#46-60 Literacy Terms Flashcards
Hubris
in a hero, hubris refers to arrogant, excessive self-pride or self-confidence or a lack of some important perception or insight due to pride in one’s abilities.
Hyperbole
a figure of speech involving great exaggeration.
Iambic pentameter
a line of verse having five metrical feet (Shakespeare’s most frequent writing
pattern).
Imagery
the sensory details that provide vividness in a literary work and tend to arouse emotions or feeling in a reader which abstract language does not.
In medias res
Latin for “in the middle of things”; used to describe a plot that begins in the middle of
events and then reveals past through flashbacks.
Irony
the term used to describe a contrast between what appears to be and what really is.
Juxtaposition
placing two ideas, words, or images side by side so that their closeness creates and
original, ironic, or insightful meaning.
Litotes
a figure of speech in which a positive is stated by negating its opposite (ex. Not a bad idea).
Metaphor
a figure of speech involving an implied comparison.
Meter (rhythm)
the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Metonymy
a figure of speech in which a specific term naming an object is substituted for another
word with which it is closely associated.
Motif
a recurrent word, image, theme, object, or phrase that tends to unify a literary work or that
may be elaborated into a theme.
Narrator (persona/ point of view)
the teller of the story.
Onomatopoeia
words sued in such a way that the sound of the words imitates the sound of the thing
being spoken of.
Paradox
a statement, often metaphorical, that seems to be self-contradictory but which has valid
meaning.
