Summer Vocab Flashcards
(42 cards)
Hyperbole
An over exaggeration or overemphasis of a situation.
Exposition
A avenue to introduce background information about characters, settings, events, etc. An exposition may be presented by use of monologue, dialogues, in-universe media (newspapers, journal, letters, etc.), a protagonist’s thoughts or narrator’s explanation of past events. One mode of rhetorical communication, the other three being argumentation, and description.
Dramatic License
When an author alters, makes up a story to make the story they’re telling more interesting.
Dynamic Character
A Character who evolves/devolves from the beginning of text to the end due to conflicts that the character encountered on his/her journey.
Characterization
The way an author describes, establishes the personality of characters in text
Meter
A stressed an in stressed syllabic pattern in a verse or poem. Contains a sequence of several feet, where each foot has a number of syllables such as stressed/unstressed, gives an overall rhythmic patterns in a line of verse, which a foot cannot describe.
o If music be the food of love, play on;
o Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
o The appetite may sicken, and so die.
o That strain again! it had a dying fall:
Denouement
The resolution of an issue of a plot in fiction.
Implied Metaphor
A comparison between two or more things that is implicit, or hinted at
o What are you doing in this neck of the woods?
o She barked commands at her child. (Comparing her to a dog).
o John tucked his tail and ran. (Comparing John to a scared dog).
o It’s rainin’ men (hallelujah)- Best metaphor of all time
Situational
When the opposite of what’s expected happens.
Anti-hero
A prominent character in a play or book that has characteristics opposite to that of a conventional hero.
Alliteration
repetition of an initial consonant sound, used to create emphasis or establish a rhythm in the text
Scansion
to divide the poetry or a poetic form into feet by pointing out different syllables based on their lengths.
o The metrical pattern of this stanza is trochaic octameter in which eight stressed syllables are followed by eight unstressed syllables. Each line uses eight pairs of syllables. Total there are sixteen syllables. The rhyme scheme of this stanza is ABCBB
Rhetoric
A technique of using language effectively and persuasively in spoken or written form.
Apostrophe
Breaking off discourse to address some absent person or thing, some abstract quality, an inanimate object, or nonexistent character.
Mixed Metaphor
A succession of incongruous or ludicrous comparisons.
o Wake up and smell the coffee on the wall
o “Green behind the ears”-Obama
o We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it
o Robbing Peter to pay piper
o Read the writing on the wall
o He’s a loose cannon who always goes off the deep end
Tone
An attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience. Tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words or the viewpoint of a writer on a particular subject.
Foil
A character whose qualities contrast other character’s qualities, the objective being to highlight the traits of the other character.
o Ex: Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Lightning McQueen and Matter
Archetype
A typical character, an action or a situation that seems to represent such universal patterns of human nature.
Ex: An archetype, also known as universal symbol, may be a character, a theme, a symbol or even a setting. Many literary critics believe archetypes, which have a common and recurring representation in a particular human culture or entire human race, shape the structure and function of a literary work.
Authorial Intrusion
When the author steps away from his/her text and speaks directly to the reader.
o Ex: China Anne McClain did this in one episode of A.N.T. farm with Olive. (Don’t judge me for this example)
Synecdoche
A literary device in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part.
Allusion
A brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance
Dramatic Irony
When the audience knows something in the story that the characters don’t
Motif
An idea or object that repeats itself throughout a literary piece.
In a literary work, a motif can be seen as an image, sound, action or other figures that have a symbolic significance and contributes toward the development of theme. Motif and theme are linked in a literary work but there is a difference between them. In a literary piece, a motif is a recurrent image, idea or a symbol that develops or explains a theme while a theme is a central idea or message. are images, ideas, sounds or words that help to explain the central idea of a literary work i.e. theme.
Juxtaposition
Two or more ideas, places, characters, etc., that contrasts each other.
