Exam+Review

Exam Review:

1. __Act__: A major unit of drama. A play can be subdivided into several acts. Shakespeare's //Macbeth// is divided into five acts. 2. __Allegory__: A literary work in which all or most of the characters, settings, and events symbolize ideas, qualities, or figures beyond themselves. The overall purpose of an allegory is to teach a moral lesson. Lord of the Flies is an example of an allegory. 3. __Alliteration__: Sound device using repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words, in a verse line; used for rhythm and memory 4. __Allusion__: A reference in a work of literature to a well-known person, place, event, written work, or work of art. Discovering the meaning of an allusion can often be essential to the understanding of a work. 5. __Anecdote__: A short written or oral account of an event in a real person's life. Essay writers often use anecdotes to support their opinions or clarify their ideas, to grab a reader's attention. 6. __Antithesis__: words and phrases with opposite meanings balanced against each other: "To err is human, to forgive is divine. 7. __Apostrophe:__ A literary device in which a speaker talks directly to an inanimate object, a person who is absent or dead, or an abstract quality, such as love.  8. __Assonance__: The repetititon of the same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds.  9. __Ballad__: A short musical narrative song or poem that in most cases recounts a single exciting or dramatic episode. Folk ballads were passed down by word of mouth for generations before being written down.  10. __Blank verse__: Poetry or lines of dramatic verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. In this verse form, each line is divided into five units, or feet, with stress falling on every second syllable.  11. __Caesura__: An obvious pause in a line of poetry. It is usually found near the middle of a line, with two stressed syllables before and two after, acrating a strong rhythm. A caesura can be indicated by (//) double slashes. 12. __Characterization__: The methods used to reveal the personality of a character. In direct characterization, the author describes a character's personality. In indirect characterization: the author suggests traits through a character's words, actions, or appearance, as well as through the reactsions of other characters to the peson being portrayed. 13. __Conflict__: The central struggle between two opposing forces in a story or drama. An external conflict exists when a character struggles against some otuside force, such as another person, nature, society, or fate. An internal conflict is a struggle that takes place within the mind of a character who is torn between opposing feelings or goals. 14. __Connotation:__ The suggested or implied meanings associated with a word beyond its dictionary definition, or denotation. Words can have a positive, negative, or neutral connotation. 15. __Consonance__: The repetition of consonant sounds, typically within or at the end of nonrhyming words, as in the d sounds in : the blood- dimmed tide is loosed. 16. __Couplet__, rhyming: Two lines of rhymed verse that work together as a unit to express an idea or make a point. 17. __Denotation__: The literal, or dictionary, meaning of word. 18. __Details:__ an individual part or item 19. __Dialect__: A way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or group of people. DIalects may differ from the standard form of language in pronunciation, vocabulary, or grammar. 20. __Dialogue__: Conversation between characters in a literary work. 21. __Diction__: The author's word choice, or use of appropriate words to convey a particular meainging. Good writers choose their words carefully to express their intended meaning precisely. 22. __Epilogue__: A concluding statement or section added to a work of literature. 23. __Figures of speech__: A specific device or kind of figurative language such as metaphor, personification, simile, or symbol. 24. __Flashback__: A narrative passage set in an earlier time that interrupts the chronological order of the rest of a story. Flashbacks allow writers to go back in time to explain what has happened previously, giving readers information that may help explain the main events of a story. 26. Foreshadowing: The author's use of hints or clues to prepare readers for events that will happen later in a narrative. 27. End rhyme: rhyme that occurs at the end of a line. 28. Elegy: serious poem of lament usually mourning a death or other great loss. 29. Enjambment: The continuation of a sentence from one line of a poem to another. Poets use enjambment to emphasize rhyming words. 30. Epic poetry: A long narrative poem that recounts, in formal language, the exploits of a larger than life hero. 31. Epilogue: A concluding statement or section added to a work of literature. 32. Free verse: Poetry that has no fixed pattern or meter, rhyme, line length, or stanza arrangement; it generally imitates natural forms of speech. 33. Hyperbole: A figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion, make a point, or evoke humor. 34. Imagery: The "word pictures" that writers create to help evoke an emotional response in readers. In creating effective images, writers use sensory details, or descriptions that appeal to one or more of the five senses. 35. Imperfect rhyme: same a slant rhyme 36. Internal rhyme: when a word in the middle of the line rhymes with a word at the end of the line. 37. Irony: A contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality. Verbal irony: exists when a person says one thing but means anothers. Situational irony exists when the outcome of a situation is opposite from what someone expected. Dramatic irony occurs when the audience or the reader knwows something that the characters do not know. 38. Kenning: A descriptive figure of speech that takes the place of a common noun, usually two words or phrase, especially in Anglo Saxon poetry. "Storm of swords" 39. Lyric poem: Poetry that expresses a speaker's personal thoughts and feelings. Lyric poems are usually short and musical. The emphasis of the poem is to experience emotions. 40. Metaphor: A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike things to help readers perceive the first thing more vividly and to suggest an underlying similarity between the two. 41. Meter: A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that gives a line of poetry a predictable rhythm (iambic, trochaic, spondaic, anapestic, dactylic). The basic unit of meterer is known as the foot. The length of a metrical line is often expressed in terms of feet ( monometer, dimeter, trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, hexameter, heptameter. 42. Monologue: A long speech by a character in a play spoken to others or as if alone.  43. Mood: The emotional quality, or atmosphere, of a work of literature. (How the reader feels)  44. Narration: refers to the way a story is told. Recital of events, expecially in chronological order, as the story is narrated in a poem or story.  45: Narrative poem: Verse that tells a story. Ballads, epics, and romances are all types of narrative poetry.  46. Ode: A long serious poem that is elevated in tone and style. Some odes celebrated a person, event or even a power; others are more prive meditations.  47. Onomatopoeia. The use of words with that imitate or suggest their meanings.  48. Paradox: A statement that appears to be contradictory but is actually true, either in fact or in a figurative sense. 49. Personification: A figure of speech in which an animal, object, force of nature, or idea is given human qualities. 50. Plot: The sequence of events in a narrative work: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement. 51. Poetry: A form of literary expression that differs from prose in emphasizing the line as the unit of compositon. It contains emotional, imaginative language; use of metaphore, simile, and other figures of speeech; division into stanzas, rhyme; and regular pattern or meter. 52. Point of view: The relationship of the narrator to the story. 53. First person point of view: the narrator is a character in the story, referred to as "I." The reader sees everything through the character's eyes. 54. Second person point of view: The narrator is speaking to the audience directly. Use the pronoun "you." 55. Third person point of view: (Limited) The narrator reveals the thoughts, feelings, and observations of only one character, referring to that character as he/she. (Omniscient) All knowing point of view, the narrator is not a character in the story, but someone who stands outside the story and commments on the action. 56. Prologue: An introductory section of a play, speech, or other literary work. 57. Protagonist: The central character in a story, drama, or dramatic poem around whom most of the action revolves. During the course of a work, the protagonist undergoes some conflict that is crucial to the plot. 58. Pun: is word play which suggests two or more meanings by exploiting multiple meanins of words or similar sounding words, for an intended humorous effect. 59. Repetition: The recurrence of sounds, words, phrases, lines, or stanzas in speech or piece of writing. Writers use repetition to emphasize an important point, to expand upon an idea, to help create rhythm, and to increase the feeling of unity within a work. 60. Resolution: Final outcome of a plot is revealed. 61. Rhetoric: The art of suing language to present facts and ideas in order to persuade. 62. Rhyme: The repetition of the same stressed vowel sounds and any succeeding sounds in two or more words. 63. Rhyme scheme: The pattern that end rhymes form in a stanza or poem. 64. Sarcasm: The intentional use of verbal irony in which the speaker seems to be praising something but is actually insulting it. 65. Satire: Literature that exposes to ridicule the vices or follies of people or societies through devices such as exaggeration, understatement, and irony. 66. Scansion: The analysis of meter of a line of verse. To scan a line of poetry means to note the stressed and unstressed syllables and divide the line into its feet. 67. Setting: The time and place in which events of literary work occur. The setting includes not only physical elements, but also the ideas, customs, values, and beliefs of the people who live there. 68. Shift or turn: otherwise known as the volta, used in the sonnet at the end of the octave (first eight lines) in a Petrarchan sonnet and at the end of the twelfth line in Shakespearean sonnets to signal a shift in thought. 69: Simile: A figure of speech that uses the words like or as to compare two seemingly unlike things. 70. Slant rhyme: An approximate rhyme based on assonance, the repetition of a vowel sound, or on consonance, the repetition of a consonant sound at the end of the word. 71. Soliloquy: A dramatic device in which a character, alone on stage or while under the impression of being alone, reveals his prive thoughts and feelings as if thinking aloud. 72. Sonnet: A lyric poem of fourteen lines with a definite rhyme scheme set in iambic pentameter. 73. Sound devices: Elements of poetry that appeal to the ear. In poetry, sound devices such as alliteration and assonance are used to emphasize certain words and underscore their meaning 74. Stage directions: 75. Stanza: A group of lines forming a unit in a poem. A stanza in a poem is similar to a paragraph in prose. 76. Structure: The framework or general plan of a literary work. 77. Style: The expressive qualities that distinguish an author's work, including word choice, sentence structure, and figures of speech. 78. Suspense: The anticipation of the outcome of events, especially as they affect a character for whom one has sympathy. Suspense produces a feeling of uncertainty that causes anxiety. 79. Symbol: Any person, animal, place, object, or event that exists on a literal level within in a work but also represents something on a figurative level. 80. Symbolism: Refers to the use of symbols. 81. Syntax: the study of the patterns of formation of sentences and phrases from words. 82. Theme: The main idea of a story, poem, novel, or play, sometimes expressed as a general statement about life. 83. Tone: A reflection of the writer's attitude towrd a subject conveyed through such elements as as a word choice, punctuation, sentence structure, and figures of speech. 84. Understatement: Language that makes something less important than it really is.