Glossary
(Collected from various internet sources)
Acronym – A word formed from the initial letter or letters of each successive part or major parts of a compound term.
Acrostic – Arrangement of words in which certain letters spell something.
Adage – A traditional saying expressing a common experience or observation; proverb.
Adjective - A word which qualifies or modifies the meeaning of a noun. Adjectives are sometimes formed from nouns or verbs by the addition of a suffix.
Adventure Novel - A novel where exciting events are more immportant than character development and sometimes theme.
Adverb - A word which qualifies or adds to the acttion of a verb. Adverbs can also qualify adjectives. They are usually formed by adding '-ly' to an adjective. They can also sometimes be formed by the addition of '-wise' to a noun.
Allegory - A figurative work in which a surface narrrative carries a secondary, symbolic or metaphorical meaning. Many works contain allegories or are allegorical in part, but not many are entirely allegorical.
Alliteration - Repetition of the initial sounds of wordss. The repetition of the same consonant sounds at the beginning of successive words or inside words (internal alliteration).
Antonym – A word of opposite meaning.
Archetype - An image or symbol which is psychologically inherent to our imaginations. They recur in a civilization's mythology and thus are important to poetry.
Assonance - The repeating of a specific vowel sound oor group of vowel sounds throughout a poem, but not the consonants following them.
Allusion - An indirect reference to any person, placce, or thing.
Antagonist - The character, characters, circumstances or things opposing the protagonist.
Anapest (an anapestic foot) - A 3 syllable foot made of 2 unstressed syllables followed by 1 stressed syllable. This is the opposite of the spondaic foot.
Aphorism - A terse saying embodying a general truth,, or astute observation.
Apologue - A moral fable, usually featuring personified animals or inanimate objects which act like people to allow the author to comment on the human condition. Often, the apologue highlights the irrationality of mankind.
Apostrophe - Language addressed to a person, animal, oobject, or other entity that is not present. A figure of speech in which an absent character, personified force, or object is addressed directly as if it were present and could understand.
Aside - Occurs in a play when a character deliverrs a speech to another character or the audience and no one else on stage hears the speech.
Assonance - Repetition of vowel sounds. This happens when the same vowel sound is repeated over and over again.
Autobiographical Novel - A novel based on the author's life experiience. Many novelists include in their books people and events from their own lives because remembrance is easier than creation from scratch.
Ballad - A narrative poem rooted in oral traditionn. Usually arranged in groups of four lines rhyming a b c d, and containing a refrain.
Blank Verse - Unrhyymed iambic pentameter. Iambic pentameter is the most common metrical pattern in English because it resembles the rhythm of ordinary English speech.
Burlesque - A work designed to ridicule a style, liteerary form, or subject matter either by treating the exalted in a trivial way or by discussing the trivial in exalted terms (with mock dignity). Burlesque concentrates on derisive imitation, usually in exaggerated terms.
Caesura - A pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry. The pause may or may not be typographically indicated.
Canon - Applied to those works generally accepted as the great ones.
Carpe Diem - This is a Latin term meaning seize the daay. Carpe diem poetry emphasizes the shortness of life and the need to enjoy life now.
Central Idea - 1. The thesis of an essay; 2. The theme oof a literary work.
Character -The representation of a human being in narrrative fiction, poetry or drama. Round characters are major figures; they have numerous realistic traits and are relatively fully developed. Round characters are often considered dynamic since they have the capacity to change or act unpredictably. Even a one-time, out-of-character action indicates the dynamic nature of a round character. Flat characters are indistinguishable from their group or class. They are usually minor figures, though not all minor characters are flat. Since flat characters are not central to the plot, they do not need to change, mature, they are usually static.
Children's Novel - A novel written for children and discerned by one or more of these: 1. a child character or a character a child can identify with, 2. a theme or themes (often didactic) aimed at children, 3. vocabulary and sentence structure available to a young reader. The test is that the book be interesting to and at some level accessible by children.
Chronology - The cause and effect sequence of events.<
Clause - A sentence or sentence-like construction included within another sentence. A main clause might be a simple noun plus verb. A co-ordinate clause is of equal status with the main clause. A subordinate clause might be nested within a sentence using the conjunction 'that'. Relative clauses are usually introduced by a relative pronoun.
Climax - The high point in an action. The point whhere the conflict and resulting tension out to the fullest extent. The turning point of a work that determines the outcome.
Comedy - A literary work that begins in adversity and ends in prosperity and happiness.
Coming-of-age Story - A type of novel where the protagonist is initiated into adulthood through knowledge, experience, or both, often by a process of disillusionment. Understanding comes after the dropping of preconceptions, a destruction of a false sense of security, or in some way the loss of innocence. Some of the shifts that take place are these: ignorance to knowledge, innocence to experience, false view of world to correct view, idealism to realism, and immature responses to mature responses.
Complication - The beginning of major conflicts in a worrk.
Conceit - An elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, say a beloved is compared to a ship, planet, etc. The comparison may be brief or extended.
Conflict - The opposition between 2 characters, betwween groups of people, or between individuals and large forces like nature, ideas, public opinion, socially acceptable behavior and so forth. Conflict can also be internal, involving choices facing a character.
Conjunction - A word used to connect words or constructtions. Coordinating conjunctions such as 'and', and 'but' link together elements of equal importance in a sentence. Subordinating conjunctions such as 'because', 'if', 'although', connect a subordinate clause to its superordinate clause.
Connotation - The emotional, psychological, or social oovertones or implications that words carry in addition to their denotative meaning.
Consonance - Repetition of consonant sounds. The repeating of specific consonant sounds after different vowel sounds.
Couplet - 2 lines of poetry that have the same meteer, and rhyme scheme.
Crisis - The turning point; the separation betweenn what has gone before and what will come after. Usually, it is marked by a decision or action taken in an attempt to resolve the work's conflict.
Dactyl (a dactylic foot) - A 3 syllable foot which is accented on the first syllable.
Denotation - The dictionary meaning of a word; its expplicit literal meaning.
Detective Novel – A novel focusing on the solving of a crime, often by a brilliant detective, and usually employing the elements of mystery and suspense.
Dialogue A conversation between 2 or more characters in narrative fiction, poetry or drama.
Diction - Word choice, type of words, and level of language. (Formal, informal, neutral).
Dimeter - A 2 foot line of poetry.
Dramatic Monologue - A type of poem in which a speaker speaks to an internal listener (a silent character in the poem), or to the reader.
Dystopian Novel - An anti-utopian novel where, instead of aa paradise, everything has gone wrong in the attempt to create a perfect society.
Enjambed Line - A line of poetry that is run on to the foollowing line without any pause:
End-stopped Line - A line of poetry that ends with a full stop, usually with a punctuation mark. A line that has a natural pause at the end (period, comma, etc.).
Epic - An extended narrative poem recounting acttions, travels, adventures, and heroic episodes and written in a high style. It may be written in hexameter verse, especially dactylic hexameter, and it may have 12 books or 24 books. Characteristics of the classical epic include these:
The
main character or protagonist is heroically larger than life, often the source
and subject of legend or a national hero
The
deeds of the hero are presented without favoritism, revealing his failings as
well as his virtues
The
action, often in battle, reveals the more-than-human strength of the heroes as
they engage in acts of heroism and courage
The
setting covers several nations, the whole world, or even the universe
The
episodes, even though they may be fictional, provide an explanation for some of
the circumstances or events in the history of a nation or people
The
gods and lesser divinities play an active role in the outcome of actions
All
of the various adventures form an organic whole, where each event relates in
some way to the central theme
Typical in epics is a set of conventions (or epic machinery). Among them are these:
Poem begins with
a statement of the theme
Invocation to the
muse or other deity
Story begins in
medias res (in the middle of things)
Catalogs
Histories and
descriptions of significant items
Epic
simile (a long simile where the image becomes an object of art in its own right
as well as serving to clarify the subject).
Frequent use of
epithets
Use of
patronymics (calling son by father's name)
Long, formal
speeches by important characters
Journey to the
underworld
Use of the number
3
Previous episodes
in the story are later recounted
Epigram - A short poem that is often humorous or saatiric.
Epistolary Novel - A novel consisting of letters written by a character or several characters. The form allows for the use of multiple points of view toward the story and the ability to dispense with an omniscient narrator.
Euphemism - The substitution of a mild or less negatiive word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one. The basic psychology of euphemistic language is the desire to put something bad or embarrassing in a positive (or at least neutral light). Thus many terms referring to death, sex, crime, and excremental functions are euphemisms. Since the euphemism is often chosen to disguise something horrifying, it can be exploited by the satirist through the use of irony and exaggeration.
Euphuism - A highly ornate style of writing populariized by John Lyly's Euphues, characterized by balanced sentence construction, rhetorical tropes, and multiplied similes and allusions.
Explication - A complete, detailed analysis of a work oof literature.
Exposition - The laying out of information necessary tto the understanding of a work.
Existentialist Novel - A novel written from an existentialist viiewpoint, often pointing out the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence.
Falling Action - The action in a work after the climax.
Fantasy Novel - Any novel that is disengaged from realityy. Often such novels are set in nonexistent worlds. The characters are often something other than human or include nonhuman characters.
Figurative Language - Language that is used to imply or suggest a literal meaning, often by way of comparison. Sometimes called figures of speech.
Flashback - A device that allows the writer to presennt events that happened before the time of the current narration or the current events in the fiction. Flashback is useful for exposition, to fill in the reader about a character or place, or about the background to a conflict.
Flat Character - A minor character who is static and unchaanging.
Focalization - In narrative fiction, focalization answerrs the questions: Who sees? and Who speaks?
Focalizer - A term for the holder of the point of vieew, whose eyes readers see through.
Foil - A type of character who sets off or highllights aspects of the protagonist in a play.
Foot - A unit used in poetry composed of syllables in some pattern of unaccented and accented syllables. There are 5 most commonly used sets: iambic (iamb), trochaic (trochee), anapestic (anapest), dactylic (dactyl), and spondaic (spondee). The basic unit of meter consisting of a group of 2 or 3 syllables. Scanning or scansion is the process of determining the prevailing foot in a line of poetry, of determining the types and sequence of different feet. Types of feet:
U (unstressed); /
(stressed syllable)
Iamb - U /
Trochee - / U
Anapest - U U /
Dactyl - / U U
Spondee - / /
Pyrrhic - U U
Form - The term is usually used in the analysis of poetry to refer to the structure of stanzas. It can also be used less technically of the general structural principles by which a work is organized, and is distinguished from its content.
Frame - A narrative structure that provides a setting and exposition for the main narrative in a novel. Often, a narrator will describe where he found the manuscript of the novel or where he heard someone tell the story he is about to relate. The frame helps control the reader's perception of the work, and has been used in the past to help give credibility to the main section of the novel.
Free Verse - Poetry that does not use traditional meteer or rhyme. Free verse often uses cadences rather than uniform metrical feet. Verse in which the meter and line length vary, and in which there is no discernible pattern in the use of rhyme.
Genre (from Latin genus, type, kind) - Works of literature tend to conform to certain types, or kinds. All the resources of linguistic patterning, both stylistic and structural, contribute to a sense of a work's genre.
Gothic Novel - A novel in which supernatural horrors and an atmosphere of unknown terror pervades the action. Gothic elements include these:
Ancient prophecy,
especially mysterious, obscure, or hard to understand.
Mystery and
suspense
High
emotion, sentimentalism, but also pronounced anger, surprise, and especially
terror
Supernatural
events
Omens, portents,
dream visions
Fainting,
frightened, screaming women
Women threatened
by powerful, impetuous male
Setting in a
castle, especially with secret passages
The metonymy of
gloom and horror
Heptameter - A line of poetry consisting of 7 feet.
Hero or Heroine - Major character in a work; the protagonisst.
Heroic Couplet - 2 lines of rhyming iambic pentameter.
Hexameter - A line of poetry consisting of 6 feet.
Historical Novel - A novel where fictional characters take part in actual historical events and interact with real people from the past.
Homonym – Words that are spell or pronounced alike but have different meanings.
Homophones - Words which sound exactly the same but whhich have different meanings.
Horatian Satire - A gentler, more good humored and sympathetic kind of satire, somewhat tolerant of human folly even while laughing at it. Horatian satire tends to ridicule human folly in general or by type rather than attack specific persons.
Humanism - The new emphasis in the Renaissance on human culture, education and reason, sparked by a revival of interest in classical Greek and Roman literature, culture, and language. Human nature and the dignity of man were exalted and emphasis was placed on the present life as a worthy event in itself (as opposed to the medieval emphasis on the present life merely as preparation for a future life).
Hyberbole - An exaggeration of the truth.
Hypermetrical - Having an extra syllable over and above tthe expected normal length of a line of verse.
Hypertext Novel - A novel that can be read in a nonsequential way. That is, whereas most novels flow from beginning to end in a continuous, linear fashion, a hypertext novel can branch. The reader can move from one place in the text to another nonsequential place whenever he wishes to trace an idea or follow a character. Also called hyperfiction. Most are published on CD-ROM.
Iamb (an iambic foot) - A foot consisting of 2 syllables where the accent lies on the second syllable. The opposite of the trochaic foot.
Iambic Pentameter - An unrhymed line of 5 feet in which the ddominant accent usually falls on the second syllable of each foot (di dúm), a pattern known as an iamb. It is possible to have one or more feet in which the expected order of accent is reversed (dúm di). These are called trochees.
Idea - A word referring to a concept, thought, oopinion, or belief. An idea developed through out a work of literature is called a theme.
Ideology - The conscious or unconscious beliefs, habbits, and social practices of a particular society.
Image - Use of vivid sensory language, often evokking abstract thoughts and feelings by association with concrete particulars. In poetry, an image is a word or sequence of words that refers to any of the 5 senses. Often the experience is a sight (visual image), but it may also be a sound (auditory image), a touch (tactile image), a taste (gustatory image), or a smell (olfactory image).
Interactive Novel - A novel with more than one possible seriees of events or outcomes. The reader is given the opportunity at various places to choose what will happen next.
Invective - Speech or writing that abuses, denounces,, or attacks. It can be directed against a person, cause, idea, or system. It employs a heavy use of negative emotive language.
Irony - Strictly a sub-set of allegory, irony nott only says one thing and means another, but says one thing and means it's opposite. Dramatic irony occurs when an audience of a play know some crucial piece of information that the characters onstage do not know. Situational irony occurs when the opposite of what is expected happens. This type of irony often emphasizes that people are caught in forces beyond their comprehension and control.
Jargon - Specialized language associated with a paarticular trade or profession.
Juvenalian Satire - Harsher, more pointed, perhaps intolerant satire typified by the writings of Juvenal. Juvenalian satire often attacks particular people, sometimes thinly disguised as fictional characters. The Juvenalian satirist also uses withering invective and a slashing attack.
Lampoon - A crude, coarse, often bitter satire ridiculing the personal appearance or character of a person.
Lexical Set - Words that are habitually used within a ggiven environment constitute a lexical set.
Literal Meaning - The normal, ordinary, factual, unadorned meaning without figurative associations.
Literary Quality - A judgment about the value of a novel as literature.
Meaning - The combination of a literary work's themme, emotional impact, and the experience of a reader.
Metaphor - A figure of speech that associates one term with another. A metaphor has 2 parts - a tenor and a vehicle. The tenor is the literal subject of the metaphor, and the vehicle is a figurative reference to which the literal subject is implicitly being compared. Mixed metaphors often occur when a speaker combines 2 metaphors from very diverse areas in such a way as to create something which is physically impossible or absurd.
Metaphor and Simile - A metaphor is a concise comparison equatiing 2 things that may at first seem unrelated. A simile is a comparison of 2 things often signified by a connective, usually "like, " "as," " than," or a verb such as "resembles." The things compared have to be dissimilar in kind for a simile to exist.
Metaphysical Poetry - The term metaphysical was applied to a style of 17th Century poetry first by John Dryden and later by Dr. Samuel Johnson because of the highly intellectual and often abstruse imagery involved. Metaphysical poetry represents a revolt against the conventions of Elizabethan love poetry. There are some common characteristics:
Argumentative
structure. The poem often engages in a debate or persuasive presentation; the
poem is an intellectual exercise as well as or instead of an emotional effusion.
Dramatic
and colloquial mode of utterance. The poem often describes a dramatic event
rather than being a reverie, a thought, or contemplation. Diction is simple and
usually direct; inversion is limited. The verse is occasionally rough, like
speech, rather than written in perfect meter, resulting in a dominance of
thought over form.
Acute
realism. The poem often reveals a psychological analysis; images advance the
argument rather than being ornamental. There is a learned style of thinking and
writing; the poetry is often highly intellectual.
Metaphysical
wit. The poem contains unexpected, even striking or shocking analogies, offering
elaborate parallels between apparently dissimilar things. These "conceits"
reveal a play of intellect, often resulting in puns, paradoxes, and humorous
comparisons. Unlike other poetry where the metaphors usually remain in the
background, here the metaphors sometimes take over the poem and control it.
Meter - The measure for rhythm in a poem, usuallyy defined by feet and the accent pattern. A regular tempo established by recurring numbers of feet within a line. Some common patterns are dimeter, 2 feet per line; trimeter, 3 feet per line; tetrameter, 4 feet per line; pentameter, 5 feet per line; hexameter, 6 feet per line. Thus, a line with 4 trochaic feet is called trochaic tetrameter.
Metonym – Use of a name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated.
Metonymy (attribute for whole) - A figure of speech in which the name of one object is replaced by another which is closely associated with it.
Mock Epic - Treating a frivolous or minor subject serriously, especially by using the machinery and devices of the epic. The opposite of travesty.
Monologue - In a play, a long speech spoken by a singgle character to him/herself or the audience.
Monorhyme - A rhyme scheme in which all lines rhyme.<
Mood - The atmosphere created for the reader by a text.
Mystery Novel - A novel whose driving characteristic is tthe element of suspense or mystery. Strange, unexplained events, vague threats or terrors, unknown forces or antagonists, all may appear in a mystery novel.
Myth - A story that explains a specific aspect oof life or a natural phenomenon. Myths are based in the religion, spirituality, philosophy, and collective psychology of various groups or cultures. These stories involve heroes, heroines, antiheroes, gods, goddesses, and demi-gods.
Multicultural Novel – A novel written by a member of, or about, a cultural minority group, giving insight into non-Western or non-dominant cultural experiences and values.
Narration - The telling or relating of a sequence of events.
Narrator/Speaker - The one who narrates, speaks, tells the sstory or poem. Narrators may be participants or non-participants in the events.
Neologism - To make up a word or give a new meaning tto an old word.
Noun - A word used as the name or designation off a person or thing. Abstract nouns denote abstract properties. Proper nouns are nouns that designate one thing.
Novel - An extended prose fiction narrative of 500,000 words or more, broadly realistic, concerning the everyday events of ordinary people, and concerned with character. An extended, fictional prose narrative about realistic characters and events.
Novella - A prose fiction longer than a short storyy but shorter than a novel. There is no standard definition of length, but the short story ends at about 20,000 words, while the novel begins at about 50,000.
Novel of Manners - A novel focusing on and describing in dettail the social customs and habits of a particular social group. Usually these conventions function as shaping or even stifling controls over the behavior of the characters.
Octameter - A line consisting of 8 feet.
Object - Usually the thing to which the action of a verb is done. More technically a substantive word, phrase, or clause, immediately dependent on, or governed by, a verb, as expressing, in the case of a verb of action, the person or thing to which the action is directed, or on which it is exerted; that which receives the action of the verb.
Onomatopoeia - Words whose sound resembles what they describe. The usage of words that create audio sounds.
Ottava Rima - An 8 line verse stanza rhyming abababcc. In English it is usually in iambic pentameter.
Oxymoron – A pairing of contradictory or incongruent words.
Palindrome – A word, verse, sentence, number that reads the same forward as backwards.
Paradox - A statement which appears to contradict itself which may, in fact, be true.
Parody - A satiric imitation of a work or of an auuthor with the idea of ridiculing the author, his ideas, or work. The parody may also be focused on an improbable plot with too many convenient events.
Paraphrase - A brief rewriting of a work in words diffferent from the original.
Participle - A word derived from a noun which functionns like an adjective. More technically a word that partakes of the nature of a verb and an adjective; a derivative of a verb which has the function and construction of an adjective (qualifying a noun), while retaining some of those of the verb. Present participles usually end in '-ing' and usually describe an action which is going on at the same time as the verb. Past participles usually end in '-ed' or '-en'. Past participles can also be used in passive constructions (which describe what was done to something rather than what something did).
Pentameter - A line consisting of 5 feet.
Persona - A term for the narrator or speaker in a sstory or poem. The person created by the author to tell a story. Thus, the attitudes, beliefs, and degree of understanding expressed by the narrator may not be the same as those of the actual author.
Personification - A figure of speech in which human traits are given to non human things or abstractions. The thing personified is often an abstract concept. Personification is related to allegory, insofar as personification says one thing and really means another. But it is opposed to allegory insofar as it aims for the maximum degree of explicitness, whereas allegory necessarily involves greater degrees of obliquity.
Petrarchan Conceit - The kind of conceit used by Italian Renaiissance poet Petrarch and popular in Renaissance English sonnets. Oxymorons are common.
Picaresque Novel - An episodic, often autobiographical novell about a rogue or picaro (a person of low social status) wandering around and living off his wits. The wandering hero provides the author with the opportunity to connect widely different pieces of plot, since the hero can wander into any situation. Picaresque novels tend to be satiric and filled with petty detail.
Plosive - A consonantal sound in the formation of wwhich the passage of air is completely blocked, such as 'p', 'b', 't'. The blockage can be made in a variety of places (between the lips, between the tongue and teeth, between the tongue and palate). A bi-labial plosive is made with the lips ('p', 'b'). A dental plosive is made by blocking the passage of air with the tongue and the teeth ('d', 't'). An uvular plosive is made right at the back of the throat ('q', 'g').
Plot - The sequence of a story's events. Plots ooften follow the pattern of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution or conclusion. This 5-point organization is the most conventional way to tell a story.
Point of View - The perspective from which a story is tolld. A story may be told in first or third person. The first-person narrator may be an observer or a participant. Third-person omniscient narrators describe not only the action and dialogue, but also what the characters think. Third-person limited omniscient narrators have access to the thoughts of only one character. Third-person objective narrators relate actions and quotations but they do not describe what any of the characters think, nor do they make comments about the action.
Polysyndeton - The use of multiple conjunctions, usuallyy where they are not strictly necessary.
Preposition - A part of speech which indicates a connecction, between 2 other parts of speech, such as 'to', 'with', 'by' or 'from'. '
Pronoun - A part of speech which stands for a noun - 'he', 'she', 'him', 'her', 'them'. Possessive pronouns express ownership. Reflexive pronouns are 'herself', 'himself', 'myself' and are used either for emphasis or when an action reflects back on the agent who performs it. Relative pronouns include 'who', 'which', 'that'. Interrogative pronouns ask questions. Indefinite pronouns do not specify a particular person or thing.
Protagonist - The major character in a work who is invoolved in some sort of conflict.
Proverb - 1. A short popular saying, usually of unkknown and ancient origin, that expresses effectively some commonplace truth or useful thought. 2. A wise saying or precept; a didactic sentence. 3. A person or thing that is commonly regarded as an embodiment or representation of some quality; byword. 4. A profound saying, maxim, or oracular utterance requiring interpretation.
Pseudonym - A false name or alias used by a writer deesiring not to use his or her real name. Sometimes called a nom de plume or pen name.
Pulp Fiction - Novels written for the mass market, intennded to be a good read, often exciting, titillating, thrilling. Historically they have been very popular but critically sneered at as being of sub-literary quality.
Quantitative Meter - A metrical system based on the length or weight of syllables, rather than on stress .
Quatrain - A verse stanza of 4 lines, often rhyming abab.
Refrain - A repeated line, phrase or group of liness, which recurs at regular intervals through a poem or song, usually at the end of a stanza. The less technical term is chorus.
Regional Novel - A novel faithful to a particular geographhic region and its people, including behavior, customs, speech, and history.
Register - A term designating the appropriateness off a given style to a given situation. Speakers and writers in specific situations deploy a technical vocabulary as well as other aspects of style customarily used in that situation. Literary effect is often created by switching register.
Resolution - The last stage of plot development in whiich conflicts may be resolved and problems are solved. If conflicts are resolved and problems solved, then we can say the narrative has closure or has a conclusion.
Rhetorical Figures - Figures of thought appeal to the mind by twisting language in a way that is strictly improper, but licensed by usage. Figures of thought are sometime called tropes or conceits. Figures of speech are perceptible to the eye and the ear. Thus rhyme is a figure of speech, as is alliteration and anaphora. Figures of speech are sometimes called schemes.
Rhyme - Repetition of both vowel and consonant soounds. The rhyme scheme, or regularly recurring patterns of rhyme within a poem or stanza, is recorded by using a letter of the alphabet to denote each rhyme, and noting the order in which the rhymes recur.
Assonant rhyme is
the rhyming of vowels only.
Consonant rhyme
is the rhyming on consonants only.
Couplet
is a pair of lines rhyming consecutively. aabbcc is the most simple rhyme scheme
of all.
Eye
rhymes are words whose spellings would lead one to think that they rhymed but
when pronounced they do not.
Feminine
rhyme is a 2 syllable rhyme consisting of stressed syllable followed by
unstressed.
Half
rhyme occurs when the final consonants are the same but the preceding vowels are
not.
Leonine
rhyme occurs when the syllable immediately preceding the caesura rhymes with the
syllable at the end of the line.
Masculine
rhyme is a similarity between terminally stressed syllables.
Near
rhymes are a general term to include assonant and consonant rhyme but could also
include 2 words that sound similar but are not either of these kinds of rhyme.
Rhyme royal is a
form of verse which consists of stanzas of 7 ten-syllable lines, (a b a b b c
c).
Rime
riche occurs when the same combination of sounds is used in each element of the
rhyme, but where the 2 identical sounding words have different senses.
Sight
rhymes are words that are spelled similarly, but do not rhyme.
True
rhyme is 2 words whose last syllables sound the same.
Rhythm - The recurrence of stresses and pauses in a poem. The repetition of concluding sounds in different words. Often intentionally used at the ends of poetic lines. The overall pacing and tempo of a poem as it is read. The poem's meter plays a role, but other factors such as sentence structure and emotional intensity also influence rhythm.
Ridicule - Words intended to belittle a person or iddea and arouse contemptuous laughter. The goal is to condemn or criticize by making the thing, idea, or person seem laughable and ridiculous. Ridicule is a common weapon of the satirist.
Rising Action - The action in a story or play before the climax.
Roman a Clef (roh MAHN ah CLAY) - French for novel with a key. A novel in which historical events and actual people are written about under the pretense of being fiction.
Romance - An extended fictional prose narrative aboout improbable events involving characters that are quite different from ordinary people. The modern romance novel is a formulaic love story (boy meets girl, obstacles interfere, they overcome obstacles, they live happily ever after).
Round Character - Usually a major figure in a work who has many fully developed, individual, and dynamic traits.
Sarcasm - A form of sneering criticism in which dissapproval is often expressed as ironic praise.
Satire - A literary mode based on criticism of peoople and society through ridicule. The satirist aims to reduce the practices attacked by laughing scornfully at them and being witty enough to allow the reader to laugh, also. Ridicule, irony, exaggeration, and several other techniques are almost always present. The satirist's goal is to point out the hypocrisy of his target in the hope that either the target or the audience will return to a real following of the code.
Scan - To mark the meter of a poem by identifyinng patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Scansion - Mapping a poem's form into its feet and ssyllable pattern.
Science Fiction Novel - A novel in which futuristic technology orr otherwise altered scientific principles contribute in a significant way to the adventures.
Sentence - A sequence of words which makes complete sense, containing subject, object and main verb, and concluded by a full-stop'.
Sentimental Novel. A type of novel, popular in the 18th century, that overemphasizes emotion and seeks to create emotional responses in the reader. The type also usually features an overly optimistic view of the goodness of human nature.
Sequel - A novel incorporating the same characterss and often the same setting as a previous novel. Sometimes the events and situations involve a continuation of the previous novel and sometimes only the characters are the same and the events are entirely unrelated to the previous novel.
Series - Several novels related to each other, by plot, setting, character, or all 3. Book marketers refer to multi-volume novels as sagas.
Setting - The where and when of a poem, play or narrrative fiction. The natural and artificial environment in which literary characters reside; all references to physical and temporal objects and artifacts.
Simile - A figure of speech that makes an explicitt comparison. A comparison between 2 objects or ideas which is introduced by 'like' or 'as'. The literal object which evokes the comparison is called the tenor and the object which describes it is called the vehicle. Negative similes are also possible. Epic similes are more extended similes, which might involve multiple points of correspondence between tenor and vehicle.
Soliloquy - In a play, a speech delivered by a characcter to him or herself, or directly to the audience. It is often used to reveal thoughts or feelings.
Spondee (a spondaic foot) - A 2 syllable foot that is comprised of 2 accented syllables. Usually this is done in poetry by using 1 syllable words in a row. This is the opposite of the anapestic foot.
Spenserian Stanza - A 9-line stanza, with the first 8 lines iin iambic pentameter and the last line in iambic hexameter (called an Alexandrine). The rhyme scheme is A-B-A-B B-C-B-C C.
Sonnet - Can mean a short poem, often on the subjeect of love. It is almost always used to denote a 14 line poem in iambic pentameter. There are 2 main forms of Sonnet - the Shakespearean Sonnet rhymes abab cdcdd efef gg. The 3 quatrains can be linked together in argument in a variety of ways, but often there is a volta or turn in the course of the argument after the second quatrain. The final couplet often provides an opportunity to sum up the argument of the poem with an epigram. The Petrarchan Sonnet falls into an octet, or 8 line unit, and a sestet, or 6 line unit. The Petrarchan sonnet form rhymes abbaabba cdecde (although the sestet can follow other rhyme-schemes, such as cdcdcd). Sonnets may be free-standing poems, or they may form part of an extended sequence of poems which might relate in a loose narrative form the progress of a love affair.
Stanza - A group of lines in a poem with a common meter and rhyme scheme. A grouping of lines within a poem. A group of 2 lines is called a couplet. A 3 line stanza is called a tercet. A 4 line stanza is a quatrain, and a 5 line stanza is a quintet. 2 other common lengths are a sestet, 6 lines; and an octave, 8 lines. In printed poems divisions between stanzas are frequently indicated by an area of blank space.
Static Character - Usually a minor figure who remains unchannged throughout a work.
Stress - Emphasis given to a syllable in pitch, voolume or duration (or several of these). In normal spoken English some syllables are given greater stress than others. In metrical writing these natural variations in stress are formed into recurrent patterns, such as iambs, anapaests or trochees.
Strophe - A stanza or other grouping of lines withiin a poem. In classical odes the term is used of the first group of lines which might be followed by an antistrophe which exactly replicates the form of the strophe. The rhetorical figure whereby a part is substituted for a whole, or, less usually, in which a whole is substituted for a part.
Structure - The arrangement and placement of materiall and events in a work.
Style - The manner of expression of a particular writer, produced by choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, and all the possible parts of language use. Some general styles might include scientific, ornate, plain, emotive. Most writers have their own particular styles.
Subject - The topic that a literary work addresses.. Usually the person or thing who is performing the action of a verb. More technically the grammatical subject is the part of a sentence of which an action is predicated. It can be a single noun, or it can be a complex clause.
Subplot - A subordinate or minor collection of evennts in a novel or drama. Most subplots have some connection with the main plot, acting as foils to, commentary on, complications of, or support to the theme of, the main plot. Sometimes 2 opening subplots merge into a main plot.
Syllable - The smallest unit of speech that normallyy occurs in isolation, or a distinct sound element within a word. This can consist of a vowel alone or a combination of a vowel and one or more consonants. Monosyllables contain only one syllable; polysyllables contain more than one syllable.
Syllabic Meter - A form of meter in which only syllables aare counted, such as in haikus and such.
Syllabic Verse - A metrical system which depends solely onn syllable count, and which takes no account of stress. This is the norm in most Romance languages (French, Italian, Spanish), but is unusual (and almost always consciously experimental) in English.
Synecdoche (part for whole) - A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special.
Synonym – Words that have the same meaning.
Syntax (Greek together arrangement) - A term designating the way in which words can be arranged and modified to construct sentences. Writers characteristically use syntactic sub-ordination when they aim for a highly formal effect, and syntactic co-ordination when they aim for a simpler, more straight-forward effect.
Symbol, Symbolism - A person, object, action or idea that poiints beyond its own meaning toward greater and more complex meaning(s). It is an object that is first of all itself, but that comes to stand for or represent other things. There are 2 general types of symbols - universal symbols that embody universally recognizable meanings wherever used and constructed symbols that are given symbolic meaning by the way an author uses them in a literary work.
Tetrameter - A line poetry consisting of four metricall feet.
Theme - The specific and central idea or ideas thhat a literary work explores.
Tone - The methods writers use to convey and conntrol the attitude toward the subject itself, or about the audience. The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view.
Topos - From a Greek word meaning place, a topos in poetry is a commonplace, a standard way of describing a particular subject.
Tragedy - A literary work that begins in prosperityy and happiness and ends in adversity or misery.
Travesty - A work that treats a serious subject frivvolously, ridiculing the dignified. Often the tone is mock serious and heavy handed.
Trimeter - A line of poetry consisting of 3 metricall feet.
Trochee (a trochaic foot) - A foot with 1 accented syllable followed by one unaccented syllable. It is the opposite of the iambic foot. A foot of 2 syllables, in which the accent falls on the first syllable (dúm di).
Trope - A general term for any figure of speech wwhich alters the literal sense of a word or phrase. So metaphor, simile and allegory are all tropes, since they affect the meaning of words. In the rhetorical tradition tropes are contrasted with figures, which are rhetorical devices which affect the order or placing of words (so the repetition of a particular word at the start of each line is a figure).
Utopian Novel - A novel that presents an ideal society where the problems of poverty, greed, crime, and so forth have been eliminated.
Verb - Usually a word which describes an action.. More technically that part of speech by which an assertion is made, or which serves to connect a subject with a predicate.
Verse Paragraph - Line groups of irregular length, which fuunction much like paragraphs in prose.
Verisimilitude - How fully the characters and actions in a work of fiction conform to our sense of reality. To say that a work has a high degree of verisimilitude means that the work is very realistic and believable, it is true to life.
Versification - Generally, the structural form of a verse, as revealed by scansion. Identification of verse structure includes the name of the metrical type and the name designating number of feet: Monometer: 1 foot, Dimeter: 2 feet, Trimeter: 3 feet, Tetrameter: 4 feet, Pentameter: 5 feet, Hexameter: 6 feet, Heptameter: 7 feet, Octameter: 8 feet, Nonameter: 9 feet.
Villanelle - A 19 line poem with 5 three line stanzas and 1 concluding four line stanza. The stanzas feature an intricate pattern of repetition.
Western - A novel set in the western United States featuring the experiences of cowboys and frontiersmen. Many are little more than adventure novels or even pulp fiction, but some have literary value.
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