Download - Elements of Literature Literary Terms
ELEMENTS OF LITERATURE
FABLES
A fictional narrative
meant to teach a moral
lesson. The characters
in a fable are usually
animals whose words
and actions reflect
human behavior.
EXAMPLES OF FABLES
The Ants and the Grasshopper: In this fable, the ants
saved food for the winter and the grasshopper did not.
The moral is “It is best to prepare for the days of
necessity.”
EXAMPLES OF FABLES
The Golden Touch (King Midas) - Midas loved gold so
much, he asked a fairy to grant his wish that everything
he touched turned to gold. He was happy until he
touched his daughter and she turned to gold. The moral
is, “Be careful what you wish for.”
FICTION
Written stories about
people and events those
are not real. Literature
that tells stories which are
imagined by the writer.
Something that is not
true.
EXAMPLES OF FICTION
• NARNIA
• Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
EXAMPLES OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
FLASHBACK
Flashbacks are interruptions
that writers do to insert
past events in order to
provide background or
context to the current
events of a narrative.
EXAMPLES OF A FLASHBACK
The Bible is a good source of flashback examples:
In the Book of Matthew, we see a flashback has been used when Joseph, governor of Egypt, sees his brothers after several years, Joseph “remembered his dreams” about his brothers and how they sold him into slavery in the past.
Progymnasmata:
Preliminary rhetorical exercises that introduce
students to basic rhetorical concepts and strategies.
In classical rhetorical training, the progymnasmata
were "structured so that the student moved from
strict imitation to a more artistic melding of the
often disparate concerns of speaker, subject, and
audience" (Encyclopedia of Rhetoric and
Composition, 1996).