Literary Terms


Starts with 'C' :

Cacophony, Caesura, Canon, Canto, Caricature, Caroline, Carpe diem, Catalog, Catastrophe, Catharsis, Cavelier Poets and Poetry, Censorship, Character, Characterization, Chiasmus, Chivalric Romance, Chivalry, Choral Character, Chorus, Chronicle Play, Chronological Primitivism, Cinquain, Classic, Classicism, Cliche, Climax, Closed Couplet, Coherence, Colloquialism, Comedy, Comic Relief, Comparative Literature, Complication, Computational Stylistics, Conceit, Concrete Poetry, Confessional Literature, Confidant/Confidante, Conflict, Connotation, Consonance, Context, Convention, Counterplot, Couplet, Courtly love, Crisis, Criticism, Cubist Poetry, Cultural Primitivism

Starts with 'D' :

Dactyl, Dada, Dead Metaphor, Decadence, Deconstruction, Deconstructive Criticism, Decorum, Denotation, Denouement, Description, Detective Story, Determinism, Dues ex Machina, Dialect, Dialogue, Diction, Didactic Literature, Digression, Dimeter, Direct Satire, Dirge, Discourse, Discovery, Distance, Documentary Fiction, Doggerel, Domestic Tragedy, Double Rhyme, Drama, Dramatic Irony, Dramatic Monologue, Dramatism, Dramatic Personae, Dramaturgy, Dynamic Character, Dystopia

Starts with 'E' :

Eclogue, Edwardian, Effect, Elegaic Stanza, Elegy, Elizabethan, Emphasis, Encomium, End Rhyme, End-Stopped Lines, English Sonnet, Enjambment, Envoy, Epic, Epic Simile, Epic theater, Epigram, Epigraph, Epilogue, Epiphany, Episode, Epistolary Novel, Epithet, Equivoque, Essay, Eulogy, Euphony, Euphuism, Exact Rhyme, Exaggeration, Exegesis, Exemplum, Existential Criticism, Existentialism, Explication de Texte, Exposition, Expressionism, Expressive Criticism, Extended Metaphor, External Conflict, Eye Rhyme.

Starts with 'F' :

Fable, Fabliau, Falling Action, Falling Meter, Familiar essay, Fancy, Fantasy, Farce, Feminine Rhyme, Feminist Criticism, Fiction, Figurative Language, Figure of Speech, First-person point of view, Flashback, Flat Character, Fly on the wall technique, Foil, Folk Ballad, Folk Epic, Folklore, Foot, Foregrounding, Foreshadowing, Form, Formal Criticism, Formal Essay, Formalism, Formal Satire, Free Verse, Freytag Pyramid.

Starts with 'G' :

Generative poetics, Genre, Georgian, Gestalt, Gloss, Gothic, Gothic Novel, Graveyard School, Grotesque.


Starts with 'H' :

Haiku, Half Rhyme, Hamartia, Harlem Renaissance, Hedonism, Heptameter, Hermeneutics, Hero/Heroine, Heroic Couplet, Heroic quatrain, Hexameter, High Comedy, Historical Criticism, Historical Fiction, Historical Novel, History Play, Homeric Epithet, Homeric Simile, Horatian Satire, Hubris, Humanism, Humor, Theory of Humors, Hyperbole

Starts with 'I' :

Iambs, Iambic Meter, Iambic Pentameter, Identical Rhyme, Idyll, Image, Imagery, Imagination, Imagist, Imitation, Implied Author, Impressionism, Impressionistic Criticism, Incident, Inciting Moment, Incongruity, Incremental Repetition, Indirect Satire, Inference, Influence, Informal Essay, In medias res., In Memoriam Stanza, Innuendo, Intentional Fallacy, Interior Monologue, Internal Conflict, Internal Rhyme, Interpretation, Intrusive Narrator, Invective, Invention, Inversion, Invocation, Irony, Italian Sonnet.

Starts with 'J' :

Jacobean, Jeremiad, Jongleur, Journal, Judicial Criticism, Juvenalian Satire.

Starts with 'K' :

Kenning, Kuntslerroman.

Starts with 'L' :

Lai, Lake poets, Legend, Leitmotif, Leonine Rhyme, Lampoon, Libretto, Light Verse, Limerick, Limited Omniscience, Linguistics, Literal Translation, Literary Ballad, Literary Criticism, Literary Ballad, Literary Epic, Literature, Litotes, Local color, Logical Positivism, Loose Translation, Lost Generation, Low Comedy, Lyric.

Starts with 'M' :

Macaronic, Malapropism, Marxist Criticism, Masculine Rhyme, Masque, Medieval, Meiosis, Melodrama, Memoir, Menippean Satire, Metaphor, Metaphysical Conceit, Metaphysical Poetry, Meter, Metonymy, Middle age, Middle Rhyme, Mimesis, Minimalism, Minstrel, Miracle Play, Mixed Metaphor, Mock Epic, Modernism, Monody, Monologue, Mood, Moral Criticism, Morality Play, Morphology, Motif, Motivation, Mackrakers, Meses, Mystery Play, Myth, Mythic Criticism.

Starts with 'N' :

Naive Narrator, Narration, Narrative, Narrative Perspective, Narrative Poem, Narrator, Naturalism, Near Rhyme, Negative Capability, Neoclassicism, New Criticism, New Humanism, No drama, Nom de plume, Nonsense Verse, Novel, Novelette, Novella, Novel of Manner, Novel of Sensibility, Novel of the soil.

Starts with 'O' :

Objective Correlative, Objective Criticism, Objective point of view, Objective theory of Art, Objectivity, Occasional Verse, Octameter, Octave, Ode, Omniscient Point of View, One Act Play, Onomatopoeia, Oral Literature, Ottava Rima, Oxymoron

Starts with 'P' :

Panegyric, Parable, Paradox, Parallelism, Paraphrase, Parody, Pastoral, Pathetic fallacy, Pathos, Pen name, Pentameter, Peripeteia, Persona, Personal easy, Personification, Petrarchan Conceit, Petrarchan Sonnet, Phenomenology, Phonology, Picaresque, Plagiarism, Platonic Criticism, Play, Plot, Poetic Justice, Poetic Licence, Poetics, Poetry, Point of View, Popular Romance, Pornography, Portmanteau words, Positivism, Post-structuralism, Practical Criticism, Pragmatic Criticism, Primitivism, Problem Novel, Proletarian Novel, Prologue, Propaganda Literature, Prose, prose poem, Protagonist, Protest Literature, Proverb, Psychic Distance, Psychoanalytic Criticism, Psychological Novel, Pun

Starts with 'Q' :

Quantitative Verse, Quatrain,

Starts with 'R' :

Reader Response Criticism, Realism, Recognition, Refrain, Regionalism, Renaissance, Requiem, Resolution, Restoration, Restoration Comedy, Revenge Tragedy, Reversal, Rhetoric, Rhetorical Criticism, Rhyme, Rhyme Royal, Rhyme scheme, Rhythm, Rising action, Rising meter, Roman a clef, Romance, Romanticism, Romantic Novel, Round Character, Rubaiyat stanza, Run-on lines,

Starts with 'S' :

Saga, Sarcasm, Satire (Definition and Examples), Satire (Classification), Scansion, Scene, Scenic method, Science Fiction, Scop, Self-effacing Author, Semantics, Semiotics, Sensibility, Sentimentalism, Sentimental Novel, Sestet, Setting, Seven deadly sin, Shakespearian Sonnet, Short story, Simile, Situational Irony, Skeltonics, Slant Rhyme, Slice of Life, Socialist Realism, Sociological Novel, Sociology of Literature, Socratic Irony, Soliloquy, Sonnet, Sound device, Speaker, Spencerian Stanza, Spondee, Sprung Rhyme, Stage Convention, Stage Directions, Stanza, Static Character, Stereotype, Stock Character, Stock Epithet, Stream of Consciousness, Stream of Consciousness, Stress, Structuralism, Structure, Style, Stylistics, Subject, Subjectivity, Subplot, Surrealism, Suspense, Syllabic Verse, Symbol, Symbolism, Symbolistic Movement, Synecdoche, Syntax,

Starts with 'T' :

Tall tale, Tanka, Tension, Tercet, Terza rima, Tetrameter, Textual Criticism, Texture, Theme, Theoretical Criticism, Third-person point of view, Threnody, Tone, Topic Sentence, Tradition, Tragedy, Tragic Flaw, Tragic Irony, Transcendentalism, Transferred epithet, Transition, Translation, Travesty, Trilogy, Trimeter, Triple Rhyme, Triplet, Trochee, True Rhyme, Tudor, Turning Point, Type,


Starts with 'U' :

Understatement, Unities, Unity, Utopia,

Starts with 'V' :

Verbal Irony, Verisimilitude, Vernacular, Verse, Victorian, Viewpoint, Villain, Villanelle, Voice,

Starts with 'W' :

Suspension of Disbelief, Wit,


Starts with 'X' :


Starts with 'Y' :


Starts with 'Z' :

Zeitgeist, Zeugma