Literary Terms and Definitions

30 Literary Terms and their descriptions. Incredibly helpful for all English courses and both Literature and Language.

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  • Created by: cg97
  • Created on: 07-12-12 12:59
Autobiography
The story of the author's life
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Atmosphere
A mood or feeling
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Bildungsroman
A novel that describes a character's development from childhood to maturity, focusing on their experience, education and identity
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Character(s)
Either a person in a play, novel etc. or his or her personality
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Chronological
When the events in a story are told in the order they happened. It is possible to have a chronological narrative containing flashbacks as long as the main narrative continues to move forwards through time
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Colloquial
The everyday speech used by people in ordinary situations
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Dialect
Accent and vocabulary, varying by region and social background
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Epigraph
A heading or quotation that writer's sometimes use at the beginning of their work as an indication of theme
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Figurative Language
Elaborate (as distinct from plain) language. Commonly metaphor and simile
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First-Person Narrative
Stories told by an 'I' figure who is directly involved
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Omniscient Narrator
The storyteller knows all and stands outside the story
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Flashback
A sudden jumping back to an earlier point in the narrative
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Foreshadowing
Close to the idea of prophesying, an instance or reference to an incident coming later in the text
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Genre
A type of literature, for instance poetry, drama, biography, fiction etc.
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Imagery
Descriptive language that uses images to make actions, objects and characters more vivid in the reader's mind
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Irony
When someone deliberately says one thing when they mean another, usually in a humorous or sarcastic way
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Malapropism
Inaccurate use of long words
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Maxim
A short, pithy statement proposing model human behaviour
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Metaphor
When one thing is used to describe another thing to create a striking or unusual image
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Motif
A repeated theme or idea
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Leitmotif
Repeated phrase
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Narrative
A story or tale and the particular way that it is told
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Narrator
(Narration) the voice telling the story or relaying a sequence of events
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Personification
When things or ideas are treated as if they were people, with humman attributes and feelings
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Realism
An 'accurate' description of things as they 'really' are in 'ordinary' life
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Regional Novel
An emphasis on particular geographical customs and speech which have a significant effect on the development of the novel
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Satire
Aggressive irony - a humorous attack on human or institutional imperfection
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Simile
When one thing is compared directly to another thing, using words 'like' or 'as'
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Symbolism
When an object, a person or a thing is used to represent another thing
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Theme
A central idea examined by an author
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Other cards in this set

Card 2

Front

A mood or feeling

Back

Atmosphere

Card 3

Front

A novel that describes a character's development from childhood to maturity, focusing on their experience, education and identity

Back

Preview of the back of card 3

Card 4

Front

Either a person in a play, novel etc. or his or her personality

Back

Preview of the back of card 4

Card 5

Front

When the events in a story are told in the order they happened. It is possible to have a chronological narrative containing flashbacks as long as the main narrative continues to move forwards through time

Back

Preview of the back of card 5
View more cards

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