Literary Terms

7th Grade Honors

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Part C

Moral

A lesson

taught by

a literary work

A reason that explains a character’s thought, feelings, actions, or speech. Characters are often motivated by needs, such as food and shelter. They are also motivated by feelings, such as fear, love, and pride.

A fictional tale

that explains

the actions of gods

or heroes or the

origins of elements

of nature.

NarrationNarration

Writing Writing

that that

tells tells

a a

storystory

Narrative

A

story                               

  The third pig builds a house of brick

Narrative Poem

A

story

told

in

verse

                                                

Folk image of a mounted highwayman

A speaker

or a character

who tells a story

Prose writing that presents

and explains ideas or that tells about real people, places, objects, or events

                           

  an almanac for the year 1474

A long work of fiction

NovellaA fiction work

that is longer

than a short story,

but shorter

than a novel

OnomatopoeiOnomatopoeiaaThe use of words to

imitate sound

Crash, buzz, screech,

hiss, neigh, jingle, cluck

Oral TraditionOral TraditionThe passing of songs, The passing of songs,

stories, and poems from stories, and poems from

generation to generation generation to generation

by word of mouthby word of mouth

oxymoronA figure of speech that links two opposite or contradictory words, to point out an idea or situation that seems contradictory or inconsistent but on closer inspection turns out to be somehow true

A type of figurative language in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics

Used in writing or

speech that attempts

to convince the reader

or listener to adopt a

particular opinion or

course of action

A person who writes plays

Playwright

Shakespeare

The sequence

of events

in a story

PLOT

Point of ViewThe perspective, or vantage point, from which a story is told.

First-person point of view is toldby a character who uses the first-person pronoun “I.”

There are two kinds of third-person point of view called limited and omniscient. The narrator uses third-person pronouns such as he and she.

In stories told from the omniscient third-person point ofview, the narrator knows and tells about what each character feels and thinks.

In stories told from the limited third-person point ofview, the narrator relates the inner thoughts and feelings of only one character, and everything is viewed from this character’s perspective.

The ordinary

form of

written language

Prose