Key Terminology Flashcards
(93 cards)
Allegory
a prose or poetic narrative in which the characters, behavior, and even the setting demonstrates multiple levels of meaning and significance. Often is a universal symbol or personified abstraction such as Death portrayed as a black-cloaked “grim reaper” with a scythe and hourglass.
Alliteration
the sequential repetition of a similar initial sound, usually applied to consonants usually heard in closely proximate stressed syllables. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Bells” talks about the clinging and clanging and tintinnubulation of the bells, bells, bells.
Allusion
a regerence to a literary or historical event, person, or place.
Anapestic
a metrical foot in poetry that consists of two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed
anaphora
the regular repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive prases or clauses
Anecdote
a brief story or tale told by a character in a piece of literature
the cantebury tales is a collection of anecdotes
antithesis
the juxtaposition of sharply contrasting ideas in a balanced or parallel words, phrases, grammatical structure, or ideas.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you
Weep, and you will weep alone
Apostrophe
an address or invocation to something that is inanimate–such as an angry lover who might scream at the ocean in his or despair.
archetype
recurrent designs, patterns of action, character types, themes, or images which are identifiable in a wide range of literature; for instance the femme fatale, that female character who is found throughout literature as the one responsible for the downfal of a significant male character
assonance
a repition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually found in stressed sylables of close proximity.
In Xanadu did Kubla Kahn
asyndeton
a style in which conjunctions are omitted, usually producing a fast-paced more rapid prose.
I came, I saw, I conquered
attitute
the sense expressed by the tone of voice and/or the mood of a piece of writing; the feelings the author holds towards his subject, the people in his narrative, the events, the setting, or even the theme
ballad
a narrative poem that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. Repetition and refrain (reaccuring phrase or phrases) characterize the ballan.
Scarborough
Ballad stanza
a common stana form, consisting of a quatrain (a stanza of four lines) that alternates four beat and three beat lines: one and three are unrhymed iambic tetrameter (four beats) and two and four are rhymed iambic trimeter (three beats) In Scarlet Town, where I was born There live a fair maid dwellin'; Made many a youth cry well-a-day, And her name was Barbara Allen
Blank verse
the verse form that most resembles common speech, blank verse consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter
When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour
Greatening and darkening as it hurried on,
She left the Heaven of Heroes and came down
To make a man to meet the mortal need
Caesura
a pause in a line of verse, indicated by natural speech patterns rather than due to specific metrical patterns.
Alas how changed! || What sudden horrors rise!
A naked lover || bound and bleeding lies!
Where, where was Eloise? || Her voice, her hand,
Her poniard, || had opposed the dire command.
Caricature
a depiction in which a character’s characteristics or fearures are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd
Chiasmus
a figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second.
“pleasures a sin, and sometimes a sin’s a pleasure”
Colloquial
ordinary language, the vernacular. For example, depending upon where in the US you live, a large sandwich might be a hero, a sub, or a hoagie
Conceit
a comparison of two unlikely things that is drawn out within a piece of literature, in particular and extended metaphor within a poem. Conceits might be the idea of tracing a love affair as a flower growing, budding, coming to fruition, and dying, for example. Hair might be spun gold, teeth like stars or pearls, etc.
Consonance
the repetitions of a sequence of two or more constonants, but with change in the intervening vowels, such as pitter patter, pish posh, clinging and clanging
couplet
two rhyming lines of iamic pentameter that together present a single idea or connection
so long as men can breath or eyes can see/so long lives this and this gives life to thee
dactylic
one metrical foot in poetry that consists of two stressed syllables followed by one unstressed sllable
everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight/Christmas in lands of the fir tree-and pines
denotation
a direct and specific meaning, often referred to as the dictionary meaning of a word
