lit terms

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other
people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together.

Question 3

Allusion

Answer 3

reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature,
religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture.

Question 4

Ambiguity

Answer 4

deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting,
meanings in a work.

Question 5

Analogy

Answer 5

Comparison made between two things to show how they are alike

Question 6

Anaphora

Answer 6

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more
sentences in a row.

Question 7

Anastrophe

Answer 7

Inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a
sentence.

Question 8

Anecdote

Answer 8

Brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something,
often shows character of an individual

Question 9

Antagonist

Answer 9

Opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a
story.

Question 10

Antimetabole

Answer 10

Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by
means of grammatical structure.

Question 11

Antithesis

Answer 11

Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by
means of grammatical structure.

Question 12

Antihero

Answer 12

Central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with
heroes. may lack courage, grace, intelligence, or moral scruples.

Question 13

Anthropomorphism

Answer 13

attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate
object

Question 14

Aphorism

Answer 14

brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life,
or of a principle or accepted general truth

Question 15

Apostrophe

Answer 15

calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or
thing, or a personified abstract idea.

Question 16

Apposition

Answer 16

Placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate
elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first

Question 17

Assonance

Answer 17

the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant
sounds especially in words that are together.

Question 18

Asyndeton

Answer 18

Commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus
emphasizing the parts equally

Question 19

Balance

Answer 19

Constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and
importance.

Question 20

Characterization

Answer 20

the process by which the writer reveals the personality of a
character.

Question 21

Chiasmus

Answer 21

is a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because
of overuse.

Question 22

Cliche

Answer 22

is a word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because
of overuse.

Question 23

Colloquialism

Answer 23

a word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal
writing but is inappropriate for formal situations.

Question 24

Comedy

Answer 24

in general, a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by
the main character or characters.

Question 25

Conceit

Answer 25

an elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. Often an extended metaphor.

Question 26

Confessional Poetry

Answer 26

a twentieth century term used to describe poetry that uses intimate material from the poet's life.

Question 27

Conflict

Answer 27

the struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story.

Question 28

Connotation

Answer 28

the associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.

Question 29

Couplet

Answer 29

two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

Question 30

Dialect

Answer 30

a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area.

Question 31

Diction

Answer 31

a speaker or writer's choice of words.

Question 32

Didactic

Answer 32

form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.

Question 33

Elegy

Answer 33

a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died.

Question 34

Epanalepsis

Answer 34

device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated both at the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence.

Question 35

Epic

Answer 35

a long narrative poem, written in heightened language , which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society.

Question 36

Epigraph

Answer 36

a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme.

Question 37

Epistrophe

Answer 37

Device of repetition in which the same expression phrase is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences

Question 38

Epithet

Answer 38

an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality.

Question 39

Essay

Answer 39

a short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject.

Question 40

Explication

Answer 40

act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.

Question 41

Fable

Answer 41

a very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life.

Question 42

Farce

Answer 42

a type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched situations.

Question 43

figurative language

Answer 43

Words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe.

Question 44

flashback

Answer 44

a scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time.

Question 45

foil

Answer 45

A character who acts as contrast to another character. Often a funny side kick to the dashing hero, or a villain contrasting the hero.

Question 46

foreshadowing

Answer 46

the use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot.

Question 47

free verse

Answer 47

poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

Question 48

hperbole

Answer 48

a figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement, for effect.

Question 49

hypotactic

Answer 49

sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them.

Question 50

imagery

Answer 50

the use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person , a thing, a place, or an experience.

Question 51

inversion

Answer 51

the reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.

Question 52

irony

Answer 52

a discrepancy between appearances and reality.

Question 53

juxtaposition

Answer 53

poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit.

Question 54

litotes

Answer 54

a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form:

Question 55

local color

Answer 55

a term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect and landscape.

Question 56

loose sentence

Answer 56

one in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units.

Question 57

Lyric Poem

Answer 57

a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker.

Question 58

metaphor

Answer 58

a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison as like, as, than, or resembles.

Question 59

metonymy

Answer 59

a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it.

Question 60

mood

Answer 60

An atmosphere created by a writer's diction and the details selected.

Question 61

motif

Answer 61

a recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works by one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme

Question 62

Motivation

Answer 62

the use of words whose sounds echo their sense

Question 63

Onomatopoeia

Answer 63

the use of words whose sounds echo their sense.

Question 64

oxymoron

Answer 64

a figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase.

Question 65

parable

Answer 65

a relatively short story that teaches a moral, or lesson about how to lead a good life.

Question 66

paradox

Answer 66

a statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth.

Question 67

parallel structure

Answer 67

the repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures.

Question 68

paratactic sentence

Answer 68

a work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer's style.

Question 69

parody

Answer 69

a work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer's style.

Question 70

Periodic

Answer 70

sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements.

Question 71

Personification

Answer 71

a figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes.

Question 72

Plot

Answer 72

the series of related events in a story or play, sometimes called the storyline.

Question 73

Point Of View

Answer 73

the vantage point from which the writer tells the story.

Question 74

polysyndeton

Answer 74

sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to separate the items in a series.

Question 75

protagonist

Answer 75

the central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action.

Question 76

pun

Answer 76

a "play on words" based on the multiple meanings of a single word or on words that sound alike but mean different things.

Question 77

quatrain

Answer 77

a poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit.

Question 78

refrain

Answer 78

a word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem.

Question 79

rhythm

Answer 79

a rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language.

Question 80

rhetoric

Answer 80

Art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse.

Question 81

rhetorical question

Answer 81

a question asked for an effect, and not actually requiring an answer.

Question 82

romance

Answer 82

in general, a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful.

Question 83

satire

Answer 83

a type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change.

Question 84

simile

Answer 84

a figure of speech that makes an explicitly comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as , than, or resembles.

Question 85

soliloquy

Answer 85

a long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage.

Question 86

stereotype

Answer 86

a fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices

Question 87

stream of consciousness

Answer 87

a style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character's mind.

Question 88

style

Answer 88

the distinctive way in which a writer uses language: a writer's distinctive use of diction, tone, and syntax.

Question 89

suspense

Answer 89

a feeling of uncertainty and curiosity about what will happen next in a story.

Question 90

symbol

Answer 90

a person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself.

Question 91

syntactic fluency

Answer 91

Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved. Often difficult for a reader to follow.

Question 92

synecdoche

Answer 92

a figure of speech in which a part represents the whole. "If you don't drive properly, you will lose your wheels." The wheels represent the entire car.

Question 93

syntactic permutation

Answer 93

Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved. Often difficult for a reader to follow.

Question 94

tall tale

Answer 94

an outrageously exaggerated, humorous story that is obviously unbelievable.

Question 95

telegraphic sentence

Answer 95

a sentence shorter than five words in length.`

Question 96

theme

Answer 96

the insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work.

Question 97

tone

Answer 97

the attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization.

Question 98

tragedy

Answer 98

in general, a story in which a heroic character either dies or comes to some other unhappy end.

Question 99

tricolon

Answer 99

Sentence of three parts of equal importance and length, usually three independent clauses.

Question 100

understatement

Answer 100

a statement that says less than what is meant.

Question 101

unity

Answer 101

Unified parts of the writing are related to one central idea or organizing principle. Unity is dependent upon coherence.

Question 102

vernacular

Answer 102

the language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality.