1. Handbook of Literary TermsC D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

2. Handbook of Literary Terms
Alliteration—The repetition of the same or very similar consonant sounds in words that are close together.
Example
Allusion—A reference to a statement, a person, a place, or an event from literature, history, religion, mythology, politics, sports, or science.

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Atmosphere—The overall mood or emotion of a work of literature.
Autobiography—The story of a person’s life, written or told by that person.

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Biography—The story of a real person’s life, written or told by another person.

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Character—A person or animal who takes part in the action of a story, play, or other literary work.
Characterization
Static vs. dynamic character
Motivation
Conflict—A struggle or clash between opposing characters or opposing forces.
External and internal conflict

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Connotation—The feelings and associations that a word suggests.

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Denotation—The literal, dictionary definition of a word.
Description—The kind of writing that creates a clear image of something, usually by using details that appeal to one or more of the senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

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Dialect—A way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or group of people.
More about dialect
Dialogue—A conversation between two or more characters.
Uses of dialogue
Monologue

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Drama—A story written to be acted for an audience. (A drama can also be appreciated and enjoyed in written form.)
Structure of a drama

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Essay—A short piece of nonfiction prose that examines a single subject.
Personal essay
Formal essay

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Fiction—A prose account that is made up rather than true.
More about fiction
Fable—A brief story in prose or verse that teaches a moral or gives a practical lesson about how to get along in life.
Fiction—A prose account that is made up rather than true.

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Figure of Speech—A word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of something else and is not literally true. Figures of speech include
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Flashback—An interruption in the action of a plot to tell what happened at an earlier time.

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Folk Tale—A story with no known author that originally was passed on from one generation to another by word of mouth.
Foreshadowing—The use of clues to suggest events that will happen later in the plot.
Free Verse—Poetry without a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

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Imagery—Language that appeals to the senses.
Irony—In general, a contrast between expectation and reality. Types of irony include
Verbal irony
Situational irony
Dramatic irony

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Main Idea—The most important idea expressed in a paragraph or in an entire essay.
Metamorphosis—A marvelous change from one shape or form to another one.
Metaphor—An imaginative comparison between two unlike things in which one thing is said to be another thing. A metaphor is an important type of figurative language.
Extended metaphor

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Mood—The overall emotion created by a work of literature.
Motivation—Any force that drives or moves a character in a literary work to behave in a particular way.
Myth—A story that explains something about the world and typically involves gods or other superhuman beings.

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Nonfiction—Prose writing that deals with real people, events, and places without changing any facts. Popular forms of nonfiction are the
autobiography
biography
essay

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Novel—A fictional story that is usually more than one hundred book pages long. A novel uses all the elements of storytelling:
Plot
Character
Setting
Theme
Point of view

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Onomatopoeia—The use of words whose sounds echo their sense. Buzz, rustle, bark, and tweet are all examples of onomatopoeia. Onomatopoeia is an important element in creating the music of poetry.
Example

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Personification—A figure of speech in which a nonhuman or nonliving thing or quality is talked about as if it were human or alive.
Plot—The series of related events that make up a story. Plot is what happens in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem.
Elements of plot
Plot diagram

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Poetry—A kind of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery designed to appeal to emotion and imagination.
Meter
Rhyme
Free verse
Narrative poem
Lyric poem

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Point of View—The vantage point from which a story is told. The most common points of view are
Omniscient
Third-person limited
First person

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Refrain—A group of words repeated at intervals in a poem, song, or speech.
Rhyme—The repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words close together in a poem.
Example
Types of rhyme

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Rhythm—A musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables or by the repetition of certain other sound patterns.

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Setting—The time and place in which the events of a work of literature take place.
Short Story—A fictional prose narrative that is usually ten to twenty book pages long.
Plot in a short story
Simile—A comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles. The simile is an important type of figure of speech.

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Speaker—The voice talking in a poem—not always the same as the poet.
Stanza—In a poem a group of consecutive lines that forms a single unit.
Suspense—The uncertainty or anxiety you feel about what will happen next in a story.

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Symbol—A person, a place, a thing, or an event that has its own meaning and stands for something beyond itself.

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Theme—The truth about life revealed in a work of literature.
More about theme
Tone—The attitude that a writer takes toward the audience, a subject, or a character.

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Alliteration > Example
In this example of alliteration, the s sound is repeated at the beginning of the words silken and sad and within the words uncertain and rustling:
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
—Edgar Allan Poe,
from “The Raven”

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Character > Characterization
The process of revealing the personality of a character in a story is called characterization.
Sometimes a writer tells you directly what kind of person the character is. Sometimes you must make an inference, based on the evidence the writer provides, to decide what the character is like.

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Character > Static vs. Dynamic Character
Characters can be classified as static or dynamic.
A static character is one who does not change much in the course of a work.
By contrast, a dynamic character changes as a result of the story’s events.

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Character > Motivation
A character’s motivation is any force that drives or moves the character to behave in a particular way. Many characters are motivated by the force of fear or love or ambition.

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Conflict > External and Internal Conflict
Conflict may be external or internal. In an external conflict a character struggles against some outside force. This outside force may be another character or society as a whole. It may be a storm or a grizzly bear or even a machine. An internal conflict, on the other hand, takes place within a character’s mind. It is a struggle between opposing needs, desires, or emotions.

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Dialect > More about Dialect
A dialect may have a distinct vocabulary, pronunciation system, and grammar. In a sense, we all speak a dialect. One dialect usually becomes dominant in a country or culture and is accepted as the standard way of speaking. Writers often reproduce regional dialects, or speech that reveals a character’s economic or social class, in order to give a story local color.

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Dialogue > Uses of Dialogue
Most stage dramas consist of dialogue together with stage directions. The dialogue in a drama must move the plot along and reveal its characters almost singlehandedly. Dialogue is also an important element in most stories and novels as well as in some poems and nonfiction. It is one of the most effective ways for a writer to show what a character is like.

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Dialogue > Monologue
A monologue is a part of a drama in which one character speaks alone.

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Drama > Structure of a Drama
The related events that take place within a drama are often separated into acts. Each act is often made up of shorter sections, or scenes.

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Essay > Personal Essay
The personal essay generally reveals a great deal about the writer’s personality and tastes. Its tone is often conversational, sometimes even humorous. In a personal essay the focus is the writer’s feelings and response to an experience.

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Essay > Formal Essay
The formal essay is usually serious, objective, and impersonal in tone. Its purpose is to inform readers about a topic or to persuade them to accept the writer’s views.

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Figure of Speech > Simile
A simile is a comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles.

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Figure of Speech > Metaphor
A metaphor is an imaginative comparison between two unlike things in which one thing is said to be another thing.

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Figure of Speech > Personification
Personification is a figure of speech in which a nonhuman or nonliving thing or quality is talked about as if it were human or alive.

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Irony > Verbal Irony
Verbal irony involves a contrast between what is said or written and what is meant. If you were to call someone who failed a math test Einstein, you would be using verbal irony.

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Irony > Situational Irony
Situational irony occurs when what happens is very different from what is expected to happen.

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Irony > Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony occurs when the audience or the reader knows something a character does not know.

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Metaphor > Extended Metaphor
An extended metaphor is a metaphor that is developed, or extended, through several lines of writing or even through an entire poem.

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Nonfiction > Autobiography
An autobiography is the story of a person’s life, written or told by that person.

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Nonfiction > Biography
A biography is the story of a real person’s life, written or told by another person.

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Nonfiction > Essay
An essay is a short piece of nonfiction prose that examines a single subject.

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Novel > Plot
Plot is the series of related events that make up a story. Plot is what happens in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem.

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

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Novel > Setting
Setting is the time and place in which the events of a work of literature take place.

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Novel > Theme
Theme is the truth about life revealed in a work of literature.

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Novel > Point of View
Point of view is the vantage point from which a story is told.

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Onomatopoeia > Example
In “Jabberwocky,” Lewis Carroll uses nonsense words whose sounds alone suggest their meaning:
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
—Lewis Carroll,
from “Jabberwocky”

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Plot > Elements of Plot
Most plots are built on these bare bones:
Exposition: introduction of the characters and their conflict
Complications: difficulties that arise as the characters try to resolve the conflict
Climax: the most suspenseful moment
Resolution: when the characters’ problems are solved and the story ends

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Plot > Plot Diagram
The main events of a story’s plot can be charted in a diagram like the one below.
Climax
Event
Event
Event
Event
Resolution
Basic situation

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Poetry > Figure of Speech
A figure of speech is a word or phrase that describes one thing in terms of something else and is not literally true.

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Poetry > Imagery
Imagery is language that appeals to the senses.

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Poetry > Meter
Meter is a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that is found in some poetry.

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Poetry > Rhyme
Rhyme is the repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words close together in a poem.

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Poetry > Free Verse
Free verse is poetry without a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

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Poetry > Narrative Poem
A narrative poem is a poem that tells a story. Two popular narrative forms are the epic and the ballad.

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Poetry > Lyric Poem
A lyric poem is a poem that expresses a speaker’s feelings.

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Point of View > Omniscient
In the omniscient, or all-knowing, point of view, the narrator knows everything about the characters and their problems. This all-knowing narrator can tell about the characters’ past, present, and future. This kind of narrator can even tell what the characters are thinking or what is happening in other places. This narrator is not in the story.

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Point of View > Third-Person Limited
In the third-person limited point of view, the narrator focuses on the thoughts and feelings of only one character. From this point of view, you observe the action through the eyes and feelings of only one character in the story.

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Point of View > First Person
In the first-person point of view, one of the characters, using the personal pronoun I, is telling the story. You become very familiar with this narrator but can know only what he or she knows and can observe only what he or she observes. All information about the story must come from this character. In some cases the information is incorrect.

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Rhyme > Example
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
from “The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls”

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Rhyme > Types of Rhyme
Types of rhyme in poetry include:
end rhymes, or rhymes at the end of a line.
internal rhymes, or rhymes within lines.

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Short Story > Plot in a Short Story
Most plots are built on these bare bones:
Exposition: introduction of the characters and their conflict
Complications: difficulties that arise as the characters try to resolve the conflict
Climax: the most suspenseful moment
Resolution: when the characters’ problems are solved and the story ends

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Theme > More About Theme
A theme is not the same as a subject. The subject of a work can usually be expressed in a word or two: love, childhood, death. The theme is the idea that the writer wishes to convey about a particular subject. The theme must be expressed in at least one sentence. For example, the theme of a story might be: “Happiness can be found in the joys of ordinary life.”