|
Act 
A major unit of a drama. A play may be subdivided into several acts. Many modern plays have two or three acts. A short play can be composed of one or more scenes but only one act.
See also Scene Alliteration 
The repetition of consonant sounds, usually at the beginnings of words or syllables. Alliteration gives emphasis to words.
Allusion
A reference in a work of literature to a well-known character, place, or situation in history, politics, or science or from another work of literature, music, or art.
Analogy
A comparison between two things, based on one or more elements that they share. Analogies can help the reader visualize an idea. In informational text, analogies are often used to explain something unfamiliar in terms of something known. For example, a science book might compare the flow of electricity to water moving through a hose. In literature, most analogies are expressed in metaphors or similes.
See also Metaphor, Simile Anecdote
A brief, entertaining story based on a single interesting or humorous incident or event. Anecdotes are frequently biographical and reveal some aspect of a person's character.
Antagonist
A person or force that opposes the protagonist, or central character, in a story or a drama.
The reader is generally meant not to sympathize with the antagonist.
See also Conflict, Protagonist Anthropomorphism
Representing animals as if they had human emotions and intelligence. Fables and fairy tales
often contain anthropomorphism.
Aside
In a play, a comment made by a character that is heard by the audience but not by the other characters onstage. The speaker turns to one side, or "aside," away from the other characters onstage. Asides are common in older plays—you will find many in Shakespeare's plays—but are infrequent in modern drama.
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds, especially in a line of poetry.
See also Rhyme, Sound Devices Author's purpose
The intention of the writer. For example, the purpose of a story may be to entertain, to
describe, to explain, to persuade, or a combination of these purposes.
Autobiography
The story of a person's life written by that person.
See also Biography, Memoir
Ballad
A short musical narrative song or poem. Folk ballads, which usually tell of an exciting or dramatic episode, were passed on by word of mouth for generations before being written down. Literary ballads
are written in imitation of folk ballads.
See also Narrative Poetry Biography
The account of a person's life written by someone other than the subject. Biographies can be
short or book-length.
See also Autobiography, Memoir
Character
A person in a literary work. (If a character is an animal, it displays human traits.) Characters who show varied and sometimes contradictory traits are called round. Characters who reveal only one personality trait are called flat. A stereotype is a flat character of a familiar and often-repeated type. A dynamic character changes during the story. A static character remains primarily the same throughout the story.
Characterization
The methods a writer uses to develop the personality of the character. In direct characterization, the writer makes direct statements about a character's personality. In indirect characterization, the writer reveals a character's personality through the character's words and actions and through what other characters think and say about the character.
Climax
The point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, or suspense in a narrative. Usually the climax comes at the turning point in a story or drama, the point at which the resolution of the conflict becomes clear.
Comedy
A type of drama that is humorous and has a happy ending. A heroic comedy focuses on the exploits of a larger-than-life hero. In American popular culture, comedy can take the form of a scripted performance involving one or more performers—either as a skit that is part of a variety show, as in vaudeville, or as a stand-up monologue.
See also Humor Conflict
The central struggle between opposing forces in a story or drama. An external conflict exists when a character struggles against some outside force, such as nature, society, fate, or another person. An internal conflict exists within the mind of a character who is torn between opposing feelings or goals.
See also Antagonist, Plot, Protagonist Consonance
A pleasing combination of sounds, especially in poetry. Consonance usually refers to the
repetition of consonant sounds in stressed syllables.
See also Sound Devices Couplet
Two successive lines of verse that form a unit and usually rhyme.
Description
Writing that seeks to convey the impression of a setting, a person, an animal, an object, or
an event by appealing to the senses. Almost all writing, fiction and nonfiction, contains elements of description.
Details
Particular features of things used to make descriptions more accurate and vivid. Authors use details to help readers imagine the characters, scenes, and actions they describe.
Dialect
A variation of language spoken by a particular group, often within a particular region. Dialects differ from standard language because they may contain different pronunciations, forms, and meanings.
Dialogue
Conversation between characters in a literary work.
See also Monologue Drama
A story intended to be performed by actors on a stage or before movie or TV cameras. Most dramas before the modern period can be divided into two basic types: tragedy and comedy. The script of a drama
includes dialogue (the words the actors speak) and stage directions (descriptions of the action and scenery).
See also Comedy, Tragedy
Elegy
A mournful or melancholy poem that honors someone who is dead. Some elegies are written in
rhyming couplets that follow a strict metric pattern.
Epic
A long narrative poem, written in a dignified style, that celebrates the adventures and achievements of one or more heroic figures of legend, history, or religion.
See also Narrative Poetry Essay
A short piece of nonfiction writing on a single topic. The purpose of the essay is to communicate an idea or opinion. A formal essay is serious and impersonal. An informal essay entertains while it informs, usually in a light conversational style.
Exposition
The part of the plot of a short story, novel, novella, or play in which the characters, setting, and situation are introduced.
Extended metaphor
An implied comparison that continues through an entire poem.
See also Metaphor
Fable
A short, simple tale that teaches a moral. The characters in a fable are often animals who speak and act like people. The moral, or lesson, of the fable is usually stated outright.
Falling action
In a play or story, the action that follows the climax.
See also Plot Fantasy
A form of literature that explores unreal worlds of the past, the present, or the future.
Fiction
A prose narrative in which situations and characters are invented by the writer. Some aspects of a fictional work may be based on fact or experience. Fiction includes short stories, novellas, and novels.
See also Novel, Novella, Short Story Figurative Language
Language used for descriptive effect, often to imply ideas indirectly. Expressions of figurative language are not literally true but express some truth beyond the literal level. Although it appears in all kinds of writing, figurative language is especially prominent in poetry.
See also Analogy, Figure Of Speech, Metaphor, Personification, Simile, Symbol Figure of speech
Figurative language of a specific kind, such as analogy, metaphor, simile or personification.
First-person narrative
See Point Of View Flashback
An interruption in a chronological narrative that tells about something that happened before that point in the story or before the story began. A flashback gives readers information that helps to explain the main events of the story.
Folklore
The traditional beliefs, customs, stories, songs, and dances of the ordinary people (the "folk") of a culture. Folklore is passed on by word of mouth and performance rather than in writing.
See also Folktale, Legend, Myth, Oral Tradition Folktale
A traditional story passed down orally long before being written down. Generally the author of a folktale is anonymous. Folktales include animal stories, trickster stories, fairy tales, myths, legends, and tall tales.
See also Legend, Myth, Oral Tradition, Tall Tale Foreshadowing
The use of clues by an author to prepare readers for events that will happen in a story.
Free verse
Poetry that has no fixed pattern of meter, rhyme, line length, or stanza arrangement.
See also Rhythm
Genre
A literary or artistic category. The main literary genres are prose, poetry, and drama. Each of these is divided into smaller genres. For example: Prose includes fiction (such as novels, novellas, short stories, and folktales) and nonfiction (such as biography, autobiography, and essays). Poetry includes lyric poetry,dramatic poetry, and narrative poetry. Drama includes tragedy, comedy, historical drama, melodrama, and farce.
Haiku
Originally a Japanese form of poetry that has three lines and seventeen syllables. The first and third lines have five syllables each; the middle line has seven syllables.
Hero
A literary work's main character, usually one with admirable qualities. Although the word hero is applied only to males in traditional usage (the female form is heroine), the term now applies to both sexes.
See also Legend, Myth, Protagonist, Tall Tale Historical fiction
A novel, novella, play, short story, or narrative poem that sets fictional characters against a historical backdrop and contains many details about the period in which it is set.
See also Genre Humor
The quality of a literary work that makes the characters and their situations seem funny, amusing, or ludicrous. Humorous writing can be as effective in nonfiction as in fiction.
See also Comedy
Idiom
A figure of speech that belongs to a particular language, people, or region and whose meaning cannot be obtained, and might even appear ridiculous, by joining the meanings of the words composing it. You would be using an idiom if you said you caught a cold.
Imagery
Language that emphasizes sensory impressions to help the reader of a literary work see, hear, feel, smell, and taste the scenes described in the work.
See also Figurative Language Informational text
One kind of nonfiction. This kind of writing conveys facts and information without introducing personal opinion.
Irony
A form of expression in which the intended meaning of the words used is the opposite of their literal meaning. Verbal irony occurs when a person says one thing and means another—for example, saying "Nice guy!" about someone you dislike. Situational irony occurs when the outcome of a situation is the opposite of what was expected.
Journal
An account of day-to-day events or a record of experiences, ideas, or thoughts. A journal may also be called a diary.
Legend
A traditional story, based on history or an actual hero, that is passed down orally. A legend is usually exaggerated and gains elements of fantasy over the years. Stories about Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett are American legends.
Limerick
A light humorous poem with a regular metrical scheme and a rhyme scheme of aabba.
See also Humor, Rhyme Scheme Local color
The fictional portrayal of a region's features or peculiarities and its inhabitants' distinctive ways of talking and behaving, usually as a way of adding a realistic flavor to a story.
Lyric
The words of a song, usually with a regular rhyme scheme.
See also Rhyme Scheme Lyric poetry
Poems, usually short, that express strong personal feelings about a subject or an event.
Main idea
The most important idea expressed in a paragraph or an essay. It may or may not be directly stated.
Memoir
A biographical or autobiographical narrative emphasizing the narrator's personal experience during a period or at an event.
See also Autobiography, Biography Metaphor
A figure of speech that compares or equates seemingly unlike things. In contrast to a simile, a metaphor implies the comparison instead of stating it directly; hence, there is no use of connectives such as like or as.
See also Figure Of Speech, Imagery, Simile Meter
A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that gives a line of poetry a predictable rhythm.
See also Rhythm Monologue
A long speech by a single character in a play or a solo performance.
Mood
The emotional quality or atmosphere of a story or poem.
See also Setting Myth
A traditional story of unknown authorship, often involving goddesses, gods, and heroes, that attempts to explain a natural phenomenon, a historic event, or the origin of a belief or custom.
Narration
Writing or speech that tells a story. Narration is used in prose fiction and narrative poetry. Narration can also be an important element in biographies, autobiographies, and essays.
Narrative poetry
Verse that tells a story.
Narrator
The person who tells a story. In some cases the narrator is a character in the story.
See also Point Of View Nonfiction
Factual prose writing. Nonfiction deals with real people and experiences. Among the categories of nonfiction are biographies, autobiographies, and essays.
See also Autobiography, Biography, Essay, Fiction Novel
A book-length fictional prose narrative. The novel has more scope than a short story in its presentation of plot, character, setting, and theme. Because novels are not subject to any limits in their presentation of these elements, they encompass a wide range of narratives.
See also Fiction Novella
A work of fiction shorter than a novel but longer than a short story. A novella usually has more characters, settings, and events and a more complex plot than a short story.
Ode
A lyric poem, usually rhymed, often in the form of an address and usually dignified or lofty in subject.
See also Lyric Poetry Onomatopoeia
The use of a word or a phrase that actually imitates or suggests the sound of what it describes.
See also Sound Devices Oral tradition
Stories, knowledge, customs, and beliefs passed by word of mouth from one generation to the next.
See also Folklore, Folktale, Legend, Myth
Parallelism
The use of a series of words, phrases, or sentences that have similar grammatical form. Parallelism emphasizes the items that are arranged in the similar structures.
See also Repetition Personification
A figure of speech in which an animal, object, or idea is given human form or characteristics.
See also Figurative Language, Figure Of Speech, Metaphor Plot
The sequence of events in a story, novel, or play. The plot begins with exposition, which introduces the story's characters, setting, and situation. The plot catches the reader's attention with a narrative hook. The rising action adds complications to the story's conflict, or problem, leading to the climax, or point of highest emotional pitch. The falling action is the logical result of the climax, and the resolution presents the final outcome.
Plot twist
An unexpected turn of events in a plot. A surprise ending is an example of a plot twist.
Poetry
A form of literary expression that differs from prose in emphasizing the line as the unit of composition. Many other traditional characteristics of poetry—emotional, imaginative language; use of metaphor and simile; division into stanzas; rhyme; regular pattern of stress, or meter—apply to some poems.
Point of view
The relationship of the narrator, or storyteller, to the story. In a story with first-person
point of view, the story is told by one of the characters, referred to as "I." The reader generally sees everything through that character's eyes. In a story with a limited third-person point of view, the narrator reveals the thoughts of only one character, but refers to that character as "he" or "she." In a story with an omniscient point of view, the narrator reveals the thoughts of several characters.
Props
Theater slang (a shortened form of properties) for objects and elements of the scenery of a stage play or movie set.
Propaganda
Speech, writing, or other attempts to influence ideas or opinions, often through the use of stereotypes, faulty generalizations, logical fallacies, and/or emotional language.
Prose
Writing that is similar to everyday speech and language, as opposed to poetry. Its form is based on sentences and paragraphs without the patterns of rhyme, controlled line length, or meter found in much poetry. Fiction and nonfiction are the major categories of prose. Most modern drama is also written in prose.
See also Drama, Essay, Fiction, Nonfiction Protagonist
The central character in a story, drama, or dramatic poem. Usually the action revolves around the protagonist, who is involved in the main conflict.
See also Conflict, Antagonist Pun
A humorous play on two or more meanings of the same word or on two words with the same sound. Today puns often appear in advertising headlines and slogans—for example, "Our hotel rooms give you suite feelings."
See also Humor
Refrain
A line or lines repeated regularly, usually in a poem or song.
Repetition
The recurrence of sounds, words, phrases, lines, or stanzas in a speech or piece of writing. Repetition increases the feeling of unity in a work. When a line or stanza is repeated in a poem or song, it is called a refrain.
See also Parallelism, Refrain Resolution
The part of a plot that concludes the falling action by revealing or suggesting the outcome of the conflict.
Rhyme
The repetition of sounds at the ends of words that appear close to each other in a poem. End rhyme occurs at the ends of lines. Internal rhyme occurs within a single line. Slant rhyme occurs when words include sounds that are similar but not identical. Slant rhyme usually involves some variation of consonance (the repetition of consonant sounds) or assonance (the repetition of vowel sounds).
Rhyme Scheme
The pattern of rhyme formed by the end rhyme in a poem. The rhyme scheme is designated by the assignment of a different letter of the alphabet to each new rhyme. For example, one common rhyme scheme is ababcb.
Rhythm
The pattern created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables, especially in poetry. Rhythm gives poetry a musical quality that helps convey its meaning. Rhythm can be regular (with a predictable pattern or meter) or irregular (as in free verse).
See also Meter Rising action
The part of a plot that adds complications to the problems in the story and increases reader interest.
See also Falling Action, Plot
Scene
A subdivision of an act in a play. Each scene takes place in a specific setting and time. An act may have one or more scenes.
See also Act Science fiction
Fiction dealing with the impact of real science or imaginary superscience on human or alien societies of the past, present, or future. Although science fiction is mainly a product of the twentieth century, nineteenth-century authors such as Mary Shelley, Jules Verne, and Robert Louis Stevenson were pioneers of the genre.
Screenplay
The script of a film, usually containing detailed instructions about camera shots and angles in addition to dialogue and stage directions. A screenplay for an original television show is called a teleplay.
See also Drama Sensory imagery
Language that appeals to a reader's five senses: hearing, sight, touch, taste, and smell.
See also Visual Imagery Sequence of events
The order in which the events in a story take place
Setting
The time and place in which the events of a short story, novel, novella, or play occur. The setting often helps create the atmosphere or mood of the story.
Short story
A brief fictional narrative in prose. Elements of the short story include plot, character, setting, point of view, theme, and sometimes symbol and irony.
Simile
A figure of speech using like or as to compare seemingly unlike things.
See also Figurative Language, Figure Of Speech Sound devices
Techniques used to create a sense of rhythm or to emphasize particular sounds in writing. For example, sound can be controlled through the use of onomatopoeia, alliteration, consonance, assonance, and rhyme.
See also Rhythm Speaker
The voice of a poem—sometimes that of the poet, sometimes that of a fictional person or even a thing. The speaker's words communicate a particular tone or attitude toward the subject of the poem.
Stage directions
Instructions written by the dramatist to describe the appearance and actions of characters, as well as sets, costumes, and lighting.
Stanza
A group of lines forming a unit in a poem. Stanzas are, in effect, the paragraphs of a poem.
Stereotype
A character who is not developed as an individual but as a collection of traits and mannerisms supposedly shared by all members of a group.
Style
The author's choice and arrangement of words and sentences in a literary work. Style can reveal an author's purpose in writing and attitude toward his or her subject and audience.
Suspense
A feeling of curiosity, uncertainty, or even dread about what is going to happen next. Writers increase the level of suspense in a story by giving readers clues to what may happen.
See also Foreshadowing, Rising Action Symbol
Any object, person, place, or experience that means more than what it is. Symbolism is the use of images to represent internal realities.
Tall tale
A wildly imaginative story, usually passed down orally, about the fantastic adventures or amazing feats of folk heroes in realistic local settings.
See also Folklore, Oral Tradition Teleplay
A play written or adapted for television.
Theme
The main idea of a story, poem, novel, or play, usually expressed as a general statement. Some works have a stated theme, which is expressed directly. More frequently works have an implied theme, which is revealed gradually through other elements such as plot, character, setting, point of view, symbol, and irony.
Third-person narrative
See Point Of View Title
The name of a literary work.
Tone
The attitude of the narrator toward the subject, ideas, theme, or characters. A factual article would most likely have an objective tone, while an editorial on the same topic could be argumentative or satiric.
Tragedy
A play in which the main character suffers a downfall. That character often is a person of dignified or heroic stature. The downfall may result from outside forces or from a weakness within the character, which is known as a tragic flaw.
Visual imagery
Details that appeal to the sense of sight.
Voice
An author's distinctive style or the particular speech patterns of a character in a story.
|
