Literary Terms 1

  1. Allusion
    • a reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history
    • Ex. He was swallowed up in the dust like Jonah
  2. Analogy
    • an extended comparison between two things/instances/people etc. that share some similarity to make a point
    • Ex. Dictionaries are like watches
  3. Anaphora
    repetition of the same word or group of wrods at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines
  4. anthropomorphism
    attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomenon
  5. aphorism
    • term used to describe a principle expressed tersely in a few telling words or any general truth conveyed in a short and pithy sentence
    • Ex. Children should be seen and not heard
  6. Apostrophe
    a figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply
  7. aside
    a brief speech in which a character turns from the person being addressed to speak directly to the audience
  8. assonance
    • the repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words
    • Ex. Mad as a hatter or Time out of mind
  9. asyndeton
    • the omission of conjunctions between clauses, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect
    • Ex. He has provided the poor with jobs, with opportunity, with self-respect.
  10. Bildungsroman
    novel that traces the spiritual, moral, psychological, or social development and growth of the main character from childhood to maturity
  11. cacophony
    harsh, discordant, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds
  12. chiasmus
    • repetition of ideas in inverted order; repetition of grammatical structures in inverted order
    • Ex. But o, what damned minutes tells he o'er / Who dotes, yet doubts; suspects ye strong loves
  13. conceit
    extended metaphor, unlike allegory, which tends to have 1 to 1 correspondences, a coneity typicall takes one subject and explore the metaphoric possibilities in the qualities associated with that subject
  14. connotation
    what a word suggests beyond its basic dictionary definition; a word's overtones of meaning
  15. consonance
    • the repetition at close intervals of hte final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words
    • Ex. First and Last or Odds and Ends
  16. Denotation
    the basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word
Author
horselover401131
ID
7741
Card Set
Literary Terms 1
Description
Definitions of Literary Terms
Updated