Literary Terms

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

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

Question 2

Denouement

Answer 2

The conclusion or resolution of a story

Question 3

Mood

Answer 3

The atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work, partly by description of objects or by the style of the descriptions

Question 4

Conflict

Answer 4

Struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story

Question 5

Slang

Answer 5

Language used by a particular group of people among themselves to add color and feeling

Question 6

Atmosphere

Answer 6

The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene (setting and diction)

Question 7

Setting

Answer 7

The place and time in which events of a narrative take

Question 8

Personification

Answer 8

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

Question 9

Oxymoron

Answer 9

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

Question 10

Protagonist

Answer 10

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

Question 11

Register

Answer 11

A subset of language used for a particular purpose or in a particular social setting. You use formal register when speaking about or analyzing literature and an informal or colloquial register when visiting with friends

Question 12

Understatement

Answer 12

A statement that says less than what is meant

Question 13

Allusion

Answer 13

A brief and sometimes indirect reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or some other branch of culture.

Question 14

Climax

Answer 14

The point in the plot that creates the greatest intensity, suspense, or interest; usually the point at which the conflict is resolved

Question 15

Diction

Answer 15

The authors choice of words

Question 16

Connotation

Answer 16

The associations or emotional overtones that have become attached to a word

Question 17

Epigraph

Answer 17

A brief quotation at the beginning of a literary work

Question 18

Onomatopoeia

Answer 18

The use of sounds which echo their sense

Question 19

Prose

Answer 19

Ordinary form of spoken or written language; language not arranged into verse

Question 20

Hyperbole

Answer 20

A figure of speech that uses incredible exaggeration or overstatement for effect

Question 21

Theme

Answer 21

The insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work; it gives a work unity. It provides an answer to the question “What is the work about?”

Question 22

Alliteration

Answer 22

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

Question 23

Foreshadowing

Answer 23

The use of hints or clues to suggest what will later happen in the plot

Question 24

In media’s res

Answer 24

into the middle of a narrative; without preamble.

Question 25

Enjambment

Answer 25

In poetry, enjambment is incomplete syntax at the end of a line; the meaning ‘runs over’ or ‘steps over’ from one poetic line to the next, without punctuation.

Question 26

Parallel Structure

Answer 26

using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance.