Literary Terms

Question 1

A story with a literal and an implied level of meaning the implied level of meaning may suggest actual persons placed events and situations or a set of ideas.

Answer 1

Allegory

Question 2

The repetition of similar consonant sounds within a group of neighboring words or lines. Often initial consonant sounds are repeated. The poetic device often increases the musical effect of the language.

Answer 2

Alliteration

Question 3

A reference within a work of literature to something outside it.

Answer 3

Allusion

Question 4

A person or force opposing the protagonist in a drama or narrative.

Answer 4

Antagonist

Question 5

A brief statement, often witty, that expresses a principle, truth, or observation about life.

Answer 5

Aphorism

Question 6

The addressing of some non-personal (or absent) object as if it were able to reply.

Answer 6

Apostrophe

Question 7

A short narrative song.

Answer 7

Ballad

Question 8

A detailed account of a person’s life and accomplishments, written by another person.

Answer 8

Biography

Question 9

Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Answer 9

Blank verse

Question 10

A break or pause introduced in the midst of a line or verse, language, or by content.

Answer 10

Caesura

Question 11

Representations of person in literature.

Answer 11

Character

Question 12

Drama that ends happily.

Answer 12

Comedy

Question 13

An imaginative and metaphorical figure of speech that uses innovative ideas to develop a far-fetched connection between two seemingly dissimilar things.

Answer 13

Conceit

Question 14

The struggle between opposing characters, forces, or emotions.

Answer 14

Conflict

Question 15

A pair of rhymed lines.

Answer 15

Couplet

Question 16

Regional variations within the same language, as spoken in different areas of a country.

Answer 16

Dialect

Question 17

One’s choice of words in writing or speaking.

Answer 17

Diction

Question 18

A story consisting of action and dialogue designed for stage performance.

Answer 18

Drama

Question 19

A poem consisting of a speech by a character (who is not the author) addressing an audience at a critical moment in his life.

Answer 19

Dramatic monologue

Question 20

A mournfully contemplative poem that mourns the death of someone, or the loss of something.

Answer 20

Elegiac poetry

Question 21

Originally any poem of solemn mediation. Now it is a formal poem lamenting the death of a particular person or meditating on the subject of death itself.

Answer 21

Elegy

Question 22

A line of verse that runs into the next line or lines without pause.

Answer 22

Enjambment

Question 23

A long, stylized narrative poem celebrating the deeds of a national or ethnic hero.

Answer 23

Epic

Question 24

A metaphor that extends throughout a stanza or an entire poem.

Answer 24

Extended metaphor

Question 25

A literary form typically set in non-existent realms and often featuring supernatural beings.

Answer 25

Fantasy

Question 26

A technique in which words and phrases that have literary meanings are enhanced and given freshness of expression by means of figures of speech.

Answer 26

Figurative language

Question 27

A ballad that is anonymously composed and passed down orally through the generations before it is committed to print.

Answer 27

Folk ballad

Question 28

A story originating in oral tradition.

Answer 28

Folktale

Question 29

A literary device that supplies clues that hint at later plot developments.

Answer 29

Foreshadowing

Question 30

A story within a story.

Answer 30

Frame story

Question 31

A figure of thought that contrasts appearance and reality.

Answer 31

Irony

Question 32

A metaphorical phrase or compound word that is used to indirectly name a person, place, or thing.

Answer 32

Kenning

Question 33

A ballad that is written by known poets for literary effect.

Answer 33

Literary ballad

Question 34

Short, melodious poems that focus on expressing emotions.

Answer 34

Lyrical poetry

Question 35

Especially striking and complex.

Answer 35

Metaphysical conceit

Question 36

The regular recurrence of accented syllables in a line of poetry.

Answer 36

Meter

Question 37

Broadly, the expression of one thing in terms of another.

Answer 37

Metaphor

Question 38

A poem in which the author tells a story.

Answer 38

Narrative poetry

Question 39

A long highly stylized lyric poem written in a complex stanza on a serious theme and often for a specific occasion.

Answer 39

Ode

Question 40

The giving of personal characteristics to something that is not a person.

Answer 40

Personification

Question 41

An outcome in a literary work (not necessarily a poem) in which good is rewarded and evil is punished, especially in ways that particularly fit the virtue or the crime.

Answer 41

Poetic justice

Question 42

The main character in fiction, drama, or narrative poetry.

Answer 42

Protagonist

Question 43

A four-line stanza, one of the most common stanza forms.

Answer 43

Quatrains

Question 44

The attempt in fiction to create an illusion of actuality by the use of seemingly random detail or by the inclusion of the ordinarily or unpleasant in life.

Answer 44

Realism

Question 45

A phrase or sentence repeated at intervals throughout a poem, often at the end of a stanza.

Answer 45

Refrain

Question 46

Identical sound in corresponding words or phrases.

Answer 46

Rhyme

Question 47

A more or less regular recurrence of stressed syllables in written or spoken utterance.

Answer 47

Rhythm

Question 48

A reaction against the cultural climate and values of neoclassicism. It insisted on the greater importance of 1) individualism 2) imagination 3) nature 4) the distant.

Answer 48

Romanticism

Question 49

Corrective ridicule in literature, or a work that is designed to correct an evil by means of ridicule. Not to be confused with verbal irony or sarcasm, purpose is to upbraid and to warn.

Answer 49

Satire

Question 50

An Old English poet or bard.

Answer 50

Scop

Question 51

A stated comparison of two things using a linking word or phrase.

Answer 51

Simile

Question 52

A lyric poem of fourteen iambic-pentameter lines conventionally rhyming according to one of two patterns.

Answer 52

Sonnet

Question 53

A narrative method designed to reproduce the mental process of a character, mingling conscious with half-conscious thoughts and sensations, past with present experience, and rational and irrational associations, in an unbroken flaw.

Answer 53

Stream of consciousness

Question 54

The use of one object as a symbol to represent or suggest another.

Answer 54

Symbolism

Question 55

The way in which grammatical structure is employed to combine words, phrases, and clauses into sentences.

Answer 55

Syntax

Question 56

A recurring or emerging idea in a work of literature.

Answer 56

Theme

Question 57

The attitude of a work towards its subject.

Answer 57

Tone

Question 58

A drama that ends unhappily.

Answer 58

Tragedy