Lit Terms Part 1 Flashcards
(25 cards)
Absolute
A word free from limitations or qualifications.
Ex. Best, all, perfect, unique
Adage
A familiar proverb or wise saying.
Ex. Look before you leap
Ad Hominem
An argument attacking an individual’s character rather than their position on an issue; a personal attack.
Allegory
A literary work in which characters represent ideas.
Alliteration
Repetition of initial sounds in successive or neighboring words.
Allusion
A reference to something literary, mythological, or historical that the author assumes the reader will recognize.
Analogy
A comparison of two different things that are similar in some way.
Anaphora
A repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of consecutive lines or sentences.
Anachronism
Something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time.
Anecdote
A brief narrative that focuses on a particular incident or event.
Antecedent
A word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers.
Antithesis
A statement in which two opposing ideas are balanced.
Ex. “Give me liberty or give me death”
Apostrophe
Figure of speech in which one directly addresses an absent or imaginary person, or an abstraction.
Ex. “O death, where is thy sting?”
Archetype
A detail, image, or character type that occurs frequently in literature and myth and is thought to appeal in a universal way to the unconscious and to evoke a response.
Argument
A statement of the meaning or main point of a literary work.
Asyndeton
A construction in which elements are presented in a series without conjunctions.
Ex. “Apples, bananas, oranges.”
Bathos
A change from a serious subject to a disappointing one.
Chiasmus
A statement consisting of two parallel parts in which the second part is structurally reversed.
Ex. “Susan walked in, and out rushed Mary.”
Cliché
An expression that has been overused to the extent that its freshness has worn off.
Climax
A decisive moment that is a major turning point in a plot.
Colloquialism
Pertaining to words or expressions more suitable for speech than writing; informal, conversational style.
Conceit
A fanciful, particularly extended metaphor; an elaborate or unusual comparison.
Concrete Details
Details that relate to or describe actual, specific things or events.
Connotation/Denotation
A pair of terms referring to the distinction between the literal, dictionary definition of a word and the associations it has acquired in use.
Connotation: Associations, Denotation: Dictionary definition
