Allegory
A story illustrating an idea or a moral principle in which objects take on symbolic meanings. Characters may be given names such as Hope, Pride, Youth, and Charity; they have few if any personal qualities beyond their abstract meanings. These personificat
Alliteration
The repetition of the same consonant sounds in a sequence of words, usually at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable: "luscious lemons.
Allusion
A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature.
Ambiguity
Allows for two or more simultaneous interpretations of a word, phrase, action, or situation, all of which can be supported by the context of a work.
Analogy
The comparison of two things, which are alike in several respects, for the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or object by showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one
Antagonist
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, such as Claudius in Shakespeare's play Hamlet.
Antihero
A 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 ex
Antithesis
Opposition, or contrast of ideas or words which establishes a clear, contrasting relationship between two ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure.
� To err is human; to forgive, divine. --Alexander Pope
� I want you
Aphorism
A brief statement which expresses an observation on life, usually intended as a wise observation. Benjamin Franklin's "Poor Richard's Almanac" contains numerous examples, one of which is Drive thy business; let it not drive thee. which means that one shou
Apostrophe
An address, either to someone who is absent or dead and therefore cannot hear the speaker or to something nonhuman that cannot comprehend. In these lines from John Donne's poem "The Sun Rising" the poet scolds the sun for interrupting his nighttime activi
Archaism
Use of an older or obsolete form. Example: "welkin" for sky, "dost" for does.
Archetype
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 t
Aside
A device in which a character in a drama makes a short speech which is heard by the audience but not by other characters in the play. In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, when Hamlet first appears onstage, for example, his aside "A little more than kin, and l
Assonance
The repetition of internal vowel sounds in nearby words that do not end the same, for example, "asleep under a tree," or "each evening.
Bathos
Writing is bathetic when it strives to be serious but achieves only a comic effect because it is anti-climactic. "Anticlimax" is synonymous with bombast but can also refer to a bathetic effect which is intentional. In Tom Thumb the Great (1731), Fielding
Blank Verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Cacaphony/Euphony
Cacaphony is an unpleasant combination of sounds. Euphony, the opposite, is a pleasant combination of sounds.
Caesura
A pause within a line of poetry that contributes to the rhythm of the line
Carpe Diem
A Latin phrase which translated means "Sieze (Catch) the day," meaning "Make the most of today." This is a very common literary theme which emphasizes that life is short, time is fleeting, and that one should make the most of present pleasures. Consider t
Catharsis
Meaning "purgation," catharsis describes the release of the emotions of pity and fear by the audience at the end of a tragedy
Character
A person, or any thing presented as a person, e. g., a spirit, object, animal, or natural force, in a literary work. A static character does not change throughout the work, and the reader's knowledge of that character does not grow, whereas a dynamic char
Characterization
The method a writer uses to reveal the personality of a character in a literary work: Methods may include (1) by what the character says about himself or herself; (2) by what others reveal about the character; and (3) by the character's own
actions. Autho
Chorus
In Greek tragedies 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.
Clich�
An idea or expression that has become tired and trite from overuse, its freshness and clarity having worn off
Climax
The decisive moment in a drama, the climax is the turning point of the play to which the rising action leads. This is the crucial part of the drama, the part which determines the outcome of the conflict
Colloquial
Refers to a type of informal diction that reflects casual, conversational language and often includes slang expressions.
Comedy
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 phy
Comic relief
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 some
Coming-of-age story.
A type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in so
Conceit
A far-fetched simile or metaphor, a literary conceit occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things. In the following example from Act V of Shakespeare's Richard II, the imprisoned King Richard compares his cell to the world in the followin
Conflict
In the plot of a drama, conflict occurs when the protagonist is opposed by some person or force in the play.
Connotation and Denotation
The denotation of a word is its dictionary definition. The word "wall", therefore, denotes an upright structure which encloses something or serves as a boundary. The connotation of a word is its emotional content, associations and implications that go bey
Consonance
A common type of near rhyme that consists of identical consonant sounds preceded by different vowel sounds in words near each other in a line or lines of poetry: home, same; worth, breath. Consider the following example from Theodore Roethke's "Night Jour
Convention
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
Couplet
Two consecutive lines of poetry that usually rhyme and have the same meter. A heroic couplet is a couplet written in rhymed iambic pentameter.
D�nouement
A French term meaning "unraveling" or "unknotting," used to describe the resolution of the plot following the climax.
Dialect
A type of informational diction. Dialects are spoken by definable groups of people from a particular geographic region, economic group, or social class
Diction
An author's choice of words. Since words have specific meanings, and since one's choice of words can affect feelings, a writer's choice of words can have great impact in a literary work. Formal diction consists of a dignified, impersonal, and elevated use
Didactic Literature
Literature disigned explicitly to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson.
Dramatic Monologue
In literature, usually a type of lyric poem, in which a character (the speaker) addresses a distinct but silent audience imagined to be present in the poem in such a way as to reveal a dramatic situation and, often unintentionally, some aspect of his or h
Electra complex
The female version of the Oedipus complex. Electra complex is a term used to describe the psychological conflict of a daughter's unconscious rivalry with her mother for her father's attention.
Elegy
A mournful, contemplative lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is dead, often ending in a consolation.
End-stopped line
A poetic line that has a pause at the end. End-stopped lines reflect normal speech patterns and are often marked by punctuation
Enjambment
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.
Epigraph
A brief quotation which appears at the beginning of a literary work.
Epiphany
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.
Epithet
In literature, a word of phrase preceding or following a name which serves to describe the character. Consider the following from Book 1 of Homer's "The Iliad:"
Zeus-loved Achilles, you bid me explain
The wrath of far-smiting Apollo.
Euphemism
A mild word of phrase which substitutes for another which would be undesirable because it is too direct, unpleasant, or offensive
Farce
A type of comedy based on exaggerated, improbable incongruities on a humorous situation such as a bank robber who mistakenly wanders into a police station to hide. It is the situation here which provides the humor, not the cleverness of plot or lines, nor
Figurative Language
In literature, a way of saying one thing and meaning something else. Take, for example, this line by Robert Burns, My luv is a red, red rose. Clearly Mr. Burns does not really mean that he has fallen in love with a red, aromatic, many-petalled, long, thor
Flashback
A reference to an event which took place prior to the beginning of a story or play
Foil
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
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
Foreshadowing
The introduction early in a story of verbal and dramatic hints that suggest what is to come later.
Free Verse
Unrhymed Poetry with lines of varying lengths, and containing no specific metrical pattern.
Genre
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.
Haiku
A Japanese poetic form which originated in the sixteenth century. A haiku in its Japanese language form consists of three lines: five syllables in the first and third lines, and seven syllables in the second line. A haiku translated may not contain the sa
Hamartia
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
Hubris or Hybris
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.
Hyperbole
A figure of speech in which a boldly exaggerated statement adds emphasis without in-tending to be literally true, as in the following lines from Act 2, scene 2 of Shakespeare's "Macbeth." In this scene, Macbeth has murdered King Duncan. Horrified at the b
Iambic pentameter
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.) A metrical pattern of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.
Imagery
A word or group of words in a literary work which appeal to one or more of the senses: sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell. The use of images offers sensory impressions to the reader and also convey emotions and moods through their verbal pictures and
Inference
A judgement based on reasoning rather than on direct or explicit statement. For example, advised not to travel alone in temperatures exceeding fifty degrees below zero, the man in Jack London's "To Build a Fire" sets out anyway. One may infer arrogance fr
In medias res
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.
Reversal
The point in a story when the protagonist's fortunes turn in an unexpected direction.
Rhetorical Question
A rhetorical question implies that the answer is obvious - the kind of question that does not need
actually to be answered. It is used for rhetorically persuading someone of a truth without argument,
or to give emphasis to a supposed truth by stating its
Rhyme
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, pre
Rhythm
Recurrences of stressed and unstressed syllables at equal intervals, similar to meter. However, though two lines may be of the same meter, the rhythms of the lines may be different. Depending on how sounds are arranged, the rhythm of a poem may be fast or
Rising Action
The part of a drama which begins with the exposition and sets the stage for the climax. In a five-act play, the exposition provides information about the characters and the events which occurred before the action of the play began. A conflict often develo
Romance
In the Middle Ages, tales of exciting adventures written in the vernacular (French) instead of Latin. The medieval romances were tales of chivalry or amorous adventure occurring in King Arthur's court. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is an example of a me
Saga
A story of the exploits of a hero, or the story of a family told through several generations. Stories of the exploits of Daniel Boone are sagas in the former sense. Alex Haley's Roots would be considered a saga in the latter sense.
Satire
A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt, and hopefully to "correct" vice or folly. Swift's Gulliver's Travel satirizes the English people, making them s
Scansion
The process of measuring the stresses in a line of verse in order to determine the metrical pattern of the line.
Sestet
A stanza consisting of exactly six lines.
Setting
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. Setting can be used to evoke a mood or atmosphere that will prepare the re
Simile
A common figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two things by using words such as like, as, than, appears, and seems: "A sip of Mrs. Cook's coffee is like a punch in the stomach." The effectiveness of this simile is created by the diff
Soliloquy
A dramatic convention by means of which a character, alone onstage, utters his or her thoughts aloud. Playwrights use soliloquies as a convenient way to inform the audience about a character's motivations and state of mind. Shakespeare's Hamlet delivers p
Sonnet
A fixed form of lyric poetry that consists of fourteen lines, usually written in iambic pentameter. There are two basic types of sonnets, the Italian and the English. The Italian sonnet, also known as the Petrarchan sonnet, is divided into an octave, whic
Speaker
The voice used by an author to tell a story or speak a poem. The speaker is often a created identity, and should not automatically be equated with the author's self. See also narrator, persona, point of view.
Stanza
In poetry, stanza refers to a grouping of lines, set off by a space, that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme.
Stereotype
An author's method of treating a character so that the character is immediately identified with a group. A character may be associated with a group through accent, food choices, style of dress, or any readily identifiable group characteristic. Examples ar
Stock responses
Predictable, conventional reactions to language, characters, symbols, or situations. The flag, motherhood, and puppies are common objects used to elicit stock responses from unsophisticated audiences.
Stream-of-consciousness technique
.
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
Stress
The emphasis, or accent, given a syllable in pronunciation.
Style
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. Many things enter into the style of a work: the author's use of fig
Subplot
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. Subplo
Subtext
A term denoting what a character means by what (s) he says when there is a disparity between diction and intended meaning. In irony a character may say one thing and mean something entirely different. The real meaning of the speech is the subtext.
Suspense
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 t
Symbolism
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 explanation
Synecdoche
A figure of speech wherein a part of something represents the whole thing. In this figure, the head of a cow might substitute for the whole cow. Therefore, a herd of fifty cows might be referred to as "fifty head of cattle." In Lycidas Milton refers to co
Syntax
The 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. Emily Dickinson, for instance, writes about bein
Theme
The central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work. A theme provides a unifying point around which the plot, characters, setting, point of view, symbols, and other elements of a work are organized. It is important not to mistake the theme for the act
Thesis
The central idea of an essay. The thesis is a complete sentence (although sometimes it may require more than one sentence) that establishes the topic of the essay in clear, unambiguous language.
Tone
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
Tragedy
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. Tragedies recount an individual's
Tragicomedy
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. Tragicom
Understatement
A statement which lessens or minimizes the importance of what is meant. For example, if one were in a desert where the temperature was 125 degrees, and if one wee to describe thermal conditions saying "It's a little warm today." that would be an understam
Verse
A generic term used to describe poetic lines composed in a measured rhythmical pattern, that are often, but not necessarily, rhymed. See also line, meter, rhyme, rhythm.
Verisimilitude
The semblance to truth or actuality in characters or events that a novel or other fictional work possesses. To say that a work has a high degree of verisimilitude means that the work is very realistic and believable.
Villanelle
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 i
Resolution
The conclusion of a plot's conflicts and complications. The resolution, also known as the falling action, follows the climax in the plot and which establishes a new norm, a new state of affairs-the way things are going to be from then on. Shakespeare's Ro
Recognition
The moment in a story when previously unknown or withheld information is revealed to the protagonist, resulting in the discovery of the truth of his or her situation and, usually, a decisive change in course for that character. In Oedipus the King, the mo
Quatrain
A four-line stanza which may be rhymed or unrhymed, the most common stanzaic form in the English language. A heroic quatrain is a four line stanza rhymed abab. John Donne's "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning" is a poem of nine heroic quatrains.
Protagonist
The hero or central character of a literary work; its central character who engages the reader's interest and empathy. In accomplishing his or her objective, the protagonist is hindered by some opposing force either human (one of Batman's antagonists is T
Prose poem
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.
Point of View
Point of view is the perspective from which a narrative is presented; it is analogous to the point from which the camera sees the action in cinema. The two main points of view are those of the third-person (omniscient) narrator, who stands outside the sto
Plot
The structure of a story or the sequence in which the author arranges events in a story. The structure of a five-act play often includes the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. The plot may have a protagonist who is opposed
Personification
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 i
Persona
The persona was the mask worn by an actor in Greek drama. In a literary context, the persona is the character of the first-person narrator in verse or prose narratives, and the speaker in lyric poetry. The use of the term "persona" (as distinct from "auth
Pathos
A Greek term for deep emotion, passion, or suffering. When applied to literature, its meaning is usually narrowed to refer to tragic emotions, describing the language and situations which deeply move the audience or reader by arousing sadness, sympathy, o
Pastoral
A literary work that has to do with shepherds and rustic settings. Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shephard to His Love" is an example.
Parody
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. Anthony Hecht
Parallel Structure
A repetition of sentences using the same structure. This line from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address provides an example:
The world will little note nor long remember what we say here,
but it can never forget what they did here.
Parallel Character
A person whose role in the story is mostly important because of his or her likeness to another character, especially the main character. Example: In the children's novel The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, the main character Mary Lennox is a spo
Paradox
A statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense. For example, John Donne ends his sonnet "Death, Be Not Proud" with the paradoxical statement "Death, thou shalt die." To solve the paradox, it
Parable
A brief story, told or written in order to teach a moral lesson. Christ's tale of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 30-7) is an example.
Oxymoron
A condensed form of paradox in which two contradictory words are used together, such as used by Romeo in Act 1, scene 1 of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet:"
Why then, O brawling love! O loving hate!
O heavy lightness, serious vanity;
Misshapen chaos of we
Onomatopoeia
A literary device wherein the sound of a word echoes the sound it represents. The words "splash." "knock," and "roar" are examples. The following lines end Dylan Thomas' "Fern Hill:"
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
The word
Oedipus complex
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 fath
Ode
A relatively lengthy lyric poem that often expresses lofty emotions in a dignified style, usually in praise of something divine or expressing some noble idea. Odes are characterized by a serious topic, such as truth, art, freedom, justice, or the meaning
Octave
A poetic stanza of eight lines, usually forming one part of a sonnet.
Narrator
The voice telling the story, not to be confused with the author's voice.. This voice might belong to a Character in the story whom other characters can see, hear, interact with, etc.; or the voice might appear to belong to the author. The narrator may fit
Narrative Poem
A poem which tells a story. Usually a long poem, sometimes even book length, the narrative may take the form of a plotless dialogue as in Robert Frost's "The Death of the Hired Man." In other instances the narrative may consist of a series of incidents Jo
Motif
A motif is a recurring concept or story element in literature. It includes concepts such as types of incident or situation, as in the parting of lovers at dawn; plot devices, such as the lady's love token, which inspires courage in her lover, or the recog
Mood
The atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work, partly by a description of the objects or by the style of the descriptions. A work may contain a mood of horror, mystery, holiness, or childlike simplicity, to name a few, depending on the author's tre
Metonymy
Type of metaphor in which something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it. In this way, we speak of "the crown" to stand for the king, "the White House" to stand for the activities of the president.
Meter
A regular pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in a line or lines of poetry. Below is an illustration of some commonly used metrical patterns:
Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, without using the word "like" or "as". Example: when Macbeth asserts that life is a "brief candle." Metaphors can be subtle and powerful, and can transform people, places,
Lyric Poem
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 l
Local Color
A detailed setting forth of the characteristics of a particular locality, enabling the reader to "see" the setting.
Litotes
Understatement, for intensification, by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed.
Example: War is not healthy for children and other living things.
Irony
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. Irony takes many forms. Dramatic irony cre
Invective
Speech or writing that abuses, denounces, or vituperates against. It can be directed against a person, cause, idea, or system. It employs a heavy use of negative emotive language.
Example: "I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most per