Essential Terms

Allegory: The presentation of an abstract idea through more concrete means.

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress p. 9

Pi Patel

Protagonist

The most important or leading character in a piece of work; often the hero or the heroine.

Setting

The combination of place, historical time, and social status, which provides the general background for the characters and plot of a literary work.

Simile

A figure of speech comparing two distinct things by using words such as like, or as, seems, etc. subtle difference from metaphor, no linking word

theme

Not simply the subject of a literary work, but rather a statement that the text seems to be making about that subject. The statement can be moral, a moral or lesson, etc.

Tone

The attitude of the author toward the reader or the subject matter of a literary work.

Syntax

The arrangement—the ordering, grouping, and placement—of words within a sentence.

Symbol

Something that stands for or suggests something larger and more complex.

 

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds usually in stressed syllables, followed by different consonant sounds in proximate (nearby) words.

Consonance

The repetition of a final consonant sound or sounds following different vowel sounds in proximate words.

Mood

Often refers to the atmosphere; the general feeling created in the reader by the work at a given point.

Motivation

The mixture of situation and personality that impels a character to behave the way he or she does.

Plot

The arrangement and interrelation of events in a narrative work chosen and designed to engage the reader’s attention to; while also providing a framework for the exposition of the author’s message, or theme, and for other elements such as, characterization, symbol, and conflict.

Essential Terms

Alliteration: The repetition of sounds in a sequence of words, usually at the initial sound.

Wallace Stevens’s “Of Mere Being” p. 10

Essential Terms

Allusion: An indirect reference to a person, event, statement, or theme found in literature, the other arts, history, myths, religion, or popular culture. The author’s use presupposes that the reader will have some general knowledge to recognize the allusion.

Snoopy and Winnie the Pooh p. 11

Essential Terms

Ambiguity: The result of something being stated in such a way that its meaning cannot be definitely determined.

Examples p. 12

Essential Terms

Antagonist: The character pitted against the protagonist-the main character- of a work. The antagonist is not necessarily a villain.

Darth Vador p. 19

Essential Terms

Apostrophe: A figure of speech in which the speaker directly and often emotionally addresses a person who is dead or otherwise not physically present

Lord Byron p. 26

Essential Terms Archetype: Generally, the original model

from which something is developed or made; in literary criticisms, those images, or figures, character types, settings, story patterns that, according to Swiss analytical psychologist Carl Jung, are universally shared by people across cultures. Archetypes according to Jung, are embedded deep in humanity’s collective unconscious situations, events, and relations that have been part of the human experience from the beginning.

Ex. the snake p. 29

Essential Terms

Cacophony: A mixture of harsh, unpleasant or discordant sounds. Opposite is Euphony.

Ex. The Bridge p. 46

Essential Terms

Caricature: An exaggeration or other distortion of an individuals prominent features or characteristics to the point of making that individual appear ridiculous.

Ex. Doonesbury p. 47

Essential Terms

carpe diem: Latin for “seize the day” a phrase referring to the age-old literary theme that we should enjoy the moment before it is gone, before youth passes away.

Ex. Dead Poet Society p. 49

Essential Terms

Characterization: Is unavoidably intertwined with the plot. In order for a work to be believable, the reader must find the characters convincing; in order to find the characters convincing, the reader must be able to visualize them.

Essential Terms comic relief: A humorous scene or

passage inserted into an otherwise serious work. Comic relief is intended to provide an emotional outlet and change of pace for the audience as well as to create a contrast that further emphasizes the seriousness of the work.

Shakespeare p. 69

Essential Terms

Connotation: The association(s) evoked by a word beyond its denotation, or literal meaning.

Ex. “Boys and Girls” p. 75

Essential Terms

Couplet: Two successive lines of rhyming verse, often the same meter and generally octosyllabic or decasyllabic. Ex. “My Last Duchess” p. 76

Essential Terms

Denotation: A word’s literal and primary meaning

p. 100

Essential Terms

Diction: A speaker’s or author’s choice of words.

P. 108

Essential Terms Epiphany: The insight or revelation

gained when one suddenly understands the essence of a generally commonplace object, gesture, statement, situation, moment, or mentality—that is, when one sees that commonplace for what it really is beneath the surface perceives its inner workings. A real A-HA moment.

Page 138

Essential Terms

Euphemism: A nice, less threatening or rude way to say something.

It is like saying Big-boned rather than FAT.

Essential Terms

Euphony: Pleasing or harmonious sounds

Essential Terms

figurative language: Language that employs one or more figures of speech to supplement and even modify the literal, denotative meanings of words with additional connotations and richness.

Example The Far Side p. 166 see fig. of speech.

Foreshadowing:

The technique of introducing into a narrative material that prepares the reader or audience for future events, actions, or revelations.

Essential Terms

Genre: A word meaning “kind” or “type” used to classify literary works based on their content, form, or technique.

Example p. 189

Essential Terms

Hubris: Greek for “Insolence” excessive pride that leads to the protagonists tragic flaw and leads to a downfall.

Oedipus Michael Vick

Essential Terms

Hyperbole: A figure of speech that uses deliberate exaggeration to achieve an effect. Sometimes referred to as an overstatement.

Modern examples p. 205 Your Momma is so fat…

Essential Terms

Imagery: A term used to refer to the language a writer uses to convey a visual picture. Is also uses figures of speech and to express abstract ideas.

Ex. p. 210-211

Essential Terms

Irony: A contradiction or incongruity between appearance or expectation and reality. Easily put the discrepancy between what someone says and what they really mean.

Example on pages 220-227.

Verbal Irony or Rhetorical Irony

This is the most common. It is characterized by a discrepancy between what the speaker or writer says and what he or she believes to be true. More specifically a speaker or writer using verbal irony will say the opposite of what he or she actually means.

Situational Irony

Derives primarily from events or situations themselves, as opposed to statements made by an individual, whether or not that individual understands the situation as ironic.

Essential Terms

Metaphor: A figure of speech that associates two things…the representation of one thing by another.

Examples and further explanation on p. 260

Simon and Garfunkle = I am a rock I am an island

Essential Terms

Narration: The act or process recounting a story or other narrative

Essential Terms

Onomatopoeia: Words or the creation of words that seem to signify word meaning through sound effects.

Bat Man p. 317

Essential Terms Oxymoron: A figure of speech that

juxtaposes (puts words right next to each other) two words to create a dramatic paradox for a rhetorical purpose or effect.

P. 322 Jumbo Shrimp, Passive aggressive

Essential Terms Paradox: A statement that seems

self-contradictory or nonsensical on the surface but that, upon closer examination, may be seen to contain an underlying truth.

“…die to live…” p. 325 “Barbie Doll” …consummation at

last. To every woman a happy ending.

Essential Terms Parallelism: A rhetorical figure used in

written and oral communication to emphasize ideas or images by using grammatically similar constructions. Words, phrases, clauses, sentences, paragraphs, and even larger structural units may be organized into a parallel structure.

Examples p. 327

Essential Terms

Parody: A literary term that imitates a specific work or style of an author for comic effect, usually to ridicule or criticize that work, author, or style.

Ex. p. 328 Not another Teen Movie…

Essential Terms

Pathos: “passion” “emotion” or “suffering” a quality in a work or a portion of a work that makes the reader experience pity, sorrow, or tenderness.

P. 333

Essential Terms

Persona: Often serves as the voice of the author. It has also been used to refer to the public face an individual presents to others.

Ex. p. 338

Essential Terms

Personification: Attributing human characteristics to anything not human.

Ex. p. 340

Essential Terms

point of view: The vantage point from which a narrative is told. usually from the first person or the third person. point of view.

352

Essential Terms

Protagonist: The most important or leading character in a piece of work; often the hero or the heroine.

P. 375

Essential Terms

Pun: A play on words that capitalizes on a similarity in spelling and/or pronunciation between words that have different meanings. Puns also use words that have more than one meaning.

AC/DC p. 383 Have you ever heard someone say, “No pun intended”?

Essential Terms

Rhetoric: The art of persuasion through speaking and writing

p. 409

Essential Terms Satire: A literary genre that sometimes

uses irony, wit, and sarcasm to expose humanity’s vices (foolishness/shortcomings) in an attempt to create change or recognition of our faults. Satire differs from pure comedy because it ultimately has a moral purpose.

SNL and South Park p. 426

Essential Terms

Setting: The combination of place, historical time, and social status, that provides the general background for the characters and plot of a literary work.

p. 443

Essential Terms

Simile: A figure of speech comparing two distinct things by using words such as like, or as, seems, etc. subtle difference from metaphor, no linking word

p. 447

Rhyme

1. The repetition of identical vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of two or more words, as well as all the subsequent sounds after this vowel sound.

Structure

1. A term that refers to the arrangement of material in a work, that is, the ordering of its component parts or the design devised by the author to convey content and meaning.

Essential Terms Soliloquy: In a play, a monologue

delivered by a character while alone on stage that reveals inner thought, emotions, or some other information that the audience needs to know. Soap operas…

p. 450 “To be or not to be…”

Essential Terms

Sonnet: A lyric poem that always consists of fourteen lines, usually printed as a single stanza.

p. 450

Essential Terms

Stanza: A grouped set of lines in a poem usually physically set off from other such clusters by a blank line.

p. 455

Essential Terms

Style: In general, the way in which a literary work is written. The message, manner, and tools or devices used by an author to communicate their ideas.

p. 463

Essential Terms Symbolism: (symbol = something that

stands for or suggests something larger and more complex) In literature symbolism uses symbols to suggest other things or ideas. In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird a mockingbird is symbolic of taking the life of something nonviolent; more importantly it is linked to the character Tom Robinson’s senseless death.

p. 472

Essential Terms

Syntax: The arrangement—the ordering, grouping, and placement—of words within a sentence.

p. 474

Essential Terms

theme: Not simply the subject of a literary work, but rather a statement that the text seems to be making about that subject. The statement can be moral, a moral or lesson, i.e.

p. 479

Essential Terms

Tone: The attitude of the author toward the reader or the subject matter of a literary work. An author’s tone may be serious, playful, mocking, angry, demanding, apologetic, and so forth.

i.e. 482

Essential Terms

Voice: Similar to tone, but more accurately described as the author’s presence that exists in a literary work.

10th grade terms: Antithesis a rhetorical figure in which two ideas

are directly opposed. For a statement to be truly antithetical, the opposing ideas must be presented in a grammatically parallel way, thus creating the perfect rhetorical balance.

Page 22

Apostrophe A figure of speech in which the

speaker directly and often emotionally addresses a person who is dead or otherwise not physically present

26

Flashback

A scene that interrupts the present action of a narrative work to depict some earlier event—that occurred before the opening scene of the work—via daydream, remembrance, dreaming, or some other mechanism. The term may be used to refer to the scene itself or to its presentation. Page 167

Verbal Irony 220-227

This is the most common. It is characterized by a discrepancy between what the speaker or writer says and what he or she believes to be true. More specifically a speaker or writer using verbal irony will say the opposite of what he or she actually means.

Situational irony Derives primarily from events or situations

themselves, as opposed to statements made by an individual, what happens is the opposite of what is expected to happen. whether or not that individual understands the situation as ironic.

Dramatic Irony Reader or audience is aware of events

and/or information the characters are not aware of.

Sarcasm Intentional derision, generally directed

at another person and intended to hurt. The term comes from the Greek term “to tear flesh like dogs” and signifies a cutting remark. Sarcasm usually involves obvious, even exaggerated verbal irony, achieving its effect by jeeringly stating the opposite of what is meant (for instance false praise) so as to heighten the insult. Pg. 425

Paradox A statement that seems self-

contradictory or nonsensical on the surface but that, upon closer examination, may be seen to contain an underlying truth.

325-326

Style In general, the way in which a

literary work is written. The message, manner, and tools or devices used by an author to communicate their ideas.

463

Suspense Popular fictional narratives with

plots revolving around puzzling or frightening situations that create and even exploit a sense of uncertainty, suspense, or fear in the reader or audience.

Pg. 280

Synecdoche A figure of speech (more specifically a

trope) in which a part or something is used to represent the whole or, occasionally, the whole is used to represent a part. In synecdoche the vehicle (the image used to represent something else) of the figure of speech is part of the tenor (the thing being represented). 474

Understatement It is the opposite of hyperbole; it is

a deliberate minimizing done to provide emphasis of humor.