1. Literary Terms
Antigone

2. Tragedy
Drama or literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow, especially as the result of a tragic flaw, moral weakness, or inability to cope with unfavorable circumstances.
Examples: Antigone; Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet

3. Tragic Hero
A privileged, exalted character of high repute, who, by virtue of a tragic flaw and/or fate, suffers a fall from glory into suffering.
Examples: Oedipus, Hamlet, Romeo

4. Tragic Flaw
A weakness or limitation of character, resulting in the fall of the tragic hero.
Examples: Pride, arrogance, poor judgment, ambition, etc.

5. Alliteration
Repetition of the same or very similar consonant sound usually at the beginnings of words that are close together in a poem.
Example:
Open here I flung the shutter, when with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore. – (Edgar Allan Poe “The Raven”)

6. Connotation
All the meanings, associations, or emotions that have came to be attached to some words, in addition to their literal dictionary definitions, or denotations.
Example:
“Proud” and “arrogant” have the same denotation (literal meaning)
“Proud” has a positive connotation; “arrogant” a negative conntation

7. Irony
Verbal Irony: a writer or speaker says one thing but really means something completely different “Oh awesome! Yeah I’d totally love to do all this extra work this weekend!”
Situational Irony: when there is a contrast between what would seem appropriate and what really happens “Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” (“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”)
Dramatic Irony: when the audience or the readers knows something important that the character doesn’t know.
When you know the murdered is hiding behind the door, but the woman walking into the house has no idea!

8. Antithesis Opposites Using opposite phrases in close conjunction
“You are the antithesis of a good president.”
Using opposite phrases in close conjunction
Example:
“Her character is white as sunlight, black as midnight”
“Evil men fear authority, good men cherish it"

9. Simile
Figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, using “like” or “as” (but also words such as “resembles” or “than”)
Example: “I would have given anything for the power to soothe her frail soul, tormenting itself in its invincible ignorance like a small bird beating about the cruel wires of a cage.” (from Joseph Conrad)

10. Apostrophe
The act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present.
Examples:
“Oh, Death, be not proud.”- John Donne
“Ingratitude! Thou marble-hearted fiend,/ more hideous when thou show’st thee in a child/ than the sea-monster.”
Praying to a god/gods

11. Metaphor
Figures of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, in which one becomes another thing without the use of the word “like”, “as”, “than”, or “resembles”.
Example: “What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.”
Romeo is saying that Juliet IS the sun; this is a metaphor.

12. Personification
A figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes. The non-human objects are portrayed in such a way that we feel they have the ability to act like human beings.
Example: The wind whispered through the trees.
Time waits for no one.

13. Assonance
Repetition of similar vowel sounds that are followed by different consonant sounds, especially in words that are close together in a poem.
“Do not go gentle into that good night. Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage, against the dying of the light. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight, Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

14. Chorus
A group of characters in Greek Tragedy, who comment on the action of a play without participation in it. Their leader is the choragos.

15. Foil
A character who contrasts and parallels the main character in a play or story.
Intended to highlight the qualities of main character.

16. Catastrophe Synonym for denouement or falling action
Completes the unraveling of the plot in a play—especially a tragedy.

17. Catharsis Catharsis is a Greek word meaning cleansing.
In literature it is used for the cleansing of emotions of the characters.
Also refers to any radical change that leads to emotional rejuvenation in a character

18. Pathos
Quality of an experience in life or a work of art that stirs up emotions of pity, sympathy and sorrow.
Pathos can be expressed through words, pictures or even with gestures of the body.