| setting: |
environment or surroundings in which a story
takes place. |
| character: |
person in a literary work. |
| plot: |
chronological arrangement of incidents; characters
performing actions
in incidents that comprise a "single, whole, and complete" action. |
| conflict: |
struggle that grows out of the interplay of the two
opposing forces
of the plot, i.e. individual vs. individual, individual vs. nature,
individual
vs. society, and individual vs. self. |
| theme: |
central, dominating idea in a literary work. |
| irony: |
recognition of reality different from appearance. |
| imagery: |
use of descriptions that appeal to the senses, whether
visual, auditory,
tactile, aural or taste. |
| figurative
language: |
intentional departure from normal word meaning in order to
gain
strength and freshness of expression or to describe similarities in
otherwise
dissimilar things. |
| simile: |
direct or explicit comparison between two usually
unrelated
things, using connecting words: like, as, or than. |
| metaphor: |
implied comparison between two usually unrelated
things,
without use of connecting words:
"Life is a bowl full of cherries." |
| personification: |
giving of human characteristics to inanimate
(nonliving)
objects, ideas, or animals:
"The wind cried 'Mary.'" |
| symbol: |
something that is itself and yet stands for or suggests or
means
something else. |
| point of view: |
position from which something is considered or
evaluated.
perspective from which a story or poem is presented:
|
1st person: "I did this." |
|
3rd person objective: "They did this." |
|
3rd person ominisicient: "They thought this." |
|
| tone: |
accent or inflection expressive of a mood or emotion.
style or manner of expression in speaking or writing. |
| rhythm: |
an ordered recurrent alternation of strong and weak
elements in
the flow of sound and silence in speech . |
| rhyme: |
correspondence in terminal sounds of units of composition
or utterance
(as two or more words or lines of verse) |
| alliteration: |
the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds in two
or more
neighboring words or syllables (as wild and woolly, threatening
throngs) |
| assonance: |
repetition of vowels without repetition of consonants (as
in stony
and holy) used as an alternative to rhyme in verse. |
| paradox |
a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to
common
sense and yet is perhaps true. "You've got to be cruel to be kind." |
| oxymoron |
a combination of contradictory or incongruous words (as
"cruel kindness"). |
| climax |
the point of highest dramatic tension or a major turning
point in
the action (as of a play). |
| denouement |
the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a
literary
work. |
| synecdoche |
a form of metaphor in which the part stands for the whole,
the whole
for a part, the genus for the species, the species for the genus, the
material
for the thing made, or in short, any portion, section, or main quality
for the whole thing itself (or vice versa). |
| hyperbole |
exaggeration used for emphasis. Hyperbole can be used to
heighten
effect, to catalyze recognition, or to create a humorous perception. |
| meter |
the rhythmic pattern that emerges when words are arranged
in such
a way that their stressed and unstressed syllables fall into a more or
less regular sequence; established by the regular or almost regular
recurrence
of similar accent patterns (called feet). |
