Literary Terms

alliteration  - the repetition of similar initial consonant sounds in order to create a musical or rhythmic effect, to emphasize key words or to imitate sounds. Example:  “He was reluctant to return to the room he called home.”

allusion - a reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art, often used to help make a comparison.

antagonist  - a character or force in conflict with a main character, or protagonist.

autobiography – the story of a person's life narrated by that same person.

biography - a form of non-fiction in which a writer tells the life story of another person.

character  - refers to what someone is like – what their qualities are. (Someone’s character refers to their character traits.)

character trait – the quality of a character;  what a character is like.

climax – the highest point of action in a story, often the turning point.

conclusion – the outcome of a series of events

conflict – a problem or struggle between two or more forces

denouement – see definition under plot

direct characterization – the writer directly states the character’s traits or characteristics.

drama – writing meant to be performed by actors on a stage.  This form includes dialogue and stage directions.

dynamic character – a character who changes over the course of a story

exposition – see definition under plot

external conflict – a problem or struggle between a character and an

        outside force:

            character vs. character

            character vs. group

            character vs. nature

            character vs. society

            character vs. fate

fable  - a brief story, usually with animal characters, that teaches a lesson or a moral.

falling action – see definition under plot

fiction – writing that tells about imaginary characters and events.  This form uses sentences and paragraphs.

first person point of view -  the events are told by a character in the story.

flashback - a section in a literary piece that interrupts the sequence of events in

          order to relate an earlier incident or set of events.

folk tale – a story composed orally and then passed down from person to person by word of mouth.

foreshadowing – an author’s use of hints or clues to give a reader an idea of what may happen next.

free-verse  -  poetry that has irregular lines and may or may not rhyme.

generalization – a vague or indefinite statement that is made to cover many cases. Example:  “All human beings hope for something.”

hyperbole – use of extreme exaggeration.

idiom  - a word or phrase which means something different from what it says – it is usually a metaphor.  An idiom is an expression peculiar to a certain  group of people and/or used only under certain circumstances.

John Green explains 42 idioms

imagery – words or phrases that appeal to one or more of the five senses and help to create a vivid description for the reader.

inciting incident – see definition under plot

indirect characterization – the writer allows the reader to draw his/her conclusions as to what a character is like, based on the appearances, words, actions, and interactions with other characters.

inference – a conclusion drawn by the reader based on available information.

internal conflict – a problem within a character  (character vs. self).

introduction – the location of the story where the reader first learns about the main characters, the setting, and the storyline.

irony - a situation where the opposite of what is expected to occur or exist does occur or exist.

There are 3 types of irony:

metaphor  -  a figure of speech in which something is described as if it were something else;  a comparison made without using “like” or “as”.

mood – the atmosphere or feeling an author creates within the piece of writing.

moral – a lesson taught by a literary work.

motivation – a reason that explains or partially explains a character’s thoughts, feelings, actions, or speech.

myth – a fictional tale that explains the actions of gods or heroes or the origins of elements of nature.

narrative – writing or speech that tells a story.

narrative poetry – poetry that tells a story

narrator – the speaker or character who is telling the story. (See also: Point of View)

FIRST PERSON narrator is an "I" (occasionally a "we") who speaks from her/his subject position. That narrator is usually a character in the story, who interacts with other characters; we see those interactions through the narrator's eyes, and we can't know anything the narrator doesn't know. 

SECOND PERSON narrator speaks in "you." This is an extremely rare case in American literature, although we will read a few examples.

THIRD PERSON narrator is not a figure in the story, but an "observer" who is outside the action being described. A third-person narrator might be omniscient (ie, able to tell what all the characters are thinking), but that is not always the case. Third-person narration may also be focalized through a particular character, meaning that the narrator tells us how that character sees the world, but can't, or at least doesn't, read the mind of all the characters this way.

non-fiction  - writing that tells about real people, places, objects, or events.  This form includes sentences and paragraphs.

nyms - these are more grammatical terms, but included here because they are cool: http://bookriot.com/2014/10/24/name-grammar-fun-nyms/

How often have you thought about some language phenomenon and wondered if there was a name for that? Is there a term for what someone named Mr. Read teaches English or if the definition of a single word can             mean one thing and the exact opposite thing?

Chances are there is a word for that.

Perhaps you’re familiar with synonyms and antonyms — words that mean the same thing and words that            mean the opposite things, respectively. And perhaps you’re familiar with homonyms, or words that are spelled and pronounced the same way but have different meanings (think of words like left or right).

But do you know your backronyms from your eponyms? Lets take a walk through the world of grammar for some of the fun, interesting, and neat quirks of the English language, all of which conviniently end in -nym. For those who didn't take a Classical language or who didn't get to enjoy a year of learning various root words and suffixes in school, "-nym" comes Greek and means "name."

-Antagonym or Contronym

What happens when you have two words that are spelled and pronounced the same way, but their varying definitions make them contradictory? That's called an auto antagonym or antagonym. These are also sometimes called contronyms.

Examples of antagonyms: anxious, bound, clip, hysterical, replace, scan.

If you were anxious about something, you could have been either extremely distressed about it or extremely excited about it. The same goes for hysterical.

You could be bound for a location, in the sense you’re traveling there, or bound to a location, in the sense you’re stuck there.

 It’s not hard to replace the papers on your desk and replace them into a garbage can.

-Aprotryonym

Its amusing when the local weather person's name is Ms.Freeze or there's a police officer with the last nap Kopp. In instances where a person's name lines up closely with wthat it is they do for a living, you have yourself an apotronym 

Examples of amusing apotronyms (all of which are real people): Reggie Corner, who is a cornerback for the Buffalo Bills, meteorologist Storm Field, singer Bill Medly, and Scottish politician Jum McGovern.

-Inaptronym

What happens when someone's name and what they're known for is ironic, rather than simply descriptive> That would be an inaptronym

Examples of inaptronyms (again, all real people): Lance Armstrong, who was known for his leg strength; Frank Beard, of ZZ Top, who didn't have a beard; and Edward Cocaine who was arrested for possesion of Xanax.

-Backronyms

This is a classic portmanteau, or a word made by combining two different words. We know what an acronym is — its's a word that stands in place of a series of words, like NASA or BMW — but what about when we make the letters of already-existing words stand in for an acronym? Rather than form the word from the expression the expression is formed from the word as it is. Welcome to the backronym. 

Examples of backronyms: Bing, the alternative search engine to Google has been backronymed to mean "Because It's Not Google"; Ford, the car company, has both positive and negative backronyms as "First on Race Day" and "Found On Roadside, Dead."

-Capitonyms

If a word changes meaning and pronunciation when the first letter is either capital or lowercase, you have a capitonym.

Examples of capitonyms: august/August, job/Job, muse/Muse, polish/Polish.

We could talk about Jobs's job or about how her Muse would often muse about how to polish off her Polish sausage. 

-Eponyms

An eponym is a word created after a person or an idea. This one is a little more difficult to define in words, but it's easy to understand through example since it's so common. 

Examples of eponyms: Achilles' heel, Adam's apple, Graham cracker, Barbie doll, Teddy bear, Kafkaesque.

-Heteronyms

When you have a pair (or trio) of words that are spelled the same but are pronounced differently and mean different things, that's a heteronym.

Examples of heteronyms: row/row, desert/desert, does/does, sewer/sewer, affect/affect (as if affect wasn't a challenging enough word), subject/subject. 

Depending on where the sewer is located, it could be near a sewer. But be careful because depending on what she does, she might lead you into a land of does or desert you in the desert, which would certainly affect your affect.

While this seems like a lengthy list of -nyms, it's far from complete. There are still plenty more grammatical terms for strange phenomena. It's no wonder that English is such a challenging language to learn — once you think you have the hang of something, it turns out you might not understand it at all. 

objective details – details that are factual and true to life.

onomatopoeia - is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that describes.

oxymoron – the close placement of words having opposite or near opposite meanings in order to create a unique description.

parable – a short tale that illustrates a universal truth, a belief that appeals to all people of all civilizations.

personification – a type of figurative language in which a non-human subject is given human characteristics.

plot – the sequence of events in a literary work.  The plot is the writer’s plan for what happens, when it happens, and to whom it happens.  A plot is built around a central conflict – a problem or struggle involving two or more opposing forces.  Plot complications are events or problems that arise and make it more difficult to resolve the conflict.    

Stages of plot

·    Exposition provides background for the story.  Characters are introduced,  the setting is described, and the tone is set.

 ·    Inciting Incident is the point where the action or conflict begins, sometimes

referred to as the “narrative hook”.

 ·    Rising action occurs next.  The plot “thickens” as the central conflict begins to unfold.  Complications are introduced and suspense builds.

 ·    Climax is the greatest interest or suspense in the story. At this point the main character has to deal with the conflict directly. It is often the turning point, when the action reaches a peak and the outcome of the conflict is decided.  The climax may occur because of a decision the characters reach or because of a discovery or an event that changes the situation.  The climax usually results in a change in the characters or a solution to the conflict.

·    Falling action  - the effects here are a result of the climax.

·    Resolution – the character or character's problems are solved.  (note: neither the character nor the reader may necessarily like or agree with how

the problems are resolved!

·    Denouement – this is the time when all the final mysteries and/or questions  are answered.

poetry – expressive writing that may use rhythm and rhyme to convey emotion.  Poetry uses stanzas or groups of lines.

point of view – the perspective from which a story is told.

    Types of Point of View (http://www.learner.org/interactives/literature/read/pov2.html)

Objective Point of View

With the objective point of view, the writer tells what happens without stating more than can be inferred from the story's action and dialogue. The narrator never discloses anything about what the characters think or feel, remaining a detached observer.

Third Person Point of View

Here the narrator does not participate in the action of the story as one of the characters, but        lets us know exactly how the characters feel. We learn about the characters through this            outside voice.

First Person Point of View

In the first person point of view, the narrator does participate in the action of the story. When reading stories in the first person, we need to realize that what the narrator is recounting            might not be the objective truth. We should question the trustworthiness of the accounting.

Omniscient and Limited Omniscient Points of View

A narrator who knows everything about all the characters is all knowing, or omniscient.

As you read a work of fiction, think about these things:

How does the point of view affect your responses to the characters? How is your response influenced by how much the narrator knows and how objective he or she is? First person narrators are not always trustworthy. It is up to you to determine what is the truth and what is not.

protagonist – the main character in a literary work.

pun – a humorous play on words.

repetition – the repeated use of words or phrases in order to emphasize a point.

resolution – see definition under plot.

rhyme – a close similarity in the final sounds of two or more words or lines of verse in a poem

rhyme scheme – a regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem.  (To indicate the rhyme scheme of a poem, one uses lower-case letters.  Each rhyme is assigned a different letter.  The rhyme scheme of a poem, for instance, might be ababcd.)

rhythm – a flow in music or poetry of regular accented beats

rising action – see definition under plot

second person p.o.v. - In second person point of view, the narrator tells the story to another character using "you," so that the story is being told through the addressee's point of view. Second person is the least commonly used p.o.v. in fiction.

setting – the time and location of the events described in a literary work.

simile – a comparison between two things, using “like” or “as”.

speaker – the imaginary voice assumed by the writer of a poem, the one describing the events in a poem.

stanza – a group of lines in a poem.

static character – a character who does not undergo a change over the course of a story

subject – who or what the story is about;  the topic

subjective details – details that reveal the author’s feelings, attitudes, or judgments.

symbol /symbolism – anything that stands for or represents something else.

theme – a central message, idea, or concern that expressed in a literary work.

third person point of view -  the events are told by someone outside the story. 

third person limited p.o.v. - Third person limited point of view is a method of storytelling in which the narrator knows only the thoughts and feelings of a single character, while other characters are presented externally. (Third person limited grants a writer more freedom than first- person, but less than third person omniscient.)

third person omniscient p.o.v. - A method of storytelling in which the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story, as opposed to third person limited, which adheres closely to one character's perspective.

tone – the attitude of an author toward the subject that he/she is writing about.