LITERARY TERMS

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LITERARY TERMS
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protagonist - The major character in a piece of
literature the figure in the narrative whose
interests the reader is most concerned about and
sympathetic toward. Ex Scout in To Kill a
Mockingbird
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antagonist - The character who opposes the
interests of the protagonist. Ex In The Lord of
the Rings, Tolkien creates Lord Sauron as the
antagonist to Frodo.
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apostrophe - The direct address of an absent
person or personified object as if he/she/it is
able to reply. Ex "O' Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore
art thou Romeo?" (William Shakespeare)
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conflict - The struggle of characters with
themselves, with others, or with the world around
them. Internal/External conflict man vs.
man man vs. nature man vs. self
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connotation - The implied meaning of a word, in
contrast to its directly expressed "dictionary
meaning."Ex Home literally means one's house,
but implies feelings of family and security.
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epithet - A word of phrase adding a
characteristic to a person's name. Ex Alexander
the Great.
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figurative language - Language dominated by the
use of schemes and tropes. Ex "The ground is
thirsty and hungry."
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flashback - A part of the plot that moves back in
time and then returns to the presenta
recollection of earlier events. Ex Scout tells
us about her childhood in flashback.
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generalization - A point that a speaker or writer
generations on the basis of considering a number
of particular examples. Ex "All French people
are rude."
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genre - A piece of writing classified by
type. Ex Science Fiction.
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irony - Writing or speaking that implies the
contrary of what is actually written or
spoken.Ex 1 "Of course I believe you," Joe said
sarcastically.Ex 2 "I can't describe to you how
surprised I was to find out I loved herI even
hoped for a while that she'd throw me over"
(Fitzgerald 157).
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parallelism - A set of similarly structured
words, phrases, or clauses that appears in a
sentence or paragraph.Ex 1 The dog ran,
stumbled, and fell.Ex 2 "After two years I
remember the rest of that day, and that night and
the next day" (Fitzgerald 17).
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scheme - An artful variation from typical
formation and arrangement of words or
sentences. Ex Peter Piper picked a peck of
pickled peppers.
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anecdote - A brief narrative offered in a text to
capture the audience's attention or to support a
generalization of claim. Ex "A good man, gray
on the edges, an assistant manager in a brown
starched and ironed uniform, is washing the glass
windows of the store...Good night, m'ijo! he
tells a young boy coming out after playing the
video game..." (Dagoberto Gilb)
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euphemism - An indirect expression of unpleasant
information in such way as to lesson its
impact. Ex 1 "Passed way" for "died."Ex 2
"You see, I carry on a little business on the
side, a sort of a sideline, you
understand"(Fitzgerald 87).
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image - A passage of text that evokes sensation
or emotional intensity. Ex "Waves crashing on
the ocean look like knives."
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inference - A conclusion that a reader or
listener reaches by means of his or her own
thinking rather than by being told directly by a
text. Ex I infer that America became
isolationist during the 1920s because of the
horrors of World War I.
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point of view - The perspective or source of a
piece of writing. A first-person point of view
has a narrator or speaker who refers to himself
or herself as "I." A third-person point of view
lacks "I" in perspective. Ex Jane Eyre is
written in first-person point of view.
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stock settings - Stereotypical time and place
settings that let readers know a text's genre
immediately. Ex For science fiction, if the
text takes place in the future, on another
planet, or in another universe.
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alliteration - The repetition of consonant sounds
at the beginning or in the middle of two or more
adjacent words. Ex "To make a man to meet the
moral need/ A man to match the mountains and the
sea" (Edwin Markham)
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anadiplosis - The repetition of the last word of
one clause at the beginning of the following
clause.Ex "Men in great place are thrice
servants servants of the sovereign or state
servants of fame and servants of business."
(Francis Bacon) anaphora - The repetition of a
group of words at the beginning of successive
clauses.Ex "We shall not flag or fail. We shall
go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we
shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall
fight with growing confidence" (Winston
Churchill)
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metonymy - An entity referred to by one of its
attributes or associations. Ex "The press" for
the news media.
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symbol - In a text, an element that stands for
more than itself and, therefore, helps to convey
a theme of the text. Ex Purple symbolizes
royalty.
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thesis - The main idea in a text, often the main
generalization, conclusion, or claim.Ex The
corruption of America's rich in The Great Gatsby
by F. Scott Fitzgerald. thesis statement - A
single sentence that states a text's thesis,
usually somewhere near the beginning.Ex "Sweatt
v. Painter advanced equality by ultimately
improving African American educational rights,
thus transforming American democracy for a better
today."
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trope - An artful variation from expected modes
of expression of thoughts and ideas. Ex Pun or
metonymy.
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voice - The textual features, such as diction and
sentence structure, that convey a writer's or
speaker's persona. Ex Poes voice is made up of
mystery.
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climax - The arrangement of words, phrases, or
clauses in order of increasing number or
importance. The high point or turning point of
a story.
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allegory - An extended metaphor. Ex 1 "During
the time I have voyaged on this ship, I have
avoided the cabin rather, I have remained on
deck, battered by wind and rain, but able to see
moonlight" Ex 2 "This is a valley of ashes--a
fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into
ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where
ashes take forms of houses and...of men..."
(Fitzgerald 27).
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allusion - A reference in a written or spoken
text to another text or to some particular body
of knowledge. Ex "I doubt if Phaethon feared
more -- that time/ he dropped the sun-reins of
his father's chariot/ and burned the streak of
sky we see today" (Dante's Inferno).
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antithesis - The juxtaposition of contrasting
words or ideas, often in parallel structure. Ex
1 "Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice,
moderation in the pursuit of justice is no
virtue." (Barry Goldwater)
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dynamic character - One who changes during the
course of the narrative.Ex Romeo is a dramatic
character in Romeo and Juliet, by William
Shakespeare. static character--One who does not
change throughout the narrative.
flat character - A figure readily identifiable by
memorable traits but not fully developed. round
character -- readily identifiable and fully
developed.
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hyperbole - An exaggeration for effect. Ex 1 "I
told you a billion times not to exaggerate."
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metaphor - An implied comparison that does not
use the word like or as. Ex "No man is an
island" (Donne).
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oxymoron - Juxtaposed words with seemingly
contradictory meanings. Ex "O miserable
abundance! O beggarly riches!" (Donne).
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setting - The context--including time and
place--of a narrative. Ex The rural South
(Maycomb, AL) during the Great Depression(1930s).
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simile - A type of comparison that uses the
word like or as. Ex "There was something
gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity
to the promises of life, as if he were related to
one of those intricate machines that register
earthquakes ten thousand miles away" (Fitzgerald
2).
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synecdoche - A part of something used to refer to
the whole.Ex "The hired hands are not doing
their jobs. syntax - The study of the rules
that govern the way words combine to form
phrases, clauses, and sentences. (2) The
arrangement of words in a sentence. Ex "The dog
ran" not "The ran dog."
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theme - The message conveyed by a literary
work.Ex Social inequality and good vs. evil are
themes from To Kill a Mockingbird. tone - The
writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject
matter. Ex It was a dark and stormy night
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diction - Word choice, which is viewed on scales
of formality/informality, concreteness/abstraction
, Latinate derivation/Anglo-Saxon derivation, and
denotative value/connotative value. Ex Using
"issue" instead of "problem."
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dialect - The describable patterns of
language--grammar and vocabulary--used by a
particular cultural or ethnic population. Ex A
Caribbean dialect is often "sing-songish" and
leaves out words from sentences.
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imagery - Language that evokes particular
sensations or emotionally rich experiences in a
reader.
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litotes - Understatement.Ex 1 "This is no
ordinary city" rather than "this is an impressive
city".Ex 2 "I lived at West Egg, the--well, the
less fashionable of the two, though this is a
most
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mood - The feeling that a text is intended to
produce in the audience. Ex In Poes The Cask
of Amontillado, the mood is mostly dark and
gloomy.
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personification - The giving of human
characteristics to inanimate objects.
Ex "Fear knocked on the door. Faith answered.
There was no one there."(proverb --quoted by
Christopher Moltisanti in The Sopranos)
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rhetoric - The art of analyzing all the choices
involving language that a writer, speaker,
reader, or listener might make in a situation so
that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and
effective the specific features of texts,
written or spoken, that cause them to be
meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers
or listeners in a situation.Ex Diction, scheme,
trope, argument, and syntax.
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denouement-- The denouement refers to the
resolution of the complications of a plot in a
work of fiction, generally done in a final
chapter or section. The denouement generally
follows the climax, except in mysteries, where
the denouement and the climax may occur at the
same time. Ex In the novel's denouement we
learned that the sister also married and lived
happily ever after.