English

• allegory:

  narrative when characters stand for abstract conecepts, usually teaches a lesson by means of an interesting story
• Allusion:

  reference to something in literature, history, mythology, religious texts, considered common knowledge
• Analogy:

  comparison between two dissimilar things for the purpose of clarifying the less familiar of the two things
• Apostrophe:

  device of calling out to imaginary, dead, or absent peron or to a place, thing or personified abstraction either to begin a poem or to make a dramatic break in thought somewhere within the poem
• Assonance:

  vowel sounds
• Ballad:

  narrative poem meant to be sung, generally about ordinary people who have unusual adventures with a single tragic incident as the central focus
• Cacophony:

  plosive consonants - b, d, g, k, p, t, etc
• Catalog:

  a long list of anything; an inventory used to emphasize quantity or inclusiveness
• Character:

  • two-dimensional = has one or two dominant traits
  • dynamic characters = changes as plot unfolds
  • static characters = remain the same
• Characterisation:

  • physical description
  • dialogue
  • action
  • thoughts/feelings
  • reactions
• Conceit:

  • elaborate figure of speech comparing two very dissimilar things in a way that reveals a deeper truth about one or both of them
  • "a broken heart is like a damaged clock"
• Conflict:

  • external
  • internal
• Connotation:

  associations, images or impressions carried by a word
• Consonance:

  consonant sounds
• Convention:

  in general, an accepted way of doing things
• Denotation:

  precise, literal meaning of a word (no emotional associations or overtone)
• Epigram:

  any witty, pointed saying
• Epigraph:

  motto/quotation that appears at the beginning of a book/play/chapter/poem
• Exposition:

  background information given at the beginning of the story (e.g. settings, characters & conflicts)
• Fable:

  brief tale told to illustrate a moral
• Foil:

  a character who provides a striking contrast to another character
• Imagery:

  • gustatory - taste
  • visual - sight
  • tactile - touch
  • olfactory - smell
  • auditory - hear
• Irony:

  • verbal - writer says one thing but means something entirely different
  • situational - when something happens that's entirely different from what's expected
  • dramatic - when reader knows info the character's dont
• Metonymy:

  figure of speech that subtitutes the name of a related object, person, or idea for the subject at hand
• Mood:

  connotative words, sensory images, and figurative language contribute to the mood of a selection, as do the sound of rhythm of the language
• Motif:

  unifying element in an artistic work, especially any recurrent images, symbols, theme and character type, subjective or narrative detail
• Narrator:

  • thid person omniscient = narrator is all-knowing about thoughts & feelings of characters
  • third person limited = deals with a writer presenting events as experienced by only one character, narrator doesn't have full knowledge of past/future events
  • third person objective = conveys only external details of characters, never their thoughts or inner motivations
• Oxymoron:

  two contradicting words/phrases combined in a single expression
• Paradox:

  statement/situation containing obvious contradicitons but nevertheless true
• Parallelism:

  use of similar grammatical form to give items equal weight, generally makes both spoken and written expression more concise, clear and powerful
• Parody:

  imitation of serious works of literature for the purpose of criticism or humorous effect or for flattering tribute
• Pun:

  form of wit, not necessarily funny, involving a play on a word with two or more meanings
• Satire:

  literary techniques in which foolish ideas/customs are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society
• Semantic field:

  group of words/expressions that are related in meaning
• Soliloquy:

  dramatic convention which a character in a play speaks their thoughts aloud to provide audience with info on the character's motives, plans and state of mind
• Stream of Conciuosness:

  technique of presenting the flow of thoughts, responses, and sensations of one or more characters
• Style:

  refers not to what's said but how it's said
• Syllogism:

  a logical argument based on deductive reasoning
• Synecdoche

  figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole thing

  • "nice set of wheels"
• Zoomorphism:

  animal attributes are imposed upon non-animal objects (humans or events) and animal features are ascribed to humans, gods and others