Plot
A series of events in a story
Inciting incident
Part in the story when the character encounter the central conflict
Denouncement
Occurs at the end of a story- wraps up loose ends
Conflict
A struggle between characters, forces, or emotions
Narrator
The person telling the story
Direct characterization
When a writer tells the audience what his characters are like
Indirect characterization
When a writer reveals the nature of his characters through their appearance, speech, actions, thoughts, and response of other characters
Protagonist
The central character in a story
Antagonist
The character or force,that comes into conflict with the main character
Dynamic
Characters who change in some important way as a result of the story's action
Static
characters who remain the same throughout the story
Round
Complex, three dimensional characters (resemble real people)
Stock
Characters who did our preconceived notions about a specific "type" and are found again and again in different literary text
Dialect
The form of language that belongs to a particular region of social group
Flashback
A conversation, an episode, or an event that happened before the beginning of a story that interrupts the chronological flow of the story
Foreshadowing
The use of clues to hint at what is going to happen later in the story
Symbol
A person, place, thing, or object that stands for something beyond itself
Suspense
The uncertainty of anxiety the audience feels about what is going to happen next in a story
Dramatic irony
Occurs when the audience know something the characters do not know
Setting
Provides the backdrop for the action giving the time, place, and mood or atmosphere
Comic relief
A scene inserted into a serious work that relieves the tension through comedy
Soliloquy
A speech made by a character alone on stage to self or to the audience
Monologue
A speech of performance given entirely by one person
Dialogue
Conversation between two characters
Foil
A character used to contrast another character
Comedy
A play that ends happily
Tragic flaw
Personal failing that leads to a hero's downfall
Epic
Long narrative poem about the adventures of a hero whose actions reflect the values of a nation
Prose
Ordinary language that is the way we speak containing no poetic features
Allusion
Makes a reference to person, event, object,work from history, or language using rhetorical language
Connotation
Emotional association or implication attracted to a word
Denotation
Literal meaning of a word (dictionary)
Alliteration
Repetition of consonant sounds in a row at the beginning of a word
Assonance
Similarity of vowel sounds and ends with different constant sounds
Consonance
Ending consonant sounds are same but not vowels (slant rhyme)
Imagery
Appeals to the five senses, descriptive words and phrases
Simile
Compare two unlike things using like or as
Metaphor
comparing two things without using like or as
Personification
Human qualities to idea, animal, inanimate things
Hyperbole
Exaggeration made for rhetorical effect
Idiom
Expression not meant to be taken literally
Onomonopia
Words or phrases that sound like what they refer
Oxymoron
Statement or word contradicting itself
Refrain
Group of lines repeated in a poem/song
Symbol
Object or thing standing much stronger than what it is
Elegy
Poem that laments the dead (honors)
Ballad
Narrative poem, four line stanzas, meant to be sung with a close relationship to music and tells a story
Tone
Authors attitude toward a subject
Mood
The emotion the reader feels after reading the poem
Sonnet
14 line poem that follows iambic pentameter