Download
1 / 90
900 likes | 1.16k Vues
Literary Terms. Alliteration. The repetition of the same or very similar consonant sounds in words that are close together. Example. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore. Allusion.
E N D
Alliteration • The repetition of the same or very similar consonant sounds in wordsthat are close together.
Example • Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. • Sally sells sea shells by the sea shore.
Allusion • A reference to a statement, a person, a place, or an event from literature, history, religion, mythology, politics, sports or science.
Example • The movie Shrek is full of allusions. When Donkey is sprinkled with fairy dust he begins to fly and the other characters say “He can fly, he can fly, he can fly!” referring to, or making an allusion to the movie Peter Pan.
Autobiography • The story of a person’s life, written or told by that person.
Biography • The story of a real person’s life, written or told by a different person.
Example • On VH1’s “Behind the Music,” my favorite is the biography of the band Sublime.
Character • A person, or an animal in a story, play, or other literary work.
Example • Bella and Edward, Twilight
Conflict • A struggle or clash of two opposing characters or opposing forces.
Example • In “All Summer in a Day,” Margot is stuck inside day-after-day because of the terrible weather. This causes her to be sad and she separates herself from the other children.
Connotations • The feelings and association that have come to be attached to a word.
Example • The words inexpensive and cheap have basically the same meaning. However, a DVD manufacturer would never label their DVDs as “cheap” since the word “cheap” is associated with something not made well.
Description • The kind of word that creates a clear image of something, usually by using details that appeal to one or more of the senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
Example … She wore a faded brown sailor hat and beneath the hat, extending down her back, were two braids of very thick, decidedly red hair. Her face was small, white and thin, also much freckled; her mouth was large and so were her eyes, that looked green in some lights and some moods and gray in others. -L.M. Mongomery from Anne of Green Gables
Dialect • A way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region group of people.
Example • Different parts of the United States speak various dialects. In the south, people say “y’all.” In California, people often say the word, “like” after speaking.
Dialogue • Conversation between two or more characters.
Example • “Where are we going?” she asked with fear. • “That is for me to know, and you to find out,” he responded.
Drama • A story written to be acted in front of an audience.
Example • The play, “Les Miserable” is considered drama because it is acted out in front of an audience.
Essay • A short piece of nonfiction prose.
Example • Our mummification paper would be considered an essay.
Fable • A very brief story in prose or verse that teaches a moral, a particular lesson about how to succeed in life. (animals are usually characters)
Example • Aesop’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf”
Fantasy • Imaginative writing that carries the reader into an invented world where the laws of nature as we know it do not operate.
Example: • The “Harry Potter” series
Fiction • A prose account that is made up rather than true.
Figurative Language • Language that describes one thing in terms of something else and is not literally true.
Example • The idiom, “she was the salt of the earth” is also considered figurative language.
Flashback • A scene that breaks the normal time order of the plot to show a past event.
Example: • In “Walk Two Moons” she thinks back to the trip with her grandparents.
Folktale • A story with no known author, originally passed on from one generation to another by word of mouth.
Example • Cinderella was originally an oral story, eventually written down.
Foreshadowing • The use of clues or hints to suggest events that will occur later in the plot.
Example • In the movie Signs, a quick glimpse of an alien hidden among the corn fields is shown to build suspense and give the viewer clues as to what occur later in the movie.
Free Verse • Poetry that is “free” of a regular meter and rhyme scene.
Example The City If flowers want to grow right out of the concrete sidewalk cracks I’m going to bend down to smell them. -David Ignatow
Imagery • Language that appeals to the senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
Example The Storm in fury and terror the tempest broke, it tore up the pine and shattered the oak, yet the hummingbird hovered within the hour sipping clear rain from the trumpet flower. -Elizabeth Coatsworth
Irony • A contrast between what is expected and what really happens.
Examples • A shoe maker wears shoes with holes in them. • An elephant is scared of a mouse. • Someone living in a desert keeps a boat in their yard. • The child of a police officer robs a bank.
Legend • A story, usually based on some historical fact that has been handed down from one generation to the next. No actions are outside the realm of possibility.
Example • Robin Hood • Hamlet • King Arthur
Limerick • A humorous five line verse that has a regular meter and the rhyme scheme aabba.
Example There was an old man of Peru Who dreamt he was eating a shoe. He awoke in the night With a terrible fright And found it was perfectly true!
Main Idea • The most important idea in a piece of writing.
Metaphor • A comparison between two unlike things in which one thing becomes another thing
