A Word document with these terms can be downloaded using the link at the bottom of the page.
Note: all terms marked with a * will be included on a second test toward the end of the semester in which you will provide an example from our readings this semester. Examples provided in these definitions cannot be used for this test; you must find your own examples.
Genre and Form Terms
Genre—a kind or type of literature
Prose—writing that closely resembles the patterns of everyday speech; it is organized by sentences and paragraphs; contrasted with POETRY
*Poetry—writing that conveys heightened forms of perception, experience, meaning, or consciousness in heightened language. While prose is organized by sentences and paragraphs, poetry is sentences organized into lines and stanzas. Poetry is designed: it makes conscious use of sound, image, meaning, rhythm, and structure to achieve its goal. Contrasted with PROSE
*Drama—a story told in action by actors who impersonate the characters.
*Fiction—imaginative prose that tells a story
*Novel—a work of fiction of some length, generally involving multiple characters and frequently including subplots in addition to the main plot; the time frame for a novel’s action is often extended and can encompass an entire lifetime or multiple generations
*Short Story—relatively short work of fiction, with the goal of revealing a character, as opposed to being focused on events
Drama Terms
Act—a major division of a play
Scene—a subdivision of an act
Unities—from Greek tragedy, the concept that a play would have the “unities” or singleness of time (the action takes place in one day), of place (one setting is used), and of action (there is a single focus to the events; there are no subplots). This concept is not often followed exactly in modern drama, but it does reflect the limitations inherent in drama as distinct from prose fiction or from film.
*Stage Directions—notes to the actors and director describing sets and movements of the characters; these are not read aloud when the play is performed.
Props—short for properties, the physical items used in the performance of a play; for instance, a magazine that a character reads.
Language/Poetry Terms
*Alliteration—the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words: a choir of clothes clapping on the line. Note that it is sound being repeated, and not necessarily letters; thus, circle slowly is alliterative, but cut the silence is not.
*Assonance—repetition of middle vowel sounds: glowing white, golden-haired among the crowd.
*Allusion—an author’s deliberate incorporation of identifiable elements from other sources with the goal of enriching the meaning of the text. Allusion assumes a common body of knowledge between the author and the reader. Note: direct references to God are not allusions, but a reference to something in the Bible (e.g., the burning bush) would be. Example: Oscar Wilde’s reference to Simon on Galilee in “E Tenebris”
Connotation—the ideas, attitudes, or emotions associated with a word in the mind of the speaker or listener, writer or reader. It is contrasted with DENOTATION.
Denotation—the thing that a word stands for, the dictionary definition, an objective concept without emotional coloring. It is contrasted with CONNOTATION.
*Enjambment—when a sentence, or sense of a phrase, does not stop at the end of a line in either its grammatical sense or meaning. When meaning does not coincide with the meter and line breaks of a poem, it gives the reader a mixed message: line breaks tell the reader to stop, but the continuation of a thought to the next line tells the reader to go on. This mixed message calls greater attention to the word at the end of the enjambed line. Sometimes enjambment occurs because of the constraints of meter; that is, the line must stop at a particular word to keep the meter of the poem intact. Other times, enjambment occurs because of a conscious decision on the part of the poet to end a line with a particular word. Often, both of these forces are at work in the creation of line breaks in the poem.
*Metaphor—a comparison that treats one thing as if it were something else: the sea of faith
*Simile—a metaphor stating a comparison by use of like, as, or as if: my love is like a red, red rose
*Irony—the perception of a clash between appearance and reality, between seems and is, or between ought and is.
Meter—the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
*Rhyme scheme—the pattern made by the rhymes of rhymed verse.
Stanza—a section of lines in a poem, often with a set rhyme scheme; they provide a structure for the poem.
Line—the basic unit of a poem
*Lyric Poem—a shorter poem emphasizing sound and pictorial imagery rather than narrative or dramatic movement. Note that the word “song” in the title of a poem does not mean that it is a lyric. The emphasis of the poem determines whether or not it is a lyric. Thus, this usage of the word is distinguished from the use of lyric as the name for the words of a song.
*Sonnet—a verse form of 14 lines with a set rhyme scheme. In English, it is characteristically in iambic pentameter and most often in one of two rhyme schemes: the Italian (or Petrarchan) or Shakespearean (or English). An Italian sonnet is composed of an 8-line section (octave), rhyming abbaabba, and a 6-line section (sestet), rhyming cdecde or cdcdcd, with no closing couplet. A Shakespearean sonnet has three 4-line groupings (quatrains) and a couplet (2 rhyming lines); the scheme is abab cdcd efef gg.
Narrative and Prose Terms
Note: a number of these terms apply to drama as well.
Character—a person in a story (applies to other forms of literature as well)
Protagonist/hero—the character intended to receive the reader’s sympathy
Antagonist/villain—the character who opposes the protagonist
Plot—the order of events
Setting—the time and place of the story
Narration—the telling of events
Narrator—the one telling the story
Point of view—the perspective from which the narrative/story is told; it can be:
- Third person—the narrator is outside the action; it can be:
*Omniscient—the narrator knows all about all characters and events; can reveal the thoughts and emotions of multiple characters
*Limited—inside the thoughts of only one character, but may reveal the actions of multiple characters
- *First person—the narrator is a character within the narrative; automatically limited
- *Stream of consciousness—the action is told completely from within a character’s perspective, with an emphasis on the thoughts of the character; often characterized by randomness and lack of order and logic
Dialogue—conversations between characters
*Flashback—a movement back in time from the present of the story
