FOR LIT CAUSE WE LIT

typically complex, discussed intangible qualities like good and evil, and seldom uses examples to support its points.

As an adjective describing style, this word means dry and theoretical writing. When a piece of writing seems to be sucking all the life out of its subject with analysis, the writing is ______

In poetry, the stressed portion of a word.

used as an adjective meaning "appealing to the senses." A phrase synonymous with artistic judgement. As a noun, it is a coherent sense of taste.

A story in which each aspect of the story has a symbolic meaning outside the tale itself.

Repetition of initial consonant sounds

A reference to another work of literature, person, or event

something out of place in time

a symbolic comparison that are employed to clarify an action or a relationship.

a short narrative

a character, group, characteristic, or entity that opposes the protagonist.

The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun.

In literature, when inanimate objects, animals, or natural phenomena are given human characteristics, behavior, or motivation. Often confused with personification, which requires that the nonhuman quality or thing take on a human shape.

Occurs when an action produces far smaller results than one had been led to expect. Frequently comic.

A short and usually witty saying, such as: "'Classic'? A book which people praise and don't read."-Mark Twain.

An address to someone not present or to a personified object or idea.

The use of deliberately old-fashioned language. Authors sometimes use this to create a feeling of antiquity.

Standard or clichéd character types, such as the drunk, the miser, and the foolish girl.

A speech (usually just a short comment) made by an actor to the audience, as though momentarily stepping outside of the action on stage.

A trait or characteristic

Repetition of vowel sounds

The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene.

A speaker's, author's, or character's disposition toward or opinion of a subject.

a long, narrative poem, usually in very regular meter and rhyme. Typically has a naive folksy quality, a characteristic that distinguishes it from epic poetry.

when writing strains for grandeur it can't support and tries to elicit tears from every little hiccup

The use of disturbing themes in comedy.

This is pretentious, exaggeratedly learned language.

Broad parody, one that takes a style or form and exaggerates it into ridiculousness.

using deliberately harsh, awkward sounds.

The beat or rhythm of poetry in a general sense.

The name for a section division in a long work of poetry, similar to the way chapters divide a novel.

A portrait (verbal or otherwise) that exaggerates a facet of personality.

A term used by Aristotle to describe some sort of emotional release experienced by the audience at the end of a successful tragedy

In drama, a chorus is the group of citizens who stand outside the main action on stage and comment on it.

Can mean typical, or an accepted masterpiece.

Refers to the arts of ancient Greece and Rome and the qualities of those arts.

A new word, usually one invented on the spot.

a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation.

Suggesting that there is more than one possibility in the meaning of words; subtleties and variations; multiple layers of interpretation; meaning both explicit and implicit

Does not mean stuck up in poetry. Refers to a startling or unusual metaphor, or one developed and expanded upon for several lines. When the image dominates and shapes the entire work, it's called a controlling image.

what a word suggests beyond its basic definition; a word's overtones of meaning

The repetition of consonant sounds within words (rather than at the beginning, which is alliteration)

A pair of lines that end in rhyme

In order to observe, a character's speech must be styled according to her social station and in accordance with the occasion.

The dictionary definition of a word.

items or parts that make up a larger picture or story

various techniques used by poets to create sound imagery through specific word choice to evoke an emotional response, clarify meaning, enhance the reader's experience, and so on.

Word choice

A song for the dead. Typically slow, heavy, and melancholy.

the grating of incompatible sounds.

crude, simplistic verse, often in sing-song rhyme.

when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know.

when a single speaker in literature says something to a silent audience (other characters on stage)

A seemingly ideal world where the actual implementation of perfection is unsuccessful and destructive.

A type of poem that meditates on death or mortality in a serious, thoughtful manner. Often use the recent death of a noted person or a loved on as a starting point.

Basic techniques of each genre of literature

exposition, conflict, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, denouement

the continuation of a syntactic unit from one line or couplet of a poem to the next with no pause.

Simply a very long narrative poem on a serious theme in a dignified style. Typically deal with glorious or profound subject matter: a great war, a heroic journey, the Fall of Eden, a battle with supernatural forces, a trip to the underworld, etc.

Lines that commemorate the dead at their burial place. Usually a line or handful of lines, often serious or religious but sometimes witty and even irreverent.

The appeal to credibility. Establishing common ground and trust with an audience.

A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality.

Sounds blend harmoniously.

something that is easily expressed or readily observable

Extremely broad humor; in earlier times, a funny play or a comedy (centuries past, comedy referred to any play, not necessarily humorous)

lines rhymed by their final two syllables

Writing that uses words to mean something other than their literal meaning.

A narrator who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his or her point of view. Usually unreliable.

a secondary character whose purpose is to highlight the characteristics of a main character, usually by contrast

the basic unit of rhythmic measurement in a line of poetry

An event or statement in a narrative that, in miniature, suggests a larger event that comes later.

poetry with no regular rhyme or rhythm

A subcategory of Literature.

the sensibility derived from dark novels. First appeared in the mid 17th century and has wooed audiences ever since.

excessive pride that leads to the main characters downfall

exaggeration or deliberate overstatement.

An author's use of figurative language, images, or sensory details that appeal to the reader's senses.

implied though not plainly expressed

Latin for "into the middle of things." It usually describes a narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle — usually at some crucial point in the action.

Switching the customary order of elements in a sentence or phrase.

placing two elements side by side to present a comparison or contrast

a poem of sadness or grief over the death of a loved one or over some other intense loss

Appeal to logic

complete before its end

A type of poetry that explores the poet's personal interpretation of and feelings about the world (or the part of the world that his poem is about)

A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable (regular rhyme)

What makes sense, what is important. Can be literal or emotional.

a form of overly-dramatic theater in which the hero is very, very good, the villain mean and rotten, and the heroine oh-so-pure.

A comparison without using like or as

A word that is used to stand for something else that it has attributes of or is associated with. For example, a herd of 50 cows could be called 50 head of cattle)

A speech given by one character on stage.

A recurring theme, subject or idea

the methods involved in telling a story; the procedures used by a writer of stories or accounts

Impersonal or outside view of events

words that imitate sounds

one of the most useful concepts in analyzing literature. it means that you have a pair of elements that contrast sharply. Not necessarily "conflict" but rather a pairing of images (or settings or appeals, for example) whereby each becomes more striking and informative because it's placed in contrast to the other one.

A phrase composed of opposites; a contradiction.

A simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson.

A situation or statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not.

repeated syntactical similarities used for effect.