Literary Terms

Question 0

Allusion

Answer 0

A reference to a mythological, literary, or historic person, place, or thing.
“He met his Waterloo”

Question 1

Alliteration

Answer 1

The practice of beginning several consecutive or neighboring words with the same sound.
“The twisting trout twinkled below”

Question 2

Assonance

Answer 2

The repetition of accented vowel sounds in a series of words.
The word “cry” and “sound” has the same vowel sound. Used together they would be in assonance.

Question 3

Consonance

Answer 3

The repetition of a consonant sound within a series of words to produce a harmonious effect.
“And each slow dusk a drawing down of blinds. (“D” and “s” sound)

Question 4

Hyperbole

Answer 4

A deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration.
“The shit heard ‘round the world”

Question 5

Imagery

Answer 5

Words or phrases a writer used to represent persons, objects, actions, feelings, and ideas descriptively by appealing to the senses.

Question 6

Metaphor

Answer 6

A comparison of two unlike thinks not using “like” or “as”

“Time is money”

Question 7

Mood

Answer 7

The atmosphere or predominant emotion in a literary work.

Question 8

Motivation

Answer 8

A circumstance or set of circumstances that prompts a character to act in a certain way or that determines the outcome of a situation or work.

Question 9

Onomatopoeia

Answer 9

The use of words that mimic the sounds they describe. When used on an extended scale in a poem, it is called imitative harmony.
“Hiss” “bang”.

Question 10

Oxymoron

Answer 10

A form of paradox that combines a pair of opposite terms into a single unusual expression.
“Sweet sorrow” or “cold fire”.

Question 11

Paradox

Answer 11

When the elements of a statement contradict each other. Although the statement may appear illogical, impossible, or absurd, it turns out to have a coherent meaning that reveals a hidden truth.
“Much madness is divinest sense”

Question 12

Personification

Answer 12

A kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics.
“The wind cried in the dark”.

Question 13

Pun

Answer 13

A play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have a sharply diverse meaning.
“Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find a grave man”.

Question 14

Rhyme

Answer 14

The repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem.

Question 15

Sarcasm

Answer 15

The use of verbal irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it.
“As I fell down the stairs headfirst, I heard her say, look at that coordination”.

Question 16

Shift or turn

Answer 16

The change or movement in a piece resulting from epiphany, realization, or insight gained by the character, speaker, or the reader.

Question 17

Simile

Answer 17

A comparison of two different things or ideas through the use of the words “like” or “as”
“The warrior fought like a lion”

Question 18

Symbol

Answer 18

Any object, person, place, or action that has both a meaning in itself and that stands for something larger than itself, such as a quality, attitude, belief, or value.
The dagger in Macbeth.

Question 19

Theme

Answer 19

The central message if a literary work, which can be expressed in a word or two: courage, survival, war, pride, etc.

Question 20

Tone

Answer 20

The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject, character, or audience and it is conveyed through the author’s choice of words and detail.

Question 21

Understatement

Answer 21

The opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is.
“I could probably manage to survive on a salary of two million dollars per year”.