Letting the reader hear what the character says

A P LITERARY TERMS

ALLEGORY story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities.

AMBIGUITY deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work. An event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way-- this is done on purpose by the author, when it is not done on purpose, it is vagueness, and detracts from the work.

ANALOGY Comparison made between two things to show how they are alike

ANTIMETABOLE Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order.

Moliere: “One should eat to live, not live to eat.” In poetry, this is called chiasmus.

APHORISM brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life, or of a principle or accepted general truth. Also called maxim, epigram.

APOSTROPHE calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea. If the character is asking a god or goddess for inspiration it is called an invocation.

BALANCE Constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and importance. Sentences can be unbalanced to serve a special effect as well.

CHARACTERIZATION the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character.

DYNAMIC CHARACTER is one who changes in some important way as a result of the story’s action.

FLAT CHARACTER has only one or two personality traits. They are one dimensional, like a piece of cardboard. They can be summed up in one phrase.

Example: “He’s out of his head if he thinks I’m gonnago for such a stupid idea.

COMEDY in general, a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main character or characters.

INTERNAL CONFLICT a conflict can be internal, involving opposing forces within a person’s mind.

CONNOTATION the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.

DIDACTIC form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.

ELEGY a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. A Eulogy is great praise or commendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who has died.

EPISTROPHE Device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences (it is the opposite of anaphora).

EPITHET an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality. “Father of our country” and “the great Emancipator” are examples. A Homeric epithet is a compound adjective used with a person or thing: “swift-footed Achilles”; “rosy-fingered dawn.”

ARGUMENT form of persuasion that appeals to reason instead of emotion to convince an audience to think or act in a certain way.

CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP Form of argumentation in which the writer claims that one thing results from another, often used as part of a logical argument.

FABLE a very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life.

FARCE a type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched situations.

FREE VERSE poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme. HYPERBOLE a figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement, for effect. “If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times….”
HYPOTACTIC sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them. (Use of such syntactic subordination of just one clause to another is known as hypotaxis). I am tired because it is hot.

IMAGERY the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person , a thing, a place, or an experience.

SITUATIONAL IRONY takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen.

DRAMATIC IRONY is so called because it is often used on stage. A character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better.

LOOSE SENTENCE one in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units. See periodic sentence.

Hawthorne: “Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of this footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure.”

Literary Terms page 6

DEAD METAPHOR is a metaphor that has been used so often that the comparison is no longer vivid: “The head of the house”, “the seat of the government”, “a knotty problem” are all dead metaphors.

MOTIVATION the reasons for a character’s behavior.

ONOMATOPOEIA the use of words whose sounds echo their sense. “Pop.” “Zap.”

PARALLEL STRUCTURE (parallelism) the repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures.

PARATACTIC SENTENCE simply juxtaposes clauses or sentences. I am tired: it is hot.

PLOT the series of related events in a story or play, sometimes called the storyline.

Characteristics of PLOT:

POINT OF VIEW the vantage point from which the writer tells the story.

FIRST PERSON POINT OF VIEW one of the characters tells the story.

PROTAGONIST the central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action. Usually the hero or anti-hero; in a tragic hero, like John Proctor of The Crucible, there is always a hamartia, or tragic flaw in his character which will lead to his downfall.

PUN a “play on words” based on the multiple meanings of a single word or on words that sound alike but mean different things.

RHETORIC Art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse.

RHETORICAL QUESTION a question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring an answer.

STEREOTYPE a fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices.

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS a style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character’s mind.

SYNTACTIC FLUENCY Ability to create a variety of sentence structures, appropriately complex and/or simple and varied in length.

Literary Terms page 9

TONE the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization.

TRAGEDY in general, a story in which a heroic character either dies or comes to some other unhappy end.

WRITING MOVEMENTS AND STYLES TO KNOW:

IMPRESSIONISM a nineteenth-century movement in literature and art which advocated a recording of the artist’s personal impressions of the world, rather than a strict representation of reality.

PURITANISM Writing style of America’s early English-speaking colonists. emphasizes obedience to God and consists mainly of journals, sermons, and poems.

RATIONALISM a movement that began in Europe in the seventeenth century, which held that we can arrive at truth by using our reason rather than relying on the authority of the past, on the authority of the Church, or an institution. ALSO CALLED
NEOCLASSICISM AND AGE OF REASON

SYMBOLISM a literary movement that originated in late nineteenth century France, in which writers rearranged the world of appearances in order to reveal a more truthful version of reality.

TRANSCENDENTALISM a nineteenth century movement in the Romantic tradition , which held that every individual can reach ultimate truths through spiritual intuition, which transcends reasons and sensory experience.

Realism 1850s -early 1900s

Regionalism 1884 - early 1900s