonnet
Definition
A 14 line poem in iambic pentameter.
Term
Stanza
Definition
A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form-either w/similar or identical patterns or rhyme & meter, or w/variations from one stanza to another.
Term
Symbol
Definition
An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself.
Term
Syntax
Definition
The grammatical order of words in a sentences of prose, verse, & dialogue.
Term
Tone
Definition
The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject & characters of a work.
Supporting users have an ad free experience!