Unit 1 Literary Terms
Terms
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- alliteration
- The repitition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together.
- allusion
- A reference to someone or something that is known form hitory, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or some other branch of culture.
- aphorism
- A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life.
- apostrophe
- A technique by which a writer address an inanimate object, an idea, or a person who is either ded or absent.
- autobiography
- An account of the writer's own life.
- blank verse
- poetry written in unrhymed iambic pantameter.
- conceit
- An elaborate metaphor or other figure of speech that compares two things that are startlingly different.
- connotation
- The associates and emotional overtones that have bcome attacked to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.
- consonance
- The repitition of the same or similar final consonant sounds on accented syllables or in important words.
- couplet
- Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.
- extended metaphor
- A type of a figure of speech that is developed over several lines or with several examples.
- figure of speech
- A word or phrase that describes on thing in terms of another and that is not meant to be taken literally.
- iambic pentameter
- A line of poetry that contains five iambic feet.
- inversion
- The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.
- meter
- A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.
- onomatopoeia
- The use of a worded whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning.
- oxymoron
- A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase.
- paradox
- A statement that appears self-contradictory but that reveals a kind of truth.
- personification
- A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes
- petrarchan sonnet
- A fourteenline poem, usually written in iabmic pentameter, with the frist eitht lines called the octave, asking a question or posing a problem. Final six lines respond to the question or problem.
- plain style
- A way of writing that stresses simplicity and clarity of expression.
- satire
- A type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attemmpt to bring about a change.
- sestet
- Six lines of poetry, especially the last six lines of a Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet.
- simile
- A figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles.
- synecdoche
- A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole.
- tragic flaw
- A personality failure in a character.