Literary Terms

Genre A category or type of literature based on style, form, and content

Setting: The time and place in which the action of a piece of literature takes place

Narrator The person who is telling the story

Point of view (This is NOT an opinion!) the vantage point from which the story is told (two types):

Two Types of Vantage Points 1) First person: story told by one of the characters.

2) Third person: story told by someone outside the story

Plot The action or sequence of events in a story

Plot line/plot structure Graphic display of the action or events in a story (5 parts):

1 ) Exposition- background info, explains situations/things that may be difficult to understand

2 ) Rising action-the series of struggles that builds a story or play toward a climax

3) Climax-usually the most intense point of a story

4) Falling action-the part of a play/story that works out what happened in the climax

5) Resolution-part of the play/story in which the problem is solved; meant to bring the story to a satisfactory end

Conflict The problem or struggle that triggers action in a story

Internal conflict - a person in conflict with themselves (person v. self). We see the character struggle with a decision.

External conflict – a person in conflict with an outside source (person v. person, person v. society, person v. nature, person v. fate)

Theme The statement about life that a writer is trying to get across in a piece of writing

CHARACTERIZATION is the method an author uses to reveal characters and their personalities

PROTAGONIST is the main character or hero of a piece of literature

ANTAGONIST is the person or thing working against the protagonist, or hero of the work.

Foreshadowing Giving hints or clues of what is to come later in a story.

Allusion A literary reference to a familiar person, place, thing, or event within a literary work.

Symbolism A person, place, thing, or event used to represent something else

Imagery Using words to create a certain picture in the reader’s mind; usually based on sensory detail

Figurative Language SIMILE is the comparison of two unlike things using the words “like” or “as”

Figurative Language METAPHOR is the comparison of two unlike things in which no word of comparison (as/like) is used

Figurative Language PERSONIFICATION is when an author describes an animal or object as if it were a person

Irony Using a word or phrase to mean the exact opposite of its literal or normal meaning (3 kinds):

Dramatic Irony- the audience/reader knows something the character doesn’t

Verbal Irony-the writer says one thing and means another

Situational Irony - when there is a difference between the purpose of a particular action and the result

MOOD: is the feeling a text arouses in the reader

TONE : is the overall feeling, or effect, created by the writer’s use of words