Ali Field

IB Junior English

1^st  Literary Terms List

Dictionary.com and http://bm017.k12.sd.us/Reading/glossary_of_terms.htm

Alliteration:

Two or more words in a sentence that start with the same letter or sound. Ex. Elephants enjoy eating.

 Allusion:

A passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something either directly or by implication. “Baited by the fickle fruit” is an allusion of the forbidden fruit. (Countee Cullen, Yet Do I Marvel)

Ambiguity:
An unclear, indefinite, or equivocal word, expression, meaning, etc.: a contract free of ambiguities. The ambiguities of modern poetry.

Antagonist:

Person who is opposed to, struggles against, or competes with another; opponent; adversary. Voldemort is the Antagonist in the Harry Potter Series.

Protagonist:

The leading character, hero, or heroine of a drama or other literary work. Clary Fray is the protagonist in The City of Bones.

Apostrophe: Someone talking to someone/something that cannot reply, usually dead. I told my flowers how beautiful they were today.

Assonance:

Resemblance of sounds.Also called vowel rhyme. Rhyme in which the same vowel sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of the rhyming words, as in penitent  and reticence.

Chronology:

The sequential order in which past events occur. World War 1 came before the holocaust.

Conflict:

To come into collision or disagreement; be contradictory, atvariance, or in opposition; clash: The account of one eyewitness conflicted with that of the other. My class conflicts with my going to the concert.

Connotation:
The associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of “home” is “a place of warmth, comfort, and affection.”

Anthropomorphism:
Giving human qualities to a living thing, usually an animal. Mickey Mouse is anthropomorphic because he wears clothes.

Denotation:
The literal or primary meaning of a word. A word that names or signifies something specific. “Wind” is the denotation for air in natural motion. 

Dialect: 

A variety of a language that is distinguished fromother varieties of the same language by features of phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, and by its use by agroup of speakers who are set off from others geographically or socially. Janie speaks with a black-southern accent, using words such as ‘somebody’ll.’

Diction:

Style of speaking or writing as dependent upon choice of words. Using ecstatic instead of happy would be a more exciting diction.

Epiphany:
Asudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality oressential meaning of something, usually initiated by somesimple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience. I’ve had musical epiphanies on the dance floor.

Euphemism:

The substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression forone thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt. “To pass away” is a euphemism for “to die.”

Foil:

A person or thing that contrasts with and so emphasizes and enhances the qualities of another. Ex The earthy taste of grilled vegetables is a perfect foil for the tart bite of creamy goat cheese

Hyperbole:

Obvious and intentional exaggeration. An extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken 

literally. As in “to wait an eternity.”

Imagery:

The formation of mental images,  figures, or likenesses ofthings, or of such images  collectively. The navy blue ocean rolled of the warm beige sand of Hawaii.

Irony:

The use of words to convey a meaning that is the oppositeof its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when I said I had to work all weekend.

 (especially in contemporary writing) a manner of organizing a work so as to give full expression to contradictory or complementary impulses, attitudes,etc., especially as a means of indicating detachment from a subject, theme, or emotion. It is ironic that Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth that their secret could make them go mad and later in the story they do go mad.

Juxtaposition:

An act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrast. Countee Cullen used Juxtaposition to compare African Americans to the eternally damned Sisyphus and Tantalus.

Metaphor:

A figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in A mighty fortress is our God.

Mood:

A state or quality of feeling at a particular time: What's the boss' mood today?

A distinctive emotional quality or character: The mood of the music was almost funereal. A prevailing emotional tone or general attitude: The country's mood.

A frame of mind disposed or receptive, as to some activity orthing: I'm not in the  mood to see a movie.

Motif:

A recurring subject, theme, idea, etc., especially in aliterary, artistic, or musical work. Blood is a motif in the novel Macbeth.

Motivation:

The act or an instance of motivating, or providing with a reason to act in a certain way: I don't understand what hermotivation was for quitting her job.

Oxymoron:

A figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect.  cruel kindness and to make haste slowly are both oxymorons.

Paradox:

A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.  Act I, Scene I “when the battle's lost and won” (Line 4) from Macbeth is a paradox.

Parallel Structure:

The same grammatical structure of parts within a sentence or of sentences within a paragraph. I want to swim, I want to dance, contains parallel structure with “I want” being repeated.

Personification:

A form of metaphor in which language relating to human action, motivation, and emotion is used to refer to non-human agents or objects, or abstract concepts. The weather is smiling on us today and love is blind are examples of personification.

Point of View:

The vantage point from which a story is told. In the first person or narrative point of view, the story is told by one of the characters. In the third person or omniscient point of view, someone outside the story tells the story. Their Eyes Were Watching God has multiple points of view.

Onomatopoeia:

 The use of a word whose sound suggests its meaning (e.g. clang, buzz, twang).

Satire:

 A literary technique in which ideas, customs, behaviors, or institutions are ridiculed for the purpose of improving society. Satire may be gently witty, mildly abrasive, or bitterly critical, and it often uses exaggeration for effect. Saturday Night Live is a show of satires, or making fun of behaviors of people in society.

Plot:

The action or sequence of events in a story. Plot is usually a series of related incidents that builds and grows as the story develops. There are five basic elements in a plot line: (a) exposition; (b) rising action; (c) climax; (d) falling action; and (e) resolution or denouement. In short terms, the plot in Harry Potter is an orphaned boy who survived a curse who fights through obstacles to battle the wizard who tried to murder him as a child.

Simile:

 A comparison of two unlike things in which a word of comparison using like or as (e.g. She stood in front of the alter, shaking like a freshly caught trout.-- Maya Angelou) 

Text structure:

The organizational pattern an author uses to structure the ideas in a text (e.g. cause/effect, compare/contrast, description, problem/solution, sequential, goal/action/outcome, concept/definition, proposition/support).

Symbol:  A person, place, or object that represents something beyond itself. Symbols can concisely communicate complicated, emotionally rich ideas. Ex. The heart is a symbol of love.

Syntax:  The way in which words are put together to form constructions, such as phrases or sentences. Ex. Sparse are the fields, as opposed to, the fields are sparse.

Theme:  A central idea or abstract concept that is made concrete through representation in person, action, and image. Theme is not simply a subject or an activity, vice for instance, but a proposition, such as “Vice seems more interesting than virtue but turns out to be destructive.” Sometimes the theme is directly stated in the work, and sometimes it is given indirectly. There may be more than one theme in a given work. The theme of the Lorax can be depicted in many different ways, including, the technology of the world today leads the world into a synthetic, isolated, and undesirable future.

Tone:  An expression of a writer’s attitude toward a subject. Unlike mood, which is intended to shape the reader’s emotional response, tone reflects the feelings of the writer. Tone can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, playful, ironic, bitter, or objective. Langston Hughes is angry in the poem “White Man.”

Universality Appealing to readers and audiences of any age or any culture.  Ex. The Christmas Scrooge is an old man, but the lesson, you don’t what you have until it’s gone, helps the Scrooge realize that he has life and needs to do more or he’ll die without love, which applies to everyone.