Literary Terms (from pppst.com) We will be using these literary terms throughout the school year!

Character A character is a person or an animal that takes part in the action of a literary work.

Antagonist The Antagonist is a character or force in conflict with a main character, or protagonist. (basically, the bad guy)

Do you know your Antagonists?

Protagonist The Protagonist is the main character in a literary work Usually the “good guy”

Do you know your protagonists?

Diction Diction is the manner in which we express words; the wording used.

Denotation The denotation of a word is its dictionary meaning, independent of other associations that the word may have.

Connotation The connotation of a word is the set of ideas associated with it in addition to its explicit meaning. The connotation of a word can be personal, based on individual experiences. More often, cultural connotations – those recognizable by most people in a group – determine a writer’s word choices.

Imagery Imagery is words or phrases that appeal to one or more of the five senses.

MOOD Mood, or atmosphere, is the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage. Writer’s use many devices to create mood, including images, dialogue, setting, and plot. Often, a writer creates a mood at the beginning of a work and then sustains the mood throughout. Sometimes, however, the mood of the work changes dramatically.

Plot Plot is the sequence of events. The first event causes the second, the second causes the third, and so forth.

PLOTLINE Climax Rising Action Falling Action Resolution Exposition Conflict Introduced

Exposition The Exposition is the introduction in a plot. It is the part of the work that introduces the characters, setting, and basic situation.

Rising Action Rising Action is the part of the plot that begins to occur as soon as the conflict is introduced. The rising action adds complications to the conflict and increases reader interest.

Climax The Climax is the point of greatest emotional intensity, interest, or suspense in the plot of a narrative. The climax typically comes at the turning point in a story or drama.

Falling Action Falling Action is the action that typically follows the climax and reveals its results.

Resolution The Resolution is the part of the plot that concludes the falling action by revealing or suggesting the outcome of the conflict.

Conflict Conflict is the struggle between opposing forces in a story or play. There are two types of conflict that exist in literature.

External Conflict External conflict exists when a character struggles against some outside force.

Internal Conflict Internal conflict exists within the mind of a character who is torn between different courses of action.

Flashback A flashback is a literary device in which an earlier episode, conversation, or event is inserted into the sequence of events.

Foreshadowing Foreshadowing is the author’s use of clues to hint at what might happen later in the story.

Suspense Suspense is the growing interest and excitement readers experience while awaiting a climax or resolution in a work of literature. It is a feeling of anxious uncertainty about the outcome of events.

Point of View Point of View is the perspective, or vantage point, from which a story is told. It is the relationship of the narrator to the story. First-person is told by a character who uses the first-person pronoun “I”. Third-person limited point of view is the point of view where the narrator uses third-person pronouns such as “he” and “she” to refer to the characters.

Setting The setting of a literary work is the time and place of the action. The setting includes all the details of a place and time – the year, the time of day, even the weather. The place may be a specific country, state, region, community, neighborhood, building, institution, or home. Details such as dialect, clothing, customs, and modes of transportation are often used to establish setting. In most stories, the setting serves as a backdrop – a context in which the characters interact. The setting of a story often helps to create a particular mood, or feeling.

Style Style is the distinctive way in which an author uses language. Word choice, phrasing, sentence length, tone, dialogue, purpose, and attitude toward the audience and subject can all contribute to an author’s writing style.

Theme The theme of a literary work is its central message, concern, or purpose.

Tone Tone is a reflection of a writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject of a poem, story, or other literary work.

Metaphor A Metaphor is a type of speech that compares or equates two or more things that have something in common. A metaphor does NOT use like or as. Example: Life is a bowl of cherries.

Simile A Simile is another figure of speech that compares seemingly unlike things. Simile’s DO use the words like or as. Example: Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.

Oxymoron An Oxymoron is a figure of speech that is a combination of seemingly contradictory words. Examples: Same difference Pretty ugly Roaring silence

Personification Personification is a figure of speech in which an animal, object, force of nature, or idea is given human qualities or characteristics. Example: Tears began to fall from the dark clouds.

Alliteration Alliteration is the repetition of sounds, most often consonant sounds, at the beginning of words. Alliteration gives emphasis to words. Example: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers