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Literary terms
Literary terms for the SOL
10
Literature
Not Applicable
08/24/2005

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Term
allegory
Definition
a narrative that serves as an extended metaphor. Allegories are written in the form of fables, parables, poems, stories, and almost any other style or genre. The main purpose of an allegory is to tell a story that has characters, a setting, as well as other types of symbols, that
have both literal and figurative meanings.
Term
alliteration
Definition
a pattern of sound that includes the repetition of consonant sounds. “Swiftly sailed the ship upon the sea.”
Term
allusion
Definition
a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another work of literature. Allusions are often indirect or brief references to well-known characters or events.
Term
antagonist
Definition
a character in a story or poem who deceives, frustrates, or works again the main character, or protagonist, in some way
Term
aside
Definition
an actor’s speech, directed to the audience, that is not supposed to be heard by other actors on stage. An aside is usually used to let the audience know what a character is about to do or what he or she is thinking.
Term
ballad
Definition
a narrative folk song. The ballad is traced back to the Middle Ages. Ballads were usually created by common people and passed orally because of the illiteracy of the time
Term
blank verse
Definition
Unrhymed iambic pentameter
Term
climax
Definition
(the turning point or "crisis") of the work has already occurred by the time the denouement occurs. It is sometimes referred to as the explanation or outcome of a drama that reveals all the secrets and misunderstandings connected to the plot.
Term
convention
Definition
a device in drama that the audience accepts as real when it is not, as in watching someone write a check in a matter of seconds when, in reality, it would take longer.
Term
couplet
Definition
a style of poetry defined as a complete thought written in two lines with rhyming ends. The most popular of the couplets is the heroic couplet. The heroic couplet consists of two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter usually having a pause in the middle of each line. One of William Shakespeare’s trademarks was to end a sonnet with a couplet, as in the poem “Shall I Compare
Thee to a Summer’s Day”:
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