Literary Terms

1. Literary Terms A step to SOL Reading success

2. Accuracy of information Make sure the information You use in an essay is correct. Check the source for credibility.

3. Allegory • A story whose elements mirror another concept.

4. Alliteration Repetition of beginning consonant sounds

5. Allusion A reference to something from literature, religion, history, or Culture that adds to the passage.

6. apostrophe • Addressing something or someone not present or unable to answer. • Ex: Asking your pencilfor the answer to a difficult question ona test.

7. aside • A dramatic device in which a character addresses the audience.

8. Characterization • The way the author gives us information about characters: • His hair was disheveled. • He had pillow lines on his face. • His eyes kept drooping in class.

9. Citations • Giving credit to a source that you use in a paper or project • In the epic poem Beowulf, Beowulf is described as “Higlac's Follower and the strongest of the Geats -- greater And stronger than anyone anywhere in this world –”(“BeowulfTranslations”) • "BeowulfTranslations.net: Translations by Burton Raffel (1963)." BeowulfTranslations.net: Start Page. Web. 29 Oct. 2010. <http://www.beowulftranslations.net/raff.shtml>.

10. Cliche • An overused expression • As cold as ice • Between the sword and the wall • Life is a bowl of cherries

11. Conflict • The major problem of a story Person vs. Person Person vs. society Person vs. Nature Person vs. self

12. Dialect • The way people actually speak as shown in dialogue • From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn • "Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."    "Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos'drownded, too; dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de birds, chile."

13. Dialogue • Words showing the actually conversation between characters. • After the meal, the two sat and read the paper and spoke of the day’s events. “Did you hear about the tornado in Kansas?” asked the wife. “No,” her husband responded, “was it bad?” “Not too bad, but it ripped a roof of a high school. I can’t imagine the fear the teachers and students felt as they knew the tornado was bearing down on them.” “Do you think the Kansas schools have basements just in case?” her husband replied.

14. Diction • Word choice • In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne uses formal language: “The stranger had entered the room with the characteristic quietude of the profession to which he announced himself as belonging.” (chapter 4) • In the hallways, studentsuse informal diction.

15. Drama - A story told entirely in dialogue • Example: Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet • ROMEO I take thee at thy word:Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;Henceforth I never will be Romeo.JULIET What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in nightSo stumblest on my counsel?ROMEO By a nameI know not how to tell thee who I am:My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,Because it is an enemy to thee;Had I it written, I would tear the word.JULIET My ears have not yet drunk a hundred wordsOf that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:

16. Exaggeration • Representing something in an excessive manner. •  In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck learns about a girl who was obsessed with death: she “kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering… and write poetry after them out of her own head.” (Twain 137)

17. Fiction/fictitious • A story that is not true. So something that is fictitious is not true. • Excerpt from Robin Hood • Robin Hood was captain of the band of Merry Men. Next to him came Little John. He was called Little John because he was so tall, just as Midge the miller's son was called Much because he was so small. Robin loved Little John best of all his friends. Little John loved Robin better than any one else in all the world. Yet the first time they met they fought and knocked each other about dreadfully.

18. Figurative language • Using words that go beyond the literal description to describe something. • Literal Figurative We are at the top of a very steep slope.

19. flashback • When a character remembers back to events that happened prior to the current scene in the story.

20. foreshadowing • Hints an author gives about what is coming next. Don’t try to carry all those boxes up the stairs at once. I’m afraid you might fall down the stairs…

21. Free verse a poem written w/o a specific rhyme or pattern • Ants by Ravi Shankar One is never alone. Saltwater taffy colored beach blanket spread on a dirt outcropping pocked with movement. Pell-mell tunneling, black specks the specter of beard hairs swarm, disappear, emerge, twitch, reverse course to forage along my shin, painting pathways with invisible pheromones that others take up in ceaseless streams. Ordered disarray, wingless expansionists form a colony mind, no sense of self outside the nest, expending summer to prepare for winter, droning onthrough midday heat. I watch, repose, alone.

22. Heading The titles of different sections in a paper. http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageServer?pagename=program_fisheries

23. Imagery Using words to paint a picture by appealing to the Five senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch

24. Irony Contrast between expectation and reality situational – different twist from what Is expected

25. Metaphor • Direct comparison between to things • Example • The train, a bright blue snake, slid along the river.

26. Mood -The emotional feeling of a piece of writingExamples; happy, tense, sad, scary, angry • Excerpt from Dracula • Then he took my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins. The horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings. I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people?

27. narrator • The character telling the story.

28. Oxymoron • When a figure of speech creates a sense of confusion or incongruity • Jumbo shrimp - clean dirt

29. paradox • An idea that seems to contradict itself but ends up being true.

30. paraphrase • To put someone else’s idea into your own words. Because of unsatisfactory performance and the recent economic downturn, I’m afraid that your position is no longer available, as it will be filled by someone more able to perform the functions of the job…

31. personification • Giving human qualities to non-human things. • The clock laughed at me.

32. plagiarism I knew I should have cited my sources! • Copying someone else’s words or ideas without giving them credit.

33. Point of view • First—I went to the store. • Third—He went to the store. • Omniscient—He went to the store to buy flowers to apologize to his wife for forgetting their anniversary. • Limited—He went to the store and bought the most expensive flowers he could find (but no one knows why yet!)

34. Pun A pun is a play on words, here Snow White is waiting for her pictures, “prints”, but Grimmy makes a play on the word “Prince.”

35. Sarcasm • A sharp, bitter expression often meant to criticize. • “I was late to school, I forgot my homework, and my lunch got squished in my backpack.I’m having the best day of my life!”

36. Setting • The time and place of a story. New York City, 2008 New England, 1630

37. Simile Comparison using like or as

38. Sonnet • lyric poem – 14 lines, iambic pentameter • Shakespearean/English – 3 quatrains and a couplet • Italian/Petrarchan – 2 quatrains followed by a sestet • (quatrains 4 lines usually of ABAB rhyme, sestet – six lines, in a sonnet they will be rhymed)

39. Stage directions • Descriptions (usually in italics) that describe characters’ actions, moods, or settings in a play. • Example: Matt: (taking two steps backwards) Good grief, Dan, don’t you EVER shower?

40. Stanza • VespertinaCognitoby Natasha TretheweyOverhead, pelicans glide in threes—     their shadows across the sand          dark thoughts crossing the mind.Beyond the fringe of coast, shrimpers     hoist their nets, weighing the harvest          against the day's losses. Light waning,concentration is a lone gull     circling what's thrown back. Debris          weights the trawl like stones.All day, this dredging—beneath the tug     of waves—rhythm of what goes out,            comes back, comes back, comes back. Stanza

41. summary • To condense the main idea in your own words.

42. Symbol Love When a word represents an idea. Peace Sunrise = rebirth Sunset = death Freedom/patriotism

43. Sympathetic character • A character for whom the reader feels sympathy. MISSING! Please help!

44. synonym • A word that means the same thing as another word. • Example: fatobesebig-bonedoverweight

45. theme • The broad idea, moral, or message of a story. • Examples: FriendshipOvercoming challenges

46. tone • The attitude of the speaker Don’t you take that tone with me!

47. transition • A word or phrase that bridges two different topics. • Transitional words and phrases include: For example,Similarly,On the other hand,Another reason for _______ is __________.

48. understatement • An expression of speech that contains less strength than would be expected. • Example: The hiking trail is a little bit dangerous. There’s a slightchance of death.

49. Works cited • A page at the end of an essay that gives credit to sources.

50. Types of Writing: analytical • A type of writing in which the author analyzes something in depth. • For example, analyze symbols in a book. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge represents society’s greed.