AllegoryA symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning. Allegory often takes the form of a story in which the characters represent moral qualities.Example: Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan. 

AlliterationThe repetition of the same sound in several words in sequence, especially at the beginning of words.Example: “Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood.” Gerard Manley Hopkins

AllusionA brief, often indirect, reference to a person, place, or event that is part of the common knowledge of the reading audience.Example: In “The Hollow Men,” by T.S. Eliot, “gathered on this beach of the tumid river” is an allusion to the lost souls who cannot cross into Hell in Dante’s Inferno.

Anadiplosis (“doubling back”):The rhetorical repetition of one or several words; specifically, repetition of a word that ends one clause at the beginning of the next.Example: “Men in great place are thrice servants: servants of the sovereign or state; servants of fame; and servants of business.” Francis Bacon

Analogy:Method of expression by which one unfamiliar object or idea is explained by comparing its similarities with other objects or ideas more familiarExample: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.” Douglas Adams

AnaphoraThe repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses or lines.

Example: “We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we

shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills. We shall never surrender.” Winston Churchill.

AnastropheTransposition of normal word order. Anastrophe is a form of hyperbaton.

Example: “The helmsman steered; the ship moved on; yet never a breeze up blew.” Samuel Talyor Coleridge

AntagonistA character or force against which another character struggles. 

Example: Creon is Antigone's antagonist in Sophocles' play Antigone.

Anti-HeroA protagonist who stands against the tradition of moral, spiritual, or intellectual qualities associated with one of his stature.

Example: Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment  is an Anti-Hero.

AntistropheRepetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive clauses.

Example: “In 1931, ten years ago, Japan invaded Manchukuo—without warning. In 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia—without warning. In 1938, Hitler occupied Austria—without warning. In 1939, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia—without warning. Later in 1939, Hitler invaded Poland—without warning. And now Japan has attacked Malaya and Thailand—and the United States—without warning.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

AntithesisOpposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction.

Example “Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.” Barry Goldwater  

ApostropheAn address to an absent specific group, person, or personified abstraction.

Example: “For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar's angel. Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him.” William Shakespeare Archaism Use of an older or obsolete form.

Example: “Pipit sate upright in her chair.” T.S. Eliot

ArchetypeA recurring pattern of plot, theme, or character type drawn from the collective unconscious.

Example: Neo from The Matrix is a Christ-figure.

AssonanceThe repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose.

Example: “Dead in the middle of little Italy, little did we know that we riddled two middle men who didn't do diddily.” Christopher “Big Pun” Rios

Asyndeton: lack of conjunctions between coordinate phrases, clauses, or words.

Example: “But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground.” Abraham Lincoln

AtmosphereThe setting evoked or created the imagination of the reader through description of person, place, or thing in a story.

AubadeA love poem in which the speaker complains about the arrival of the dawn, when he must part from his lover. John Donne's “The Sonne Rising” and Philip Larkin’s brilliantly named “Aubade” are excellent examples.

Ballad

A narrative poem written in four-line stanzas, generally rhymed xAyA characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style.Example: “In Scarlett Town where I was born/There was a fair maid dwellin’/Made every youth cry “well away”/and her name was Barbra Allen.”

Blank verseA line of poetry in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare's plays, Milton's epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and Robert Frost's long narrative poems such as “Home Burial” include many lines of blank verse.Example: “She took a doubtful step and then undid it/To raise herself and look again. He spoke.” Robert Frost CacophonyThe use of inharmonious sounds in close conjunction for effect. Example: “Black cacophonous flocks” Sylvia Plath

CaesuraA strong pause within a line of verse.Example “He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,/Off-hand-like—just as I—/Was out of work—had sold his traps—/No other reason why.” Thomas Hardy

Caricature A character possessing a single dominant trait which is exaggerated or carried to an extreme.

Example: Professor Snape in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

CatachresisA harsh metaphor involving the use of a word beyond its strict sphere.

Example: “I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear.” Douglas MacArthur

CatastropheThe final stage in the falling action of a tragedy which usually involves the death of the hero and others. 

CatharsisIn classical tragedy, the purging of emotions of pity and fear excited by the tragic action.

CharacterAn imaginary person that inhabits a literary work. Literary characters may be major or minor, static (unchanging) or dynamic (capable of change).

CharacterizationThe means by which writers present and reveal character. Although techniques of characterization are complex, writers typically reveal characters through their speech, dress, manner, and actions.

Chiasmus Two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels (a-b-a-b) but in inverted order (a-b-b-a); from shape of the Greek letter chi (X).

Example: “Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always.” Douglas MacArthur

ClimaxThe turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story after which things cannot return to normalcy.  Example: When Harry and Ron go to save Hermione from the troll in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

Closed formA type of form or structure in poetry characterized by regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, and metrical pattern. Example: Sonnet, Sestina, Villanelle, Ballad stanza, Spenserian Stanza, etc. Comic ReliefThe element inserted into a somber work to relieve tension. Example: The Fool in King Lear

ComplicationAn intensification of the conflict in a story or play that upsets the balance and sets the plot in motion. 

ConflictA struggle between opposing forces in a story or play, which provides the elements of interest and suspense, that is usually resolved by the end of the work. The conflict may occur within a character as well as between characters. 

ConnotationThe associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning.

Example: “Do you think I meant country matters?” William Shakespeare 

ConventionA customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme scheme in a villanelle. Literary conventions are defining features of particular literary genres, such as novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play.

CoupletA pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem. 

Example: “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings/That then I scorn to change my state with kings.” William Shakespeare

CynicalMarked by suspicion or distrust, particularly with regard to the motives of others

DenotationThe dictionary meaning of a word. Writers typically play off a word's denotative meaning against its Connotation.

Example: “Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.”/“Mother, you have my father much offended.” Shakespeare

DenouementThe resolution of the plot of a literary work. 

Example: The denouement of Hamlet takes place after the catastrophe, with the stage littered with corpses. 

DialectMarked differences in speech patterns among groups speaking the same language.

Example: “Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,/O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!” Robert Burns

DialogueThe conversation of characters in a literary work. In fiction, dialogue is typically enclosed within quotation marks. In plays, characters' speech is preceded by their names.

DictionThe selection of words in a literary work. A work's diction forms one of its centrally important literary elements, as writers use words to convey action, reveal character, imply attitudes, identify themes, and suggest values. Diction can be particular to a character, as in Iago's and Desdemona's very different ways of speaking in Othello. Diction can also refer to a poet's diction as represented over the body of his or her work, as in John Donne's or Sylvia Plath's diction.

Dramatic IronyThe words or acts of a character which carry meaning unperceived by himself but understood by the audience.

Example: When Romeo kills himself though the audience knows Juliet is alive.

Dynamic CharacterA character who is changed by the actions through which he passes or in which he is involved.

ElegyA lyric poem that laments the dead. 

Example: “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden; “In Memory

of William Butler Yeats” and “Funeral Blues” by W.H. Auden; and “In Memoriam,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

EmotionalAroused or agitated in feeling.

EnjambmentA run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line in which the grammatical and logical sense is completed within the line. A breaking of meaning over two lines.

Example: “what could be more beaut-/-iful than these heroic happy dead” e.e. cummings

EpicA long narrative poem that records the adventures of a hero. Epics typically chronicle the origins of a civilization and embody its central values. 

Example: Iliad and Odyssey, by Homer; Aeneid, by Vergil; and Paradise Lost by John Milton.

EpigramA brief witty poem, often satirical. 

Example: “I am his Highness' dog at Kew;/Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?” Alexander Pope

ExplicationAnalysis of the meanings, relationships, and ambiguities of words, images, etc. that make up a literary work.

ExpositionThe first stage of a fictional or dramatic plot, in which necessary background information is provided.

Extended MetaphorAn implied comparison which serves as the controlling image for an entire work.

EuphemismSubstitution of an agreeable or at least non-offensive expression for

one whose plainer meaning might be harsh or unpleasant.

Example: To say “kicked the bucket” instead of “died.”

Euphony The use of compatible, harmonious sounds to produce a pleasing, melodious sound.

Example: “Let us go then you and I/while the evening is spread out against the sky” T.S. Eliot

Falling actionIn the plot of a story or play, the action following the climax of the work that moves it towards its denouement or resolution.

FictionAn imagined story, whether in prose, poetry, or drama.

Figurative languageA form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words. 

Example (not exhaustive): Allegory, Allusion, Hyperbole, Imagery, Litotes, Metaphor, Metonymy, Simile, and Synecdoche.

FlashbackAn interruption of a work's Chronology to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time frame of a work's action. Writers use flashbacks to complicate the sense of Chronology in the Plot of their works and to convey the richness of the experience of human time.Example: Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Flat CharacterA one-or-two dimensional character who may be striking or interesting but lacks depth.

FoilA character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story. 

Example: Laertes in Hamlet.

ForeshadowingHints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story. 

Example: “A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.” William Shakespeare

Free versePoetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. 

GenreDistinct types or category of literature which has the same formal or technical characteristics.

Example: Epic poetry, Science Fiction, Detective Fiction, Theatre of the Absurd

Gothic NovelA work of fiction in which magic, mystery, and chivalry are the chief characteristic 

Example: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë 

HamartiaA Tragic Flaw HendiadysUse of two words connected by a conjunction, instead of subordinating one to the other, to express a single complex idea.

Example: It sure is nice and cool today! HyperboleA figure of speech involving exaggeration. The opposite of litotes.

Example: “An hundred years should got to praise/Thine eyes and on thine forehead gaze” Andrew Marvell

Hysteron Proteron Inversion of the natural sequence of events, often meant to stress the event which, though later in time, is considered the more important.

Example: Put on your shoes and socks!

Internal RhymeA rhyme within a line of poetry.

Example: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary” Edgar Allan Poe

ImageA concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. Imagery refers to the pattern of related details in a work. In some works one image predominates either by recurring throughout the work or by appearing at a critical point in the plot. Often writers use multiple images throughout a work to suggest states of feeling and to convey implications of thought and action. 

Example: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd;/Petals on a wet, black bough.” Ezra Pound

IronyA contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature. See Dramatic Irony; Irony of Circumstance; and Verbal Irony.

IdyllLyric poetry describing the life of a shepherd in pastoral, bucolic, idealistic terms.

JuxtapositionThe placement of images, scenes, patterns of events etc., in close proximity in a text for effect.

LegendA narrative handed down from the past which is often based in some historical truth or past experience. 

Literal languageA form of language in which writers and speakers mean exactly what their words denote.

LitotesUnderstatement, for intensification, by denying the contrary of the thing being affirmed. The opposity of hyperbole.

Example: “War is not healthy for children and other living things.” Lorraine Schneider

Local ColorWriting which exploits speech, dress, mannerisms, topography peculiar to a region. Example: Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey and Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

Lyric poemA poem that describes an object, person, state-of-being, or emotion.

MetaphorA direct comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as.

Example: “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.” Winston Churchill

Metaphysical Poetry A poem which is analytical, intellectual, and psychological in its expression of the complexities and contradictions of life.

Example: John Donne’s poetry.

MeterThe measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems. See below:                Falling meter                Poetic meters such as Trochaic and Dactylic that move or fall from a stressed to an unstressed syllable.                  Rising meter                Poetic meters such as iambic and anapestic that move or ascend from an unstressed to a stressed syllable.                Foot                A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, an iamb or iambic foot is  represented by _ / or u / that is, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one.                Anapest                 Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one, as in com-pre-HEND or in-ter-VENE.

                Dactyl                A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones, as in FLUT-ter-ing or BLUE-ber-ry.                Iamb                An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in to-DAY.                  Pyrrhic                A metrical foot with two unstressed syllables as in of the.                Spondee                A metrical foot represented by two stressed syllables, such as KNICK-KNACK.                Trochee                An accented syllable followed by an unaccented one, as in PIZ-za.

MetonymyA figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or idea. 

Example: “We have always remained loyal to the crown.” 

MonologueAn extended speech by one person directed at a specific audience; can be Internal (not spoken to anyone [Soliloquy in Drama]) or Dramatic (spoken to someone).

Examples: Interior: “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot; Dramatic: “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning.

MoodWhat the reader feels in response to the setting.

Moral SettingThe ethical, spiritual, social, and emotional environment of a story.  The world-view.

MotifA recurring character, incident, object, or idea in various works or within a single work.

Example: Snowden in Catch-22 and the Waste Land in The Great Gatsby.

MotivationJustification for the actions of a character.

MythAnonymous stories which present supernatural episodes often with an eye towards explaining natural events.

Example: the myth of Arachne.

Narrative poemA poem that tells a story.

NarratorThe voice and implied speaker of a fictive literary work, to be distinguished from the actual living author. 

NaturalismApplication of the principles of scientific determinism to literature.

OctaveAn eight-line unit, which may constitute a stanza; or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet.

Ode A long, stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form. 

Omniscient Point of view which reveals the inner feelings and thoughts of the characters in the work.

OnomatopoeiaThe use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz and crack are onomatopoetic. 

Example: “murmur of innumerable bees” Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Open formA type of structure or form in poetry characterized by freedom from regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, metrical pattern, and overall poetic structure. 

OptimisticPutting the most favorable cast upon actions and events

OxymoronApparent paradox achieved by the juxtaposition of words which seem to contradict one another.

Example: “I must be cruel only to be kind.” William Shakespeare

ParadoxAn assertion seemingly opposed to common sense, but that may yet have some truth in it.

Example: “What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.” George Bernard Shaw ParaprosdokianSurprise or unexpected ending of a phrase or series.

Example: “Till human voices wake us and we drown.” T.S. Eliot

ParodyA humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often playful and even respectful in its playful imitation. 

ParonomasiaUse of similar sounding words; often etymological word-play.

Example: “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a grave man.” William Shakespeare

PersonaThe stylized voice of the narrator.

PersonificationThe endowment of creatures, inanimate objects or abstract concepts with human qualities.

Example: “England expects every man to do his duty.” Lord Nelson

PessimisticEmphasizing adverse aspects

PlotThe unified structure of incidents in a literary work. The series of events that lead from the beginning of a story to the end.

Point of viewThe angle of vision from which a story is narrated. This can be: First Person, in which the narrator is a character or an observer; Second Person, in which the narrator is speaking as if the reader is a character; Third Person, in which the narrator speaks as if telling a story about a set of characters.  A Point of View can be either Limited, in which the narrator does not know the thoughts and feelings of the characters and does not know all the events that will happen; or Omniscient, in which the narrator knows the events that will happen and the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

PolysyndetonThe repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses.

Example: “And I want to eat at a table with my own silver and I want candles. And I want it to be spring and I want to brush my hair out in front of a mirror and I want a kitty and I want some new clothes.” Ernest Hemingway

ProtagonistThe main character of a literary work.

Example: Hamlet in Hamlet

QuatrainA four-line stanza in a poem.

RealismLiterature that eschews fantastic and speculative events.

RecognitionThe point at which a character understands his or her situation as it really is. 

Example:Gloucester’s discovery that Edmund has been lying to him after he is blinded by Regan andCornwall.

ResolutionThe sorting out or unraveling of a plot at the end of a play, novel, or story. See Denouement.

ReversalThe point at which the action of the plot turns in an unexpected direction for the protagonist. 

Example: Ophelia’s death in Hamlet.

RhymeA similarity between two or more words.  Often the matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. 

Example: “Whenever Richard Cory went down town,/We people on the pavement looked at him;/He was a gentleman from sole to crown/Clean favored and imperially slim.” EdwinArlington Robinson

RhythmThe recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse.  See Meter.

Rising actionA set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play's or story's plot leading up to the climax. See Climax, Denouement, and Plot.

RomanticismA movement in art, literature, philosophy, and music that emphasizes feeling and anecdotal experience over knowledge and evidence that began as a revolt to Classicism.

Round CharacterA complex character possessing a variety of personality traits.

SatireA literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. 

Example: The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope

SestetA six-line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem; the last six lines of an Italian sonnet.

Sestina

A closed-form poem of thirty-nine lines invented by Arnaut Daniel. Its six sestets repeat the final word in each line in an intricate and prescribed order. After the sixth stanza, there is a three-line envoi, which uses the six repeating words, two per line.

Example: “Sestina: Altaforte” by Ezra Pound

SettingThe time and place of a literary work that establish its context.

SimileA figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using comparative words like “like,” “as,” or “though.” 

Example: “We wished our two souls/might return like gulls/to the rock.” Robert Lowell

Slant RhymeAn incomplete rhyme in which either the consonant sounds are similar while the vowel sounds have changed or vice versa.

Example: “Come live with me and be my love/and we will all the mercies prove” Christopher Marlowe

Soliloquy A Monologue in which a character expresses otherwise private thoughts and emotions.

Example: the “Out—out” speech in Macbeth

SonnetA closed-form poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter. The two most common sonnet forms in English are Shakespearean and Petrarchan.   Shakespearean or English sonnet is arranged as three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet divides into two parts: an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming ABBAABBA and some variation of CDECDE.

StanzaA division or unit of a poem.  Stanzas either have identical patterns of rhyme, meter, or line length (Regular Stanzas) or variations from one stanza to another (Irregular Stanzas).  Irregular stanzas may also be called Strophes.

Static CharacterA character who may be affected by the events of the story but whose nature remains relatively unchanged.

Example: Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings

Stock Character A conventional character type belonging by custom to given forms of literature.

Stream of ConsciousnessA depiction of the thoughts and feelings of the narrator with no apparent regard to logic or structure.

Example: Less than Zero by BretEaston Ellis

StyleThe way an author chooses words, arranges them in sentences or in lines of dialogue or verse, and develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary techniques. See: Connotation, Denotation, Diction, Figurative Language, Imagery, Irony, Metaphor, Narrator, Point of view, Syntax, and Tone.

SubjectWhat a story or play is about; to be distinguished from plot and theme. 

SubjectiveBelonging to a reality as perceived by the mind.  Allowing feelings toward a subject to color perception of it.

SubplotA subsidiary, subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story that coexists with the main plot. 

Example: The story of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern forms a subplot with the overall plot of Hamlet.

SyllepsisUse of a word with two others, with each of which it is understood differently.

“We must all hang together or assuredly we will all hang separately.” Benjamin Franklin

SymbolAn object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself. 

SynecdocheA figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole. 

Example: “I should have been a pair of ragged claws/Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.” T. S. Eliot

SyntaxThe grammatical order of words in a sentence or line of prose, verse, or dialogue. The organization of words, phrases and clauses in sentences of prose, verse, and dialogue. Syntax may be regular, complex, inverted, etc.

Example (Inverted Syntax): “Whose woods these are I think I know.” Robert Frost

TercetA three-line stanza.

ThemeThe idea, thesis, or moral lesson of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization. 

ToneThe implied attitude or relationship of a writer toward the subject and characters of his work/audience.

Example: Flannery O'Connor's ironic tone in her short story “Good Country People.” 

TragicImbued with a sense of man’s ultimate defeat by himself, his flaws, or some larger force.

Tragic FlawA defect in the hero the causes his downfall.  See Hamartia

UnderstatementA figure of speech in which a writer or speaker says less than what he or she means; the opposite of exaggeration. 

Example: “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.” Robert Frost

UnityThe quality achieved by an artistic work when its elements are so interrelated as to a complete whole.

UniversitalityThe quality that denotes elements of character and theme which appeal to all people in all places and for all time.

VillanelleA closed-form nineteen-line poem that relies heavily on repetition. The first and third lines alternate throughout the poem, which is structured in six stanzas of five tercets and a concluding quatrain. 

Examples: “One Art,” by Elizabeth Bishop, “Mad Girl’s Love Song” by Sylvia Plath, “The Waking,” by Theodore Roethke, and “Do Not Go Gentle” by Dylan Thomas.

ZeugmaTwo different words linked to a verb or an adjective which is strictly appropriate to only one of them.

Example: “Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn/The living record of your memory.” William Shakespeare