# Hand bookof Lit Terms Slayt

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# Handbook of Literary Terms

**Allegory** — A narrative in which the characters and settings stand for abstract
ideas or moral qualities. In addition to the literal meaning of the story, an allegory
contains a symbolic, or **allegorical**, meaning.

**Alliteration** — Repetition of the same or very similar consonant sounds usually
at the beginnings of words that are close together in a poem. Example.

**Allusion** — Reference to a statement, a person, a place, or an event from literature,
history, religion, mythology, politics, sports, science, or pop culture.

**Ambiguity** — An element of uncertainty in a text, in which something can be interpreted
in a number of different ways.

**Analogy** — Comparison made between two things to show how they are alike in some
respects.

**Anecdote** — Very, very brief story, usually told to make a point.

**Aside** — Words that are spoken by a character in a play to the audience or to
another character but that are not supposed to be overheard by the others onstage.

**Assonance** — Repetition of similar vowel sounds that are followed by different
consonant sounds, especially in words that are close together in a poem.

**Author** — The writer of a literary work.

**Autobiography** — An account of the writer’s own life.

**Ballad** — Song that tells a story. Ballads usually tell sensational stories of
tragedy or adventure. Types of ballads.

**Biography** — An account of a person’s life, written or told by another person.

**Blank Verse** — Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

**Character** — Person in a story, poem, or play. The process of revealing the personality
of a character in a story is called characterization. Direct and indirect characterization;
static vs. dynamic character; flat vs. round character; motivation.

**Climax** — Moment of great emotional intensity or suspense in a plot.

**Comedy** — In general, a story that ends happily. More about comedy.

**Comic Relief** — Comic scene or event that breaks up a serious play or narrative.

**Conflict** — Struggle or clash between opposing characters or opposing forces.
External and internal conflict.

**Connotation** — All the meanings, associations, or emotions that have come to 
be attached to some words, in addition to their literal dictionary definitions, 
or denotations.

**Couplet** — Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.

**Description** — Type of writing intended to create a mood or emotion or to re-
create a person, a place, a thing, an event, or an experience. Description works
by creating images that appeal to the senses of sight, smell, taste, hearing, or
touch.

**Dialect** — Way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or a
particular group of people. More about dialect.

**Dialogue** — The conversation between characters in a story or play.

**Diction** — A writer’s or speaker’s choice of words. Diction is an essential element
of a writer’s style, the overall way in which a writer uses language.

**Drama** — Story that is written to be acted for an audience. Elements of a dramatic
plot.

**Dramatic Monologue** — A poem in which a speaker addresses one or more silent 
listeners, often reflecting on a specific problem or situation.

**Epic** — Long story told in elevated language (usually poetry), which relates 
to the great deeds of a larger-than-life hero who embodies the values of a particular
society.

**Epithet** — Adjective or descriptive phrase that is regularly used to characterize
a person, place, or thing. We speak of “Honest Abe,” for example, and “America the
Beautiful.”

**Essay** — Short piece of nonfiction prose that examines a single subject from 
a limited point of view. Personal essay; formal essay.

**Exposition** — Type of writing that explains, gives information, defines, or clarifies
an idea.

**Fable** — Very brief story in prose or verse that teaches a moral, or a practical
lesson about how to get along in life.

**Figure of Speech** — Word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of another
and is not meant to be understood on a literal level. Most figures of speech, or
figurative language, involve some sort of imaginative comparison between seemingly
unlike things. The most common figures of speech are: • Simile • Metaphor • Personification.

**Flashback** — Scene in a movie, play, short story, novel, or narrative poem that
interrupts the present action of the plot to flash backward and tell what happened
at an earlier time.

**Flash-Forward** — Scene in a movie, play, short story, novel, or narrative poem
that interrupts the present action of the plot to shift into the future.

**Foil** — Character who is used as a contrast to another character.

**Folk Tale** — Story that has no known author and was originally passed on from
one generation to another by word of mouth.

**Foreshadowing** — The use of clues to hint at events that will occur later in 
a plot.

**Free Verse** — Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

**Genre** — The category that a work of literature is classified under. Five major
genres in literature are nonfiction, fiction, poetry, drama, and myth.

**Haiku** — Japanese verse form consisting of three lines and, usually, seventeen
syllables (five in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third).

**Hyperbole** — Figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion
or to create a comic effect. Hyperbole is also called overstatement.

**Iambic Pentameter** — Line of poetry that contains five iambs. Iambic pentameter
is by far the most common verse line in English poetry. Example.

**Idiom** — Expression peculiar to a particular language that means something different
from the literal meaning of each word. “It’s raining cats and dogs” is an idiom 
of American English.

**Imagery** — Language that appeals to the senses. Most images are visual, but images
can also appeal to the senses of hearing, touch, taste, or smell or even to several
senses at once. Example.

**Inversion** — Reversal of the normal word order of a sentence.

**Irony** — Contrast between expectation and reality—between what is said and what
is really meant, between what is expected to happen and what really does happen,
or between what appears to be true and what is really true. Verbal irony; situational
irony; dramatic irony.

**Lyric Poetry** — Poetry that does not tell a story but is aimed only at expressing
a speaker’s emotions or thoughts.

**Metaphor** — Figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things,
in which one thing becomes another thing without the use of the word like, as, than,
or resembles. Implied metaphor; extended metaphor; dead metaphor; mixed metaphor.

**Meter** — Generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

**Mood** — A story’s atmosphere or the feeling it evokes. Mood is often created 
by a story’s setting.

**Myth** — Traditional story that is rooted in a particular culture, is basically
religious, and usually serves to explain a belief, a ritual, or a mysterious natural
phenomenon.

**Narration** — Type of writing or speaking that tells about a series of related
events.

**Narrator** — The voice telling a story.

**Nonfiction** — Prose writing that deals with real people, things, events, and 
places. Forms of nonfiction.

**Novel** — Fictional prose narrative usually consisting of more than fifty thousand
words. In general, the novel uses the same basic literary elements as the story 
story but develops them more fully. Plot; character; setting; theme; point of view.

**Onomatopoeia** — Use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning. Crack,
pop, fizz, zoom, and chirp are examples of onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia is an important
element in the music of poetry. Example.

**Paradox** — Statement or situation that seems to be a contradiction but reveals
a truth.

**Parallelism** — Repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have the same 
grammatical structure or that state a similar idea. Parallelism, or parallel structure,
helps make lines rhythmic and memorable and heightens their emotional effect. Example.

**Persona** — Mask or voice assumed by a writer.

**Personification** — Kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked
about as if it were human. Example.

**Plot** — Series of related events that make up a story or drama. Plot is what 
happens in a short story, novel, or play. Elements of plot; plot diagram.

**Poetry** — Type of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and
imagery to appeal to the reader’s emotions and imagination. Rhyme; meter; free verse;
lyric poem; narrative poem.

**Point of View** — Vantage point from which a writer tells a story. In broad terms
there are three possible points of view: • Omniscient • First person • Third person
limited.

**Protagonist** — Main character in fiction or drama. The character or force that
blocks the protagonist is the antagonist.

**Pun** — Play on the multiple meanings of a word or on two words that sound alike
but have different meanings.

**Refrain** — Repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines.

**Rhyme** — Repetition of accented vowel sounds, and all sounds following them, 
in words close together in a poem. Example; types of rhyme; rhyme scheme.

**Rhythm** — Musical quality in language produced by repetition. Meter.

**Satire** — Type of writing that ridicules something—a person, a group of people,
humanity at large, an attitude or failing, a social institution—in order to reveal
a weakness.

**Scene Design** — Sets, lights, costumes, and props, which bring a play to life
onstage.

**Setting** — The time and place of a story or play.

**Short Story** — Short, concentrated fictional prose narrative. Plot in a short
story.

**Simile** — Figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things,
using a word such as like, as, resembles, or than.

**Soliloquy** — Long speech in which a character who is onstage alone expresses 
his or her thoughts aloud.

**Sonnet** — Fourteen-line lyric poem that is usually written in iambic pentameter
and that has one of several rhyme schemes.

**Speaker** — Voice that is talking to us in a poem.

**Stanza** — Group of consecutive lines in a poem that form a single unit.

**Style** — The particular way in which a writer uses language. Style is created
mainly through diction (word choice), use of figurative language, and sentence patterns.

**Suspense** — Uncertainty or anxiety the reader feels about what is going to happen
next in a story.

**Symbol** — Person, place, thing, or event that stands for itself and for something
beyond itself as well. Examples.

**Tall Tale** — Exaggerated, far-fetched story that is obviously untrue but is told
as though it should be believed.

**Theme** — Central idea of a work of literature. More about theme.

**Tone** — Attitude a writer takes toward a subject, a character, or the audience.
Tone is conveyed through the writer’s choice of words and details.

**Tragedy** — Play that depicts serious and important events in which the main character
comes to an unhappy end.

**Voice** — The writer’s or speaker’s distinctive use of language in a text. Voice
is created by a writer’s tone and choice of words.