Literary Terms Flashcards
(31 cards)
Genre
Category of literature (drama, poetry, nonfiction, fiction)
Prose
Anything that is not poetry or drama.
Diction
A writer’s or speaker’s choice of words.
Setting
The time, place, and general environment of a story.
Autobiography
An account of the writer’s own life.
Biography
An account of a person’s life, written or told by another person.
Essay
Short piece of nonfiction that examines a single subject from a limited point of view.
Imagery
Language that appeals to the senses.
Tone
Attitude a writer takes toward a subject, character, or the audience. (author’s audience)
Voice
Writer’s/speaker’s distinctive use of language in a text.
Symbol
Person, place, thing, or event that stands for itself and something beyond itself.
Characterization
Process of revealing the personality of the character.
Parallelism
Repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have the same grammatical structure.
Nonfiction
Prose writing that deals with real people, things, events, and places.
Theme
Central idea of a work of literature.
Connotations
All the meanings, associations, or emotions that have come to be attached to some words in addition to their literal dictionary definitions, or denotations.
Denotation
The same literal definition.
Thesis
A position for consideration.
Inference
A judgement or conclusion based on evidence.
Juxtapose
Putting two things together to compare and contrast.
Understatement
A form of sarcasm (saying one thing that means another).
Irony
Contrast between expectation and reality.
Dramatic Irony
The audience knows something that the reader doesn’t.
Situation Irony
Something that you would think would happen.
