Abstract Poem
n. (poetic) Verse that makes little sense grammatically or syntactically but which relies on auditory patterns create its meaning or poetic effects.
Example: Sky rhinoceros-glum
Watched the courses of the breakers' rocking-horses and with Glaucis
Lady Venus on the settee of the horsehair sea!
Accent
adj. (rhetorical) The emphasis, or stress, given a syllable in pronunciation.
We say "syllable" not "syllable," "emphasis" not "emphasis."
Accents can also be used to emphasize a particular word in a sentence:
Is she content with the contents of the yellow package? See also meter.
Acronym
n. (rhetorical) A word formed from the initial letters in a phrase.
For instance, many caucasians in America are called WASPs. In this acronym, the letters W. A. S. P. stand for the first letters in the descriptive phrase, "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
Alphabetism
n. (rhetorical) word pronounced aloud by using the names of the actual letters--such as the IRS (Internal Revenue Service)
Act
n. (literary) A major division in the action of a play. Playwrights frequently employ acts to accommodate changes in time, setting, characters onstage, or mood. In many full-length plays, acts are further divided into scenes, which often mark a point in the action when the location changes or when a new character enters.
Allegory
n. (literary) A narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning because its events, actions, characters, settings, and objects represent specific abstractions or ideas. Although the elements in an allegory may be interesting in themselves, the emphasis tends to be on what they ultimately mean.
Characters may be given names such as Hope, Pride, Youth, and Charity; they have few if any personal qualities beyond their abstract meanings.
Alliteration
n. (rhetorical) The repetition of the same consonant sounds in a sequence of words, usually at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable: "descending dew drops"; "luscious lemons." Alliteration is based on the sounds of letters, rather than the spelling of words; for example, "keen" and "car" alliterate, but "car" and "cite" do not.
Allusion
n. (literary) brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature. Allusions conjure up biblical authority, scenes from Shakespeare's plays, historic figures, wars, great love stories, and anything else that might enrich an author's work.
The three most common are: the Bible, Shakespeare, and Greek and Roman Mythology.
Fairy tales are also commonly referenced.
Allusions imply reading and cultural experiences shared by the writer and reader, functioning as a kind of shorthand whereby the recalling of something outside the work supplies an emotional or intellectual context.
Anachronism
v. (rhetorical) Placing an event, person, item, or verbal expression in the wrong historical period.
Anadiplosis
n. (rhetorical) Repeating the last word of a clause at the beginning of the next clause.
Glad You Came- The Wanted
"Hand you another drink, drink it if you can, can you spend a little time, time is slipping away, away from you so stay, stay with me...
Anagram
n. (rhetorical) word or phrase made from the letters of another word or phrase, as "heart" is an anagram of "earth."
Anagrams have often been considered merely an exercise of one's ingenuity, but sometimes writers use anagrams to conceal proper names or veiled messages, or to suggest important connections between words, as in "hated" and "death.
Analogue
n. (literary) A story that contains similar characters, situations, settings, or verbal echoes to those found in a different story. Sometimes analogues reveal that one version was adopted from or inspired by another, or that both tales originate in a lost, older text.
Ex: Romeo and Juliet and Westside Story
Ancillary Characters
n. (literary) Less important characters who are not the primary protagonist or antagonist, but who highlight these characters or interact with them in such a way as to provide insight into the narrative action.
Anecdote
n. (literary) A short narrative account of an amusing, unusual, revealing, or interesting event. A good anecdote has a single, definite point, and the setting, dialogue, and characters are usually subordinate to the point of the story.
Usually, the anecdote does not exist alone, but it is combined with other material such as expository essays or arguments-citing how people felt about an issue or other subjective evidence.
Antagonist
n. (literary) The character, force, or collection of forces in fiction or drama that opposes the protagonist and gives rise to the conflict of the story; an opponent of the protagonist.
Microcosm
n. (literary) A small concept or symbol that represents a much bigger and universal idea.
Theme
n. (literary) a single, universal idea that can be expressed in sentence form.
Motif
n. (literary) smaller idea, often a symbol representation
Antihero
n. (literary) Protagonist who has the opposite of most of the traditional attributes of a hero. He or she may be bewildered, ineffectual, deluded, or merely pathetic. Often what antiheroes learn, if they learn anything at all, is that the world isolates them in an existence devoid of God and absolute values.
Ex: Amir (seemingly at beginning) and Holden (Catcher in the Rye)
Apostrophe
n. (literary) Address, either to someone who is absent and therefore cannot hear the speaker or to something nonhuman that cannot comprehend. Apostrophe often provides a speaker the opportunity to think aloud.
*** Not psychotic voice rambling
Archetype
n. (literary) A term used to describe universal symbols that evoke deep and sometimes unconscious responses in a reader. In literature, characters, images, and themes that symbolically embody universal meanings and basic human experiences, regardless of when or where they live, are considered archetypes.
Common literary archetypes include stories of quests, initiations, scapegoats, descents to the underworld, and ascents to heaven. This also includes characters: the preppy cheerleader, the damsel in distress, the knight in shining armor, the wise old man, etc.
Aside
n. (literary) a speech directed to the audience that supposedly is not audible to the other characters onstage at the time.
This is separate (the actor to the audience)
Assonance
n. (assonance) The repetition of internal vowel sounds in nearby words that do not end the same, for example, "asleep under a tree," ("ee" sound repeats in asleep and tree) or "each evening" (the "ee" sound repeats at the beginning of each word; this is the most common form of assonance). Similar endings result in rhyme, as in "asleep in the deep." Assonance is a strong means of emphasizing important words in a line.
Ballad
n. (literary) Traditionally, a ballad is a song, transmitted orally from generation to generation, that tells a story and that eventually is written down. As such, ballads usually cannot be traced to a particular author or group of authors. Typically, ballads are dramatic, condensed, and impersonal narratives.
Ballad stanzas are usually a four-line stanza, known as a quatrain, consisting of alternating eight- and six-syllable lines. Usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme (an abcb pattern).
Blank Verse
n. (blank verse) Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the English verse form closest to the natural rhythms of English speech and therefore is the most common pattern found in traditional English narrative and dramatic poetry from Shakespeare to the early twentieth century.
Black comedy
n. (literary) Black comedy or black humour, not to be confused with comedy about blacks, etc. The use of the morbid the absurd for darkly comic purposes. This is a substantial component of the theatre of the absurd and the anti-novel. The notion of humor with a sadistic element might give further implications to this term.
Cacophony
n. (poetic) Language that is discordant and difficult to pronounce, such as this line from John Updike's "Player Piano": "never my numb plunker fumbles." Cacophony ("bad sound") may be unintentional in the writer's sense of music, or it may be used consciously for deliberate dramatic effect.
Caesura
n. (poetic) A pause within a line of poetry that contributes to the rhythm of the line. A caesura can occur anywhere within a line and need not be indicated by punctuation. In scanning a line, caesuras are indicated by a double vertical line (||).
Canon
n. (literary) Those works generally considered by scholars, critics, and teachers to be the most important to read and study, which collectively constitute the "masterpieces" of literature.
Carpe Diem
n. (literary) The Latin phrase meaning "seize the day." This is a very common literary theme, especially in lyric poetry, which emphasizes that life is short, time is fleeting, and that one should make the most of present pleasures.
"To the Virgins
Catachresis
n. (rhetorical) A completely impossible figure of speech or an implied metaphor that results from combining other extreme figures of speech such as metaphor and hyperbole. This is basically a "hyperbolic metaphor.
Catharsis
n. (literary) Meaning "purgation," catharsis describes the release of the emotions of pity and fear by the audience at the end of a tragedy. In his Poetics, Aristotle discusses the importance of catharsis. The audience faces the misfortunes of the protagonist, which elicit pity and compassion. Simultaneously, the audience also confronts the failure of the protagonist, thus receiving a frightening reminder of human limitations and frailties. Ultimately, however, both these negative emotions are purged, because the tragic protagonist's suffering is an affirmation of human values rather than a despairing denial of them. British Romantic poets believed nature was cathartic.
Character
n. (literary) A character is a person presented in a dramatic or narrative work, and characterization is the process by which a writer makes that character seem real to the reader. A hero or heroine, often called the protagonist, is the central character who engages the reader's interest and empathy. The antagonist is the character, force, or collection of forces that stands directly opposed to the protagonist and gives rise to the conflict of the story.
Static Character
n. does not change throughout the work, and the reader's knowledge of that character does not grow
Flat Character
n. embodies one or two qualities, ideas, or traits that can be readily described in a brief summary. They are not psychologically complex characters and therefore are readily accessible to readers. Some flat characters are recognized as stock characters; they embody stereotypes such as the "dumb blonde" or the "mean stepfather." They become types rather than individuals.
Dynamic Character
n. undergoes some kind of change because of the action in the plot.
Round Character
n. more complex than flat or stock characters, and often display the inconsistencies and internal conflicts found in most real people. They are more fully developed, and therefore are harder to summarize.
Characteronym
n. (literary) An evocative or symbolic name given to a character that conveys his or her inner psychology or allegorical nature.
Ex: Candy= sweet
Chiasmus
n. (literary) A rhetorical scheme involving repetition in reverse order. The sequence is typically a b b a or a b c c b a.
"One should eat to live, not live to eat." Or, "You like it; it likes you.
Chorus
n. (literary) a group of people who serve mainly as commentators on the characters and events. They add to the audience's understanding of the play by expressing traditional moral, religious, and social attitudes. The role of the chorus in dramatic works evolved through the sixteenth century, and the chorus occasionally is still used by modern playwrights.
Colloquial
n. (rhetorical) Refers to a type of informal diction that reflects casual, conversational language and often includes slang expressions.
High Comedy
n. (literary) A work intended to interest, involve, and amuse the reader or audience, in which no terrible disaster occurs and that ends happily for the main characters. High comedy refers to verbal wit, such as puns, whereas low comedy is generally associated with physical action and is less intellectual. Romantic comedy involves a love affair that meets with various obstacles (like disapproving parents, mistaken identities, deceptions, or other sorts of misunderstandings) but overcomes them to end in a blissful union.
Comic Relief
n. (literary) A humorous scene or incident that alleviates tension in an otherwise serious work. In many instances, these moments enhance the thematic significance of the story in addition to providing laughter. When Hamlet jokes with the gravediggers we laugh, but something hauntingly serious about the humor also intensifies our more serious emotions.
Ex: Flamingo scene in A Thousand Splendid Suns
Conceit
n. (rhetorical) An elaborate or unusual comparison--especially one using unlikely metaphors, simile, hyperbole, and contradiction. It gradually came to denote a fanciful idea or a particularly clever remark. In literary terms, the word denotes a fairly elaborate figure of speech, especially an extended comparison involving unlikely metaphors, similes, imagery, hyperbole, and oxymoron.
Conflict
n. (literary)The struggle within the plot between opposing forces. The protagonist engages in the conflict with the antagonist, which may take the form of a character, society, nature, technology, or an aspect of the protagonist's personality, and sometimes God or supernatural
Connotation
n. (rhetorical) Associations and implications that go beyond the literal meaning of a word, which derive from how the word has been commonly used and the associations people make with it.
For example, the word eagle connotes ideas of liberty and freedom that have little to do with the word's literal meaning.
Dennotation
n. (rhetorical) The dictionary meaning of a word.
Consonnance
n. (rhetorical) A common type of near rhyme that consists of identical consonant sounds preceded by different vowel sounds: home, same; worth, breath.
Convention
n. (literary) A characteristic of a literary genre (often unrealistic) that is understood and accepted by audiences because it has come, through usage and time, to be recognized as a familiar technique. For example, the division of a play into acts and scenes is a dramatic convention, as are soliloquies and asides.
Flashbacks and foreshadowing are examples of literary conventions.
Couplet
n. (poetic) Two consecutive lines of poetry that usually rhyme and have the same meter.
A heroic couplet is a couplet written in rhymed iambic pentameter.
Courtly Love
n. (literary) Possibly a cultural trope in the late twelfth-century, or possibly a literary convention that captured popular imagination, courtly love refers to a code of behavior that gave rise to modern ideas of chivalrous romance. The conventions of courtly love are that a knight of noble blood would adore and worship a young noble-woman from afar, seeking to protect her honor and win her favor by valorous deeds. He typically falls ill with love-sickness, while the woman chastely or scornfully rejects or refuses his advances in public but privately encourages him. Courtly love was associated with (A) nobility, since no peasants can engage in "fine love"; (B) secrecy; (C) adultery, since often the one or both participants were married to another noble who was unloved; and (D) paradoxically with chastity, since the passion should never be consummated due to social circumstances, thus it was a "higher love" unsullied by selfish carnal desires or political concerns of arranged marriages.
Deus ex machina
n. (literary) An unrealistic or unexpected intervention to rescue the protagonists or resolve the story's conflict. The term means "The god out of the machine," and it refers to stage machinery. A classical Greek actor, portraying one of the Greek gods in a play, might be lowered out of the sky onto the stage and then use his divine powers to solve all the mortals' problems. The term is a negative one, and it often implies a lack of skill on the part of the writer.
Deuteragonist
n. (literary) A sidekick who accompanies the main protagonist, the main character or hero, in a narrative.
In The Advenures of Huckleberry Finn, for instance, the slave Jim is a deuteragonist and Huck Finn is the protagonist. The deuteragonist may be either round or flat as a character, and he often serves as a foil to the protagonist as well.
Dialogue
n. (rhetorical) The verbal exchanges between characters. Dialogue makes the characters seem real to the reader or audience by revealing firsthand their thoughts, responses, and emotional states.
Diction
n. (rhetorical) A writer's choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning. Formal diction consists of a dignified, impersonal, and elevated use of language; it follows the rules of syntax exactly and is often characterized by complex words and lofty tone. Middle diction maintains correct language usage, but is less elevated than formal diction; it reflects the way most educated people speak. Informal diction represents the plain language of everyday use, and often includes idiomatic expressions, slang, contractions, and many simple, common words. Poetic diction refers to the way poets sometimes employ an elevated diction that deviates significantly from the common speech and writing of their time, choosing words for their supposedly inherent poetic qualities. Since the eighteenth century, however, poets have been incorporating all kinds of diction in their work and so there is no longer an automatic distinction between the language of a poet and the language of everyday speech.
Didactic Poetry
n. (poetic) Poetry designed to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson.
Doggerel
adj. (rhetorical) Derogatory term used to describe poetry whose subject is trite and whose rhythm and sounds are monotonously heavy-handed. This is done accident by inept poets or purposefully for satirical effect by masterful poets.
Drama
n. (literary) Derived from the Greek word dram, meaning "to do" or "to perform," the term drama may refer to a single play, a group of plays ("Jacobean drama"), or to all plays ("world drama"). Drama is designed for performance in a theater; actors take on the roles of characters, perform indicated actions, and speak the dialogue written in the script. Play is a general term for a work of dramatic literature, and a playwright is a writer who makes plays.
Dramatis Personae
n. (literary) A list of the complete cast, i.e., the various characters that will appear in the play. This list usually appears before the text of the main play begins in printed copies of the text. In late periods of drama, the dramatis personae often included a brief description of the character's personality or appearance.
Elegy
n. (poetic) A mournful, contemplative lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is dead, often ending in a consolation. "Pastoral" elegies discussed country matters, landscape and Mother Nature. Elegies tend to have the following characteristics: typically begins with an invocation of the muse, and then continues with allusions to classical mythology, usually contains a poetic speaker who uses the first person, the speaker raises questions about justice, fate, or providence, the poet digresses about the conditions of his own time or his own situation, the digression allows the speaker to move beyond his original emotion or thinking to a higher level of understanding, the conclusion of the poem provides consolation or insight into the speaker's situation, the poem tends to be longer than a lyric but not as long as an epic, the poem is not plot-driven.
Ellipsis
n. (rhetorical) In its oldest sense as a rhetorical device, ellipsis refers to the artful omission of a word implied by a previous clause.
End-stopped line
n. (poetic) A poetic line that has a pause at the end. End-stopped lines reflect normal speech patterns and are often marked by punctuation.
Enjambment
n. (poetic) In poetry, when one line ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its meaning. This is also called a run-on line.
Epic
n. (poetic) A long narrative poem, told in a formal, elevated style that focuses on a serious subject and chronicles heroic deeds and events important to a culture or nation. is (a) a long narrative about a serious subject, (b) told in an elevated style of language, (c) focused on the exploits of a hero or demi-god who represents the cultural values of a race, nation, or religious group (d) in which the hero's success or failure will determine the fate of that people or nation. Usually, the epic has (e) a vast setting, and covers a wide geographic area, (f) it contains superhuman feats of strength or military prowess, and gods or supernatural beings frequently take part in the action.
Epigram
n. (poetic) A brief, pointed, and witty poem that usually makes a satiric or humorous point. Epigrams are most often written in couplets, but take no prescribed form.
Epiphany
n. (literary) In fiction, when a character suddenly experiences a deep realization about himself or herself; a truth which is grasped in an ordinary rather than a melodramatic moment.
Epistle
n. (poetic) (1) A poem addressed to a patron, friend, or family member, thus a kind of "letter" in verse. (2) An actual prose letter sent to another. (3) A distinct part or section of such a poem or letter.
Epitaph
n. (poetic) Not to be confused with epithet or epigram, an epitaph refers literally to an inscription carved on a gravestone.
Epigram
n. (poetic) An inscription in verse or prose on a building, tomb, or coin.
Epithet
n. (poetic) A short, poetic nickname--often in the form of an adjective or adjectival phrase--attached to the normal name. Frequently, this technique allows a poet to extend a line by a few syllables in a poetic manner that characterizes an individual or a setting within an epic poem.
The Homeric epithet in classical literature often includes compounds of two words such as, "fleet-footed Achilles," "Cow-eyed Hera," "Grey-eyed Athena," or "the wine-dark sea.
Euphenism
adj. (rhetorical) mild or gentle phrase instead of a blunt, embarrassing, or painful one. The idea is to put something bad, disturbing, or embarrassing in an inoffensive or neutral light. Frequently, words referring directly to death, unpopular politics, blasphemy, crime, and sexual or excremental activities are replaced by euphemisms.
For instance, saying "Grandfather has gone to a better place" is a euphemism for "Grandfather has died.
Existentialism
n. (literary) A twentieth-century philosophy arguing that ethical human beings are in a sense cursed with absolute free will in a purposeless universe. Therefore, individuals must fashion their own sense of meaning in life instead of relying thoughtlessly on religious, political, and social conventions. These merely provide a fa�ade of meaning according to existential philosophy. Those who rely on such conventions without thinking through them deny their own ethical responsibilities. The basic principles of existentialism are (1) a concern with man's essential being and nature, (2) an idea that existential "angst" or "anguish" is the common lot of all thinking humans who see the essential meaninglessness of transitory human life, (3) the belief that thought and logic are insufficient to cope with existence, and (4) the conviction that a true sense of morality can only come from honestly facing the dilemma of existential freedom and participating in life actively and positively. The ethical idea is that, if the universe is essentially meaningless, and human existence does not matter in the long run, then the only thing that can provide a moral backdrop is humanity itself, and neglecting to build an encourage such morality is neglecting our duty to ourselves and to each other.
Exposition
n. (literary) A narrative device, often used at the beginning of a work, that provides necessary background information about the characters and their circumstances. Exposition explains what has gone on before, the relationships between characters, the development of a theme, and the introduction of a conflict.
Fable
n. (literary) A brief story illustrating human tendencies through animal characters. Unlike the parables, fables often include talking animals or animated objects as the principal characters.
Fabliaux
n. (literary) A humorous, frequently ribald or "dirty" narrative popular with French poets, who traditionally wrote the story in octosyllabic couplets. The tales frequently revolve around trickery, practical jokes, sexual mishaps, scatology, mistaken identity, and bodily humor.
Farce
n. (literary) A form of humor based on exaggerated, improbable incongruities. Farce involves rapid shifts in action and emotion, as well as slapstick comedy and extravagant dialogue. Traits of farce include (1) physical bustle such as slapstick, (2) sexual misunderstandings and mix-ups, and (3) broad verbal humor
Ex: Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Faustian Bargain
n. (literary) A temptation motif from German folklore in which an individual sells his soul to the devil in exchange for knowledge, wealth, or power.
Flashback
n. (literary) A narrated scene that marks a break in the narrative in order to inform the reader member about events that took place before the opening scene of a work.
Foil
n. (literary) A character in a work whose behavior and values contrast with those of another character in order to highlight the distinctive temperament of that character (usually the protagonist).
Foot
n. (poetic) The metrical unit by which a line of poetry is measured. A foot usually consists of one stressed and one or two unstressed syllables. An iambic foot, which consists of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable ("away"), is the most common metrical foot in English poetry. A trochaic foot consists of one stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable ("lovely"). An anapestic foot is two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed one ("understand"). A dactylic foot is one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones ("desperate"). A spondee is a foot consisting of two stressed syllables ("dead set"), but is not a sustained metrical foot and is used mainly for variety or emphasis.
Foreshadowing
n. (rhetorical) The introduction early in a story of verbal and dramatic hints that suggest what is to come later.
Form
n. (literary and poetic) The overall structure or shape of a work, which frequently follows an established design. Forms may refer to a literary type (narrative form, short story form) or to patterns of meter, lines, and rhymes (stanza form, verse form). See also fixed form, open form.
Formula Literature
n. (literary) Often characterized as "escape literature," formula literature follows a pattern of conventional reader expectations. Romance novels, westerns, science fiction, and detective stories are all examples of formula literature; while the details of individual stories vary, the basic ingredients of each kind of story are the same. Formula literature offers happy endings (the hero "gets the girl," the detective cracks the case), entertains wide audiences, and sells tremendously well.
Ex: no original story
Found Poem
n. (poetic) An unintentional poem discovered in a non-poetic context, such as a conversation, news story, or advertisement. Found poems serve as reminders that everyday language often contains what can be considered poetry, or that poetry is definable as any text read as a poem.
Free Verse
n. (poetic) Also called open form poetry, free verse refers to poems characterized by their nonconformity to established patterns of meter, rhyme, and stanza. Free verse uses elements such as speech patterns, grammar, emphasis, and breath pauses to decide line breaks, and usually does not rhyme.
Genre
adj. (literary) A French word meaning kind or type. The major genres in literature are poetry, fiction, drama, and essays. Genre can also refer to more specific types of literature such as comedy, tragedy, epic poetry, or science fiction. A type or category of literature or film marked by certain shared features or conventions. The three broadest categories of genre include poetry, drama, and fiction. These general genres are often subdivided into more specific genres and subgenres. For instance, precise examples of genres might include murder mysteries, westerns, sonnets, lyric poetry, epics, tragedies, etc.
Haiku
n. (poetic) A style of lyric poetry borrowed from the Japanese that typically presents an intense emotion or vivid image of nature, which, traditionally, is designed to lead to a spiritual insight. Haiku is a fixed poetic form, consisting of seventeen syllables organized into three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Today, however, many poets vary the syllabic count in their haiku.
Hamartia
n. (literary) A term coined by Aristotle to describe "some error or frailty" that brings about misfortune for a tragic hero. The concept of hamartia is closely related to that of the tragic flaw: both lead to the downfall of the protagonist in a tragedy. Hamartia may be interpreted as an internal weakness in a character (like greed or passion or hubris); however, it may also refer to a mistake that a character makes that is based not on a personal failure, but on circumstances outside the protagonist's personality and control.
Hubris or Hybris
n. (literary) Excessive pride or self-confidence that leads a protagonist to disregard a divine warning or to violate an important moral law. In tragedies, hubris is a very common form of hamartia.
Hyperbaton
n. (literary) A generic term for changing the normal or expected order of words--including anastrophe, hypallage, and other figures of speech.
Hyperbole
n. (rhetorical) A boldly exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without in-tending to be literally true, as in the statement
Iambic pentameter
n. (poetic) A metrical pattern in poetry which consists of five iambic feet per line. (An iamb, or iambic foot, consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.)
Idiom
n. (literary) In its loosest sense, the word idiom is often used as a synonym for dialect or idiolect. In its more scholarly and narrow sense, an idiom or idiomatic expression refers to a construction or expression in one language that cannot be matched or directly translated word-for-word in another language.
For instance, the English expression, "She has a bee in her bonnet," meaning "she is obsessed," cannot be literally translated into another language word for word.
Image
n. (rhetorical) A word, phrase, or figure of speech (especially a simile or a metaphor) that addresses the senses, suggesting mental pictures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, or actions. Images offer sensory impressions to the reader and also convey emotions and moods through their verbal pictures.
Irony
n. (rhetorical) A literary device that uses contradictory statements or situations to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true. It is ironic for a firehouse to burn down, or for a police station to be burglarized. Verbal irony is a figure of speech that occurs when a person says one thing but means the opposite. Sarcasm is a strong form of verbal irony that is calculated to hurt someone through, for example, false praise.
Dramatic Irony
n. discrepancy between what a character believes or says and what the reader or audience member knows to be true
Situational Irony
n. exists when there is an incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens due to forces beyond human comprehension or control
Jargon
n. (rhetorical) Potentially confusing words and phrases used in an occupation, trade, or field of study.
We might speak of medical jargon, sports jargon, pedagogic jargon, police jargon, or military jargon, for instance.
Limerick
n. (poetic) A light, humorous style of fixed form poetry. Its usual form consists of five lines with the rhyme scheme aabba; lines 1, 2, and 5 contain three feet, while lines 3 and 4 usually contain two feet.
Line
n. (poetic) A sequence of words printed as a separate entity on the page. In poetry, lines are usually measured by the number of feet they contain.
Low Comedy
n. (literary) In contrast with high comedy (elegant comedies characterized by witty banter and sophisticated dialogue), low comedy consists of silly, slapstick physicality, crude pratfalls, violence, and bodily humor rather than clever dialogue or banter
Lyric
n. (poetic) A type of brief poem that expresses the personal emotions and thoughts of a single speaker. It is important to realize, however, that although the lyric is uttered in the first person, the speaker is not necessarily the poet.
There are many varieties of lyric poetry, including the dramatic monologue, elegy, haiku, ode, and sonnet forms.
Machiavellian
n. (literary) an adjective, the word refers generally to sneaky, ruthless, and deceitful behavior, especially in regard to a ruler obsessed with power who puts on a surface veneer of honor and trustworthy behavior in order to achieve evil ends. The term originates in a treatise known as The Prince. This work was written by Niccol� Machiavelli, an early sixteenth-century political advisor who stressed that effective rulers often must engage in evil (or at least immoral) activities to ensure the stability of their rule.
Malapropism
n. (rhetorical) Misusing words to create a comic effect or characterize the speaker as being too confused, ignorant, or flustered to use correct diction. Typically, the malapropism involves the confusion of two polysyllabic words that sound somewhat similar but have different meanings. The best malapropisms sound sufficiently similar to the correct word to let the audience recognize the intended meaning and laugh at the incongruous result.
Melodrama
n. (literary) A term applied to any literary work that relies on implausible events and sensational action for its effect. The conflicts in melodramas typically arise out of plot rather than characterization; often a virtuous individual must somehow confront and overcome a wicked oppressor. Usually, a melodramatic story ends happily, with the protagonist defeating the antagonist at the last possible moment. Thus, melodramas entertain the reader or audience with exciting action while still conforming to a traditional sense of justice.
Metaphor
n. (rhetorical) A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, without using the word like or as. Metaphors assert the identity of dissimilar things, as when Macbeth asserts that life is a "brief candle." Metaphors can be subtle and powerful, and can transform people, places, objects, and ideas into whatever the writer imagines them to be.
Implied Metaphor
n. a more subtle comparison; the terms being compared are not so specifically explained. For example, to describe a stubborn man unwilling to leave, one could say that he was "a mule standing his ground." This is a fairly explicit metaphor; the man is being compared to a mule. But to say that the man "brayed his refusal to leave" is to create an implied metaphor, because the subject (the man) is never overtly identified as a mule. Braying is associated with the mule, a notoriously stubborn creature, and so the comparison between the stubborn man and the mule is sustained.
Synedoche
n. a kind of metaphor in which a part of something is used to signify the whole, as when a gossip is called a "wagging tongue," or when ten ships are called "ten sails." Sometimes, synecdoche refers to the whole being used to signify the part, as in the phrase "Boston won the baseball game." Clearly, the entire city of Boston did not participate in the game; the whole of Boston is being used to signify the individuals who played and won the game.
Metaphysical Poets
adj. (poetic) describe the style of certain poets earlier in the 17th century. Later, Samual Johnson popularized the term in 1779. The term metaphysical implies the poetry is abstract and highly complex.
Metonymy
Like synecdoche, this term refers to figurative language that uses particular words to represent something else with which they are associated. Metonymy is when one term is substituted for another term with which it is closely associated ("crown" or "sceptre" stands duty for "monarch").
Monologue
n. (literary) A speech given by an actor on stage with other actors present.
public (actors to characters)
Soliquoy
n. (literary) A dramatic convention by means of which a character, alone onstage, utters his or her thoughts aloud and typically involves contemplation or a revelation. Playwrights use soliloquies as a convenient way to inform the audience about a character's motivations and state of mind.
Introspective
Narrative Poem
n. (poetic) A poem that tells a story. A narrative poem may be short or long, and the story it relates may be simple or complex.
Narrator
n. (literary) The voice of the person telling the story, not to be confused with the author's voice. With a first-person narrator, the "I" in the story presents the point of view of only one character-first person narration. The reader is restricted to the perceptions, thoughts, and feelings of that single character-limited narration. An omniscient narrator is an all-knowing narrator who is not a character in the story and who can move from place to place and pass back and forth through time, slipping into and out of characters as no human being possibly could in real life. Omniscient narrators can report the thoughts and feelings of the characters, as well as their words and actions.
Neologism
n. (rhetorical) A made-up word that is not a part of normal, everyday vocabulary. Often Shakespeare invented new words in his place for artistic reasons.
Ode
n. (poetic) A relatively lengthy lyric poem that often expresses lofty emotions in a dignified style. Odes are characterized by a serious topic, such as truth, art, freedom, justice, or the meaning of life; their tone tends to be formal. There is no prescribed pattern that defines an ode; some odes repeat the same pattern in each stanza, while others introduce a new pattern in each stanza.
Oedipus Complex
n. (literary) A Freudian term derived from Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus the King. It describes a psychological complex that is predicated on a boy's unconscious rivalry with his father for his mother's love and his desire to eliminate his father in order to take his father's place with his mother. The female equivalent of this complex is called the Electra complex.
Onomatoepia
n. (rhetorical) A term referring to the use of a word that resembles the sound it denotes. Buzz, rattle, bang, and sizzle all reflect onomatopoeia. The use of sounds that are similar to the noise they represent for a rhetorical or artistic effect.
Open Form
n. (poetic) Sometimes called "free verse," open form poetry does not conform to established patterns of meter, rhyme, and stanza. Such poetry derives its rhythmic qualities from the repetition of words, phrases, or grammatical structures, the arrangement of words on the printed page, or by some other means.
Paradox
n. (rhetorical) A statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense.
Oxymoron
n. (rhetorical) A condensed form of paradox in which two contradictory words are used together, as in "sweet sorrow" or "original copy.
Palindrome
n. (rhetorical) word, sentence, or verse that reads the same way backward or foreward. Certain words in English naturally function as palindromes: for instance, civic, rotor, race car, radar, level and so on.
Parable
n. (literary) A story or short narrative designed to reveal allegorically some religious principle, moral lesson, psychological reality, or general truth. Rather than using abstract discussion, a parable always teaches by comparison with real or literal occurrences--especially "homey" everyday occurrences a wide number of people can relate to.
Parallelism
n. (rhetorical) When the writer establishes similar patterns of grammatical structure and length.
Ex: running, jumping, skating
Paraphrase
n. (rhetorical) A prose restatement of the central ideas of a poem, in your own language.
Parody
n. (literary) A humorous imitation of another, usually serious, work. It can take any fixed or open form, because parodists imitate the tone, language, and shape of the original in order to deflate the subject matter, making the original work seem absurd.
Pastoral
n. (literary) An artistic composition dealing with the life of shepherds or with a simple, rural existence.
Phallic
n. (rhetorical) A phallic symbol or phallus is a sexualized representation of male potency, power, or domination--particularly through some object vaguely reminiscent of the penis. Common phallic symbols include sticks, staves, swords, clubs, towers, trees, missiles, and rockets.
Yonic
n. (rhetorical) yonic symbol is a sexualized representation of femininity and reproductive power--particularly through some object vaguely reminiscent of the vagina. Common yonic symbols include cups, cauldrons, chalices, goblets, wells, caves, tunnels, circles, hoops, pots, and other containers.
Personae
n. (literary) A persona is a mask. In literature, a persona is a speaker created by a writer to tell a story or to speak in a poem. A persona is not a character in a story or narrative, nor does a persona necessarily directly reflect the author's personal voice. A persona is a separate self, created by and distinct from the author, through which he or she speaks.
Personification
n. (rhetorical) A form of metaphor in which human characteristics are attributed to nonhuman things. Personification offers the writer a way to give the world life and motion by assigning familiar human behaviors and emotions to animals, inanimate objects, and abstract ideas.
Plot
n. (rhetorical) An author's selection and arrangement of incidents in a story to shape the action and give the story a particular focus. Discussions of plot include not just what happens, but also how and why things happen the way they do. Stories that are written in a pyramidal pattern divide the plot into three essential parts. The first part is the rising action, in which complication creates some sort of conflict for the protagonist. The second part is the climax, the moment of greatest emotional tension in a narrative, usually marking a turning point in the plot at which the rising action reverses to become the falling action. The third part, the falling action (or resolution) is characterized by diminishing tensions and the resolution of the plot's conflicts and complications. In medias res is a term used to describe the common strategy of beginning a story in the middle of the action. In this type of plot, we enter the story on the verge of some important moment.
Point of View
n. (literary) Refers to who tells us a story and how it is told. What we know and how we feel about the events in a work are shaped by the author's choice of point of view. The teller of the story, the narrator, inevitably affects our understanding of the characters' actions by filtering what is told through his or her own perspective. The various points of view that writers draw upon can be grouped into two broad categories: the third-person narrator uses he, she, or they to tell the story and does not participate in the action; and (2) the first-person narrator uses I and is a major or minor participant in the action. In addition, a second-person narrator, you, is also possible, but is rarely used because of the awkwardness of thrusting the reader into the story, as in "You are minding your own business on a park bench when a drunk steps out and demands your lunch bag.
Polysyndeton
n. (rhetorical) Using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect in a sentence. For example, "This term, I am taking biology and English and history and math and music and physics and sociology.
Prologue
n. (literary) The opening speech or dialogue of a play, especially a classic Greek play, that usually gives the exposition necessary to follow the subsequent action. Today the term also refers to the introduction to any literary work.
Prose Poem
n. (poetic) A kind of open form poetry that is printed as prose and represents the most clear opposite of fixed form poetry. Prose poems are densely compact and often make use of striking imagery and figures of speech. See also fixed form, open form.
Prosody
n. (poetic) The overall metrical structure of a poem; synonym for meter
Pulp Fiction
n. (literary) Mass market novels printed cheaply and intended for a general audience. The content was usually melodramatic, titillating, or thrilling. The earliest samples are the "penny dreadfuls" or "bloods" of the eighteenth century, which were followed in the nineteenth century by so-called "dime novels" (which were sold for ten cents).
Protagonist
n. (literary) The main character of a narrative that experiences the main conflict; its central character who engages the reader's interest and empathy.
Pun
n. (rhetorical) A play on words that relies on a word's having more than one meaning or sounding like another word.
Quatrain
n. (poetic) A four-line stanza. Quatrains are the most common stanzaic form in the English language; they can have various meters and rhyme schemes.
Rebus
n. (rhetorical) A visual pun in which a written sign stands for a different meaning than its normal one--usually because the two words sound alike.
For instance, the letters C and U sound like the words see and you in the instant messenger version of "C U later!
Resolution
n. (literary) The conclusion of a plot's conflicts and complications. The resolution, also known as the falling action, follows the climax in the plot.
Rhyme
n. (poetic) The repetition of identical or similar concluding syllables in different words, most often at the ends of lines. Rhyme is predominantly a function of sound rather than spelling; thus, words that end with the same vowel sounds rhyme, for instance, day, prey, bouquet, weigh, and words with the same consonant ending rhyme, for instance vain, feign, rein, lane. Words do not have to be spelled the same way or look alike to rhyme. In fact, words may look alike but not rhyme at all. This is called eye rhyme, as with bough and cough, or brow and blow. End rhyme is the most common form of rhyme in poetry; the rhyme comes at the end of the lines.
Rhyme Scheme
n. (poetic) a poem describes the pattern of end rhymes. Rhyme schemes are mapped out by noting patterns of rhyme with small letters: the first rhyme sound is designated a, the second becomes b, the third c, and so on. Thus, the rhyme scheme of the stanza above is aabb.
Internal Rhyme
n. Places at least one of the rhymed words within the line, as in "Dividing and gliding and sliding" or "In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud.
Masculine Rhyme
n. describes the rhyming of single-syllable words, such as grade or shade. Masculine rhyme also occurs where rhyming words of more than one syllable, when the same sound occurs in a final stressed syllable, as in defend and contend, betray and away.
Feminine Rhyme
n. consists of a rhymed stressed syllable followed by one or more identical unstressed syllables, as in butter, clutter; gratitude, attitude; quivering, shivering.
Exact Rhymes
n. Share the same stressed vowel sounds as well as sharing sounds that follow the vowel.
Near Rhyme
n. sounds are almost but not exactly alike. A common form of near rhyme is consonance, which consists of identical consonant sounds preceded by different vowel sounds: home, same; worth, breath.
Rhythm
n. (poetic) A term used to refer to the recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry. Depending on how sounds are arranged, the rhythm of a poem may be fast or slow, choppy or smooth. Poets use rhythm to create pleasurable sound patterns and to reinforce meanings. Rhythm in prose arises from pattern repetitions of sounds and pauses that create looser rhythmic effects.
Rondeau
n. (poetic) A short poem consisting of ten, thirteen, or fifteen lines using only two rhymes which concludes each section with an abbreviated line that serves as a refrain.
Satire
n. (literary) The literary art of ridiculing a folly or vice in order to expose or correct it. The object of satire is usually some human frailty; people, institutions, ideas, and things are all fair game for satirists. Satire evokes attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation toward its faulty subject in the hope of somehow improving it.
Scansion
v. (poetic) The process of measuring the stresses in a line of verse in order to determine the metrical pattern of the line.
Scene
n. (literary) In drama, a scene is a subdivision of an act. In modern plays, scenes usually consist of units of action in which there are no changes in the setting or breaks in the continuity of time. According to traditional conventions, a scene changes when the location of the action shifts or when a new character enters.
Script
n. (literary) The written text of a play, which includes the dialogue between characters, stage directions, and often other expository information.
Sestina
n. (poetic) A type of fixed form poetry consisting of thirty-six lines of any length divided into six sestets and a three-line concluding stanza called an envoy. The six words at the end of the first sestet's lines must also appear at the ends of the other five sestets, in varying order. These six words must also appear in the envoy, where they often resonate important themes.
Setting
n. (literary) The physical and social context in which the action of a story occurs. The major elements of setting are the time, the place, and the social environment that frames the characters. Sometimes, writers choose a particular setting because of traditional associations with that setting that are closely related to the action of a story.
Simile
n. (rhetorical) A common figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two things by using words such as like, as, than, appears, and seems
Slant Rhyme
n. (poetic) Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa. This type of rhyme is also called approximate rhyme, inexact rhyme, near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, analyzed rhyme, or suspended rhyme.
Sonnet
n. (poetic) If it's a square, it's a sonnet!
Spenserian Stanza
n. (poetic) A nine-line stanza rhyming in an ababbcbcc pattern in which the first eight lines are pentameter and the last line is an alexandrine
Spoonerism
n. (literary) The comic (and usually unintentional) transposition of two initial consonants or other sounds. For example, saying "the queer old dean" when one means to say, "the dear old queen," or speaking of "beery wenches" when one means "weary benches" would be spoonerisms. The word comes from the flustered English clergyman and Oxford don, Reverend W. A. Spooner (1844-1930), who was famous for such slips of the tongue. Spooner, in an apocryphal account, once supposedly told a negligent student, "You have tasted two worms, hissed my mystery lectures, and you must leave Oxford by the first town drain." He of course meant to say, "You have wasted two terms, missed my history lectures, and you must leave Oxford by the first down-train.
Stage Directions
n. (literary) A playwright's written instructions about how the actors are to move and behave in a play. They explain in which direction characters should move, what facial expressions they should assume, and so on.
Stanza
n. (poetic) In poetry, stanza refers to a grouping of lines, set off by a space, that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme.
Stock Responses
n. (literary) Predictable, conventional reactions to language, characters, symbols, or situations. The flag, motherhood, puppies, God, and peace are common objects used to elicit stock responses from unsophisticated audiences.
Stream-of-consciousness Technique
n. (rhetorical) The most intense use of a central consciousness in narration. The stream-of-consciousness technique takes a reader inside a character's mind to reveal perceptions, thoughts, and feelings on a conscious or unconscious level. This technique suggests the flow of thought as well as its content; hence, complete sentences may give way to fragments as the character's mind makes rapid associations free of conventional logic or transitions. Writing in which a character's perceptions, thoughts, and memories are presented in an apparently random form, without regard for logical sequence, chronology, or syntax. Often such writing makes no distinction between various levels of reality--such as dreams, memories, imaginative thoughts or real sensory perception. James Joyce's novel Ulysses makes extensive use of this narrative technique.
Style
n. (rhetorical) The distinctive and unique manner in which a writer arranges words to achieve particular effects. Style essentially combines the idea to be expressed with the individuality of the author. These arrangements include individual word choices as well as matters such as the length of sentences, their structure, tone, and use of irony.
Subplot
n. (literary) The secondary action of a story, complete and interesting in its own right, that reinforces or contrasts with the main plot. There may be more than one subplot, and sometimes as many as three, four, or even more, running through a piece of fiction. Subplots are generally either analogous to the main plot, thereby enhancing our understanding of it, or extraneous to the main plot, to provide relief from it.
Suspense
adj. (literary) The anxious anticipation of a reader or an audience as to the outcome of a story, especially concerning the character or characters with whom sympathetic attachments are formed. Suspense helps to secure and sustain the interest of the reader or audience throughout a work.
Suspension of Disbelief
n. (literary) Temporarily and willingly setting aside our beliefs about reality in order to enjoy the make-believe of a play, a poem, film, or a story.
Symbol
n. (rhetorical) A person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance. Symbols are educational devices for evoking complex ideas without having to resort to painstaking explanations that would make a story more like an essay than an experience. Conventional symbols have meanings that are widely recognized by a society or culture.
Synesthesia
n. (rhetorical) A rhetorical device involving shifts in imagery. It involves taking one type of sensory input (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) and comingling it with another separate sense in an impossible way. In the resulting figure of speech, we end up talking about how a color sounds, or how a smell looks.
Syntax
n. (rhetorical) ordering of words into meaningful verbal patterns such as phrases, clauses, and sentences. Poets often manipulate syntax, changing conventional word order, to place certain emphasis on particular words.
Terza Rima
n. (poetic) An interlocking three-line rhyme scheme: aba, bcb, cdc, ded, and so on.
Tone
n. (rhetorical) The author's implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author's style. Tone may be characterized as serious or ironic, sad or happy, private or public, angry or affectionate, bitter or nostalgic, or any other attitudes and feelings that human beings experience.
Tragedy
n. (literary) A story that presents courageous individuals who confront powerful forces within or outside themselves with a dignity that reveals the breadth and depth of the human spirit in the face of failure, defeat, and even death. Revenge tragedies basically consist of a murder that has to be avenged by a relative of the victim. Typically, the victim's ghost appears to demand revenge, and invariably madness of some sort is worked into subsequent events, which ultimately end in the deaths of the murderer, the avenger, and a number of other characters. A tragic flaw (the tragic hero's hamartia) is an error or defect in the tragic hero that leads to his downfall, such as greed, pride, or ambition. This flaw may be a result of bad character, bad judgment, an inherited weakness, or any other defect of character.
Tragicomedy
n. (literary) A type of drama that combines certain elements of both tragedy and comedy. The play's plot tends to be serious, leading to a terrible catastrophe, until an unexpected turn in events leads to a reversal of circumstance, and the story ends happily. Tragicomedy often employs a romantic, fast-moving plot dealing with love, jealousy, disguises, treachery, intrigue, and surprises, all moving toward a melodramatic resolution.
Verisimilitude
n. (literary) The sense that what one reads is "real," or at least realistic and believable. For instance, the reader possesses a sense of verisimilitude when reading a story in which a character cuts his finger, and the finger bleeds. If the character's cut finger had produced sparks of fire rather than blood, the story would not possess verisimilitude. Note that even fantasy novels and science fiction stories that discuss impossible events can have verisimilitude if the reader is able to read them with suspended disbelief.
Vernacular
n. (rhetorical) The everyday or common language of a geographic area or the native language of commoners in a country as opposed to a prestigious dead language maintained artificially in schools or in literary texts.
Villanelle
n. (poetic) A type of fixed form poetry consisting of nineteen lines of any length divided into six stanzas: five tercets and a concluding quatrain. The first and third lines of the initial tercet rhyme; these rhymes are repeated in each subsequent tercet (aba) and in the final two lines of the quatrain (abaa).
Whorf's Hypothesis
n. (literary) A proposal that language affects how its speakers perceive and react to the world--and that the limitations of language thus become the limitations of human thought.