Literary Terms

Simone, Bre, and Zac C

 Plot!!!
the main events of a play, novel, movie, or
similar work, devised and presented by the
writer as an interrelated sequence

Example: "The king died and then the queen died

of grief
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 Setting!!!
the place time at which a play novel, or film
is represented as happening

Example: The place where

a movie or play is held.

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 Point of View!
the narrator’s position in relation to the
story being told.

Example: Looking at your view of the story

 Characterization!
makes plots through actions of the character
or words

Example: Cold, Mysterious, Hungry

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 Theme
the subject of a talk, a piece of writing, a
person’s thoughts, or an exhibition; a topic

Example: For example, the great novel, Little

Women, is about four sisters, but that is the
subject of the book. One of the themes is the
struggles of young girls maturing into women.
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 Alliteration
the occurrence of the same letter or sound
at the beginning of adjacent or closely
connected words

Example: “While I nodded, nearly napping,

suddenly there came a tapping…” The
Raven, Edgar Allan Poe
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 Allusion
an expression designed to call something to
mind without mentioning it explicitly; an
indirect or passing reference

Example:
 Analogy
the comparison between two things,
typically on the basis of their structure and
for the purpose of explanation or
clarification

Example: Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert

Frost.Nature's first green is gold,Her hardest hue
to hold.Her early leaf's a flower;But only so an
hour.
 Antagonist
a person who actively opposes or is hostile
to someone or something; an adversary

Example: a person who is just

Mean to people and trys to hurt

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Them.
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 Aside
used to indicate that one is dismissing
something from consideration, or that one is
shifting from one topic or tone of discussion
to another

Example: He changed his tone from

The discussion they were having

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 Blank Verse
a verse that doesn’t rhyme

As Milton explained in his 1667 preface to Paradise

Lost:The Measure is English Heroic Verse without
Rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in
Latin; Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true
Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in larger Works
especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age,
to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter.
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 Climax
the most intense, exciting, or important
point of something

Example: The climax of John Updike's "A&P," for

example, occurs when Sammy quits his job as a
cashier.
 Comic Relief
Comic episodes in a dramatic or literary work that
offset more serious sections

Example: Something from a movie that was funny

but the movie was meant to be a drama
 Conflict
a serious disagreement or argument,
typically a protracted one

Example: A boy and his friend

Have a argument about money.

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 Couplet
-two lines of verse, usually in the same
meter and joined by rhyme, that for a unit

Example: Let me not to the marriage of true

minds by: William Shakespeare...Love alters
not with his brief hours and weeks, But
bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this
be error and upon me proved, I never write,
nor no man ever loved
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 Diction
the choice and use of words and phrases in
speech or writing

Example: We can speak of the diction particular

to a character, as in Iago's and Desdemona's very
different ways of speaking in Othello.
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 Dramatic Irony
a literary technique, originally used in Greek
tragedy, by which the full significance of a
character’s words or actions are clear to the
audience or reader although unknown to the
character

In Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter," when Hester

is in the governor's garden to see to it that Pearl is
not taken away from her, she asks the Reverend
Dimmesdale to support her position.
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 Dramatic Structure
the structure of dramatic work such as a
play or film

Example: The castle snow white was trapped in

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 Epithet
the structure of dramatic work such as a
play or film

Example: The woman tried to save her husband

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from a moving train!

 Figurative Language
speech or writing that departs from literal
meaning in order to achieve a special effect
or meaning, speech or writing employing
figure of speech

Example: Its Raining cats and dogs!

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 Foreshadowing
to show or indicate before hand; prefigure

"The clouds became dark gray and thunder roared

loudly." This hints at a storm arising.
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 Foil
a character that acts the opposite of another

Example: Laertes, in Hamlet, is a foil for the main

character; in Othello, Emilia and Bianca are foils
for Desdemona.
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 Imagery
visually descriptive or figurative language

Example: Imagery of light and darkness pervade

James Joyce's stories "Araby," "The Boarding
House," and "The Dead." So, too, does religious
imagery.

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 Irony
the expression of one’s meaning by using
language that normally signifies the
opposite, typically for humorous or
emphatic effect

Example: a character speaks in ignorance of a

situation or event known to the audience or to the
other characters. Flannery O'Connor's short
stories employ all these forms of irony, as does
Poe's "Cask of Amontillado."
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 Meter
the rhythm of a piece of poetry, determined
by the number and length of feet in a line

There are multiple meter patterns but the four

most prevalent are:iambic: u / trochaic: / u
dactylic: / u u anapestic: u u /
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 Metaphor
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase
is applied to an object or action to which it
is not literally applicable

From expressions like "it's raining cats and dogs"

to "table leg" and "old flame," everyday speech is
full of them
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 Monologue
a long speech by one actor in a play or
movie, or as part of a theatrical or broadcast
program
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 Oxymoron
a figure of speech in which apparently
contradictory terms appear in conjunction

I like a smuggler. He is the only honest thief

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 Personification
the attribution of a personal nature or
human characteristics to something
nonhuman, or the representation of an
abstract quality in human form

"Drowsed with the fume of poppies"Protagonist-

For instance, in Othello,we could say that Iago is
the protagonist because he was at the center of
all of the play's controversy
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 Protagonist
a leading character or one of the major
characters in a drama, movie, novel, or
other fictional text
 Pun
a joke exploiting the different possible
meanings of a word or the fact that there
are words that sound alike but have
different meanings

There is a famous pun uttered by Mercutio as he is

dying in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet:“Ask for
me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave
man.”Act III, scene i
 Rhyme Scheme
the ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of
the lines of a poem or verse

Here is an example of this rhyme scheme from

To Anthea, Who May Command Him Any Thing by Robe
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 Simile
a figure of speech involving the comparison
of one thing with another thing of a
different kind, used to make a description
more emphatic or vivid

Example of Simile Literary TermA Red, Red

RosebyRobert BurnsO my Luve's like a red, red
roseThat's newly sprung in June;O my Luve's like
the melodieThat's sweetly played in tune
 Situational Irony
describes a discrepancy between the
expected result and actual results when
enlivened by perverse appropriateness

An example of situational irony is a scene in a

movie where a man is about to shoot someone,
however, when the noise of the gun being fired
occurs, instead of the bullet hitting the victim, the
shooter himself is shot by someone else
 Soliloquy
an act of speaking one’s thoughts aloud
when by oneself or regardless of any
hearers, by a character in a play

Example: soliloquy-Hamlet's "to be or not to be"

speech is the classic
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 Sonnet
a poem of fourteen lines using any of a
number of formal rhyme schemes, in English
typically having ten syllables per line

Example:O thou, my lovely boy, who in thy

powerDost hold Time's fickle glass his fickle
hour;Who hast by waning grown, and therein
show'stThy lovers withering, as thy sweet self
grow'st.

Sonnet 126 William Shakespeare

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 Symbol
a mark or character used as a conventional
representation of an object, function, or
process

Example: The character of the madwoman in the

attic in the novel "Jane Eyre" is identified in Jean
Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea" as a symbol for
women's hidden rage.
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 Tragedy
a play dealing with tragic events and having
an unhappy ending, one concerning the
downfall of the main character

Example: Romeo and Juliet experienced a

tragedy when they couldn’t be together.
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 Verbal Irony
speakers communicate implies propositions
that are intentionally contradictory to the
propositions contained in the words
themselves

Example: The two families in Romeo and

Juliet are very sarcastic towards each other.
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