1. Literary Terms Flashcards

2. This occurs when the reader/ audience knows something that the character(s) in the story do not know.

3. Dramatic Irony

4. The series of related events that make up a story.

5. Plot

6. Literature (along with film and music) is broken down into these different categories.

7. Genre

8. A person, a place, a thing, or an event (a concrete visible object) that has its own meaning AND stands for something beyond itself (an invisible object or idea with a deeper meaning) as well.

9. Symbol

10. A figure of speech in which a nonhuman or nonliving thing or quality is talked about as if it were human or alive.

11. Personification

12. A person or character that is considered to be the main character in a novel, play, story, or poem.

13. Protagonist

14. This is a very broad term and refers to a type of language or writing that does not want the reader to take things literally. It is a word or a phrase that describes one thing in terms of another and is not literally true.

15. Figurative Language

16. The literal dictionary definition of a word.

17. Denotation

18. The repetition of the same or very similar consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are close together.

19. Alliteration

20. A person or character that deceives, frustrates, or somehow works against the main character.

21. Antagonist

22. An interruption in the action of a plot to tell something of importance which happened at an earlier time.

23. Flashback

24. The feelings, emotions, and associations that a word suggests
The feelings, emotions, and associations that a word suggests. (positive, negative, or neutral)

25. Connotation

26. A person or animal who takes part in the action of a story, play, or other literary work. (The ways in which the author develops that person or animal in a story.)

27. Character/ Characterization

28. This term is a type of figurative language where one uses an extreme exaggeration for dramatic effect.

29. Hyperbole

30. A struggle or clash between opposing characters or opposing forces
A struggle or clash between opposing characters or opposing forces. This type is when a character struggles against some outside force.

31. External Conflict

32. An imaginative comparison between two unlike things in which one thing is said to be another thing. A figure of speech.

33. Metaphor

34. A truth about life revealed in a work of literature.

35. Theme

36. An all-knowing perspective from which a story is told.

37. Omniscient Point of View

38. A perspective from which a story is told where the narrator only focuses on one characters thoughts and feelings.

39. 3rd Person Point of View

40. A perspective from which a story is told in which the narrator is telling the story him or herself, using the person pronoun “I”.

41. 1st Person Point of View

42. A story that attempts to explain something about the world or how something was created and typically involves gods or other superhuman beings.

43. Myth

44. Involving a contrast between what is said or written and what is meant: sarcasm.

45. Verbal Irony

46. The use of clues to suggest events that will happen later in the plot.

47. Foreshadowing

48. A struggle or clash between opposing characters or opposing forces
A struggle or clash between opposing characters or opposing forces. This type is when the struggle is within the character’s own mind.

49. Internal Conflict

50. An example of figurative language in which a comparison between two unlike things is made, using a connecting word such as “like” or “as”.

51. Simile

52. The time and place in which the events of a work of literature take place.

53. Setting

54. An educated guess, a conclusion that makes sense because it is supported by evidence. (What you know + what you read = inference)

55. Inference

56. A reference, found in a story, to a statement a person, a place, or an event from literature, history, religion, mythology, politics, sports, or science.

57. Allusion

58. Occurs when what happens in a story is very different than what was expected to occur.

59. Situational Irony

60. A conversation between two or more characters.

61. Dialogue