Alliteration - Used for poetic effect, a repetition of the initial sounds of several words in a group. The following line from Robert Frost's poem "Acquainted with the Night" provides us with an example of alliteration: "I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet." The repetition of the "s" sound creates a sense of quiet, reinforcing the meaning of the line.
Allusion - A reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another literary work. T. S. Eliot, in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" alludes (refers) to the biblical figure John the Baptist in the line "Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter," . . . In the
New Testament, John the Baptist's head was presented to King Herod on a platter.
Antagonist - A person or force which opposes the protagonist in a literary work. In Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster," Mr. Scratch is Daniel Webster's antagonst at the trial of Jabez Stone. The cold in Jack London's "To Build a Fire" is the antagonist that defeats the man on the trail.
Aside - A device in which a character in a drama makes a short speech which is heard by the audience but not by other characters in the play. In William Shakespeare's "Hamlet," the Chamberlain, Polonius, confronts Hamlet. In a dialogue concerning Polonius' daughter, Ophelia, Polonius speaks this aside:
How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter.
Yet he knew me not at first; 'a said I was a fishmonger.
'A is far gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love,
very near this. I'll speak to him again.
Audience - The person(s) reading a text, listening to a speaker, or observing a performance.
Ballad - A story in poetic form, often about tragic love and usually sung. Ballads were passed down from generation to generation by singers. Two old Scottish ballads are "Sir Patrick Spens" and "Bonnie Barbara Allan." Samuel Taylor Coleridge's, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is a 19th century English ballad.
Blank verse - Thanks to a bunch of very old, very famous white guys, blank verse is one of the most common forms of English poetry. Oh, and —it's anything but blank. The term refers to verse that has no rhyme scheme, but does have a regular meter—iambic pentameter, to be exact.Why is blank verse so common in English? Well, a lot of people think we speak in blank verse in our everyday conversations. Kind of like we just did: "a lot of people think we speak in it." That could be a blank verse line.
This verse was common in Renaissance dramas by folks like Shakespeare and his frenemy Christopher Marlowe, both of whom made the verse accomplish all kinds of fancy feats. But it's used all over poetry, perhaps most famously in Milton's Paradise Lost. Traditionally, blank verse is used when the writer is tackling serious subjects, and you don't get much more serious than Satan.
Character - Characters are the fictional people that populate the world of whatever book you a're reading. Here are a few of my favorites:
Character foil - Foil is that shiny stuff your mom wraps your tuna fish sandwiches in before she shuttles you off to school. Or that pointy thing you stab people with in fencing. Just kidding.A foil is a character whose main purpose is to offer a contrast to another character, usually the protagonist. Foils set off and accentuate the main character and are convenient ways to complicate and deepen the characterization of the protagonist. Basically, everything the foil is, the protagonist is not. The foil's differences highlight the key qualities of the main character.
Cliche - If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me to define cliché… I'd have a nickel.According to the brightest literary minds, clichés should be avoided like the plague. So if you think clichés give you a way with words, abandon ship. At one time, every cliché was as fresh as a daisy and could take your breath away, but you know what they say: when there are too many cooks in the kitchen, these phrases just lose their cutting edge.
Sometimes a cliché is not just a cliché (and it's not always a phrase, either). Shakespeare used clichéd characters with the best of 'em, but he did it on purpose. Now that's poetry.
I dare you to write an entire paragraph entirely in clichés. But be warned: it's easier said than done. (Trust me.)
Climax - The decisive moment in a drama, the climax is the turning point of the play to which the rising action leads. This is the crucial part of the drama, the part which determines the outcome of the conflict. In Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" the climax occurs at the end of Marc Antony's speech to the Roman public.
Colloquialism - Remember that time you told your dad that a near-sighted pterodactyl must've broken the living room window, and he said, "Listen, kid. I wasn't born yesterday"? That's a colloquialism.Colloquialisms are common, informal words and sayings. Often—but not always—they express a sentiment that's different from what they literally mean. Let's go back to the broken window. Your dad isn't telling you that he's older than a newborn; he's telling you that he isn't a moron. Of course a pterodactyl didn't break the window. Pterodactyls love windows.
So what's the difference between colloquialisms and slang? Geography. While slang words and phrases like on fleek or bush league are used by specific social groups—in this case, teens and sports fans—colloquialisms are often specific to a region. Take, wicked, for example. That's a New England colloquialism that means "really," as in, "Ma, that was a wicked good pot roast! Let's save some for the vicious pterodactyl that's roaming our neighborhood."
Comedy - Comedy comes in lots of shapes and sizes, but typically it's a genre that deals in humor and entertainment. Comedies traditionally end in marriage, which is what makes a comedy different from tragedies (which end in, uh, death.) Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is an example of a romantic comedy.
Conflict - In the plot of a story, conflict occurs when the protagonist is opposed by some person or force in the play. In Henry Ibsen's drama "An Enemy of the People" Dr.Thomas Stockmann's life is complicated by his finding that the public baths, a major source of income for the community, are polluted. In trying to close the baths, the doctor comes into conflict with those who profit from them, significantly, his own brother, the mayor of the town.
Connotation and Denotation - The denotation of a word is its dictionary definition. The word wall, therefore, denotes an upright structure which encloses something or serves as a boundary. The connotation of a word is its emotional content. In this sense, the word wall can also mean an attitude or actions which prevent becoming emotionally close to a person. In Robert Frost's "Mending Wall," two neighbors walk a property line, each on his own side of a wall of loose stones. As they walk, they pick up and replace stones that have fallen. Frost thinks it's unnecessary to replace the stones since thay have no cows to damage each other's property. The neighbor only says "Good fences make good neighbors." The wall, in this case, is both a boundary (denotation) and a barrier that prevents Frost and his neighbor from getting to know each other, a force prohibiting involvement (connotation).
Allusion - A reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another literary work. T. S. Eliot, in "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" alludes (refers) to the biblical figure John the Baptist in the line "Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter," . . . In the
New Testament, John the Baptist's head was presented to King Herod on a platter.
Antagonist - A person or force which opposes the protagonist in a literary work. In Stephen Vincent Benet's "The Devil and Daniel Webster," Mr. Scratch is Daniel Webster's antagonst at the trial of Jabez Stone. The cold in Jack London's "To Build a Fire" is the antagonist that defeats the man on the trail.
Aside - A device in which a character in a drama makes a short speech which is heard by the audience but not by other characters in the play. In William Shakespeare's "Hamlet," the Chamberlain, Polonius, confronts Hamlet. In a dialogue concerning Polonius' daughter, Ophelia, Polonius speaks this aside:
How say you by that? Still harping on my daughter.
Yet he knew me not at first; 'a said I was a fishmonger.
'A is far gone. And truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love,
very near this. I'll speak to him again.
Audience - The person(s) reading a text, listening to a speaker, or observing a performance.
Ballad - A story in poetic form, often about tragic love and usually sung. Ballads were passed down from generation to generation by singers. Two old Scottish ballads are "Sir Patrick Spens" and "Bonnie Barbara Allan." Samuel Taylor Coleridge's, "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is a 19th century English ballad.
Blank verse - Thanks to a bunch of very old, very famous white guys, blank verse is one of the most common forms of English poetry. Oh, and —it's anything but blank. The term refers to verse that has no rhyme scheme, but does have a regular meter—iambic pentameter, to be exact.Why is blank verse so common in English? Well, a lot of people think we speak in blank verse in our everyday conversations. Kind of like we just did: "a lot of people think we speak in it." That could be a blank verse line.
This verse was common in Renaissance dramas by folks like Shakespeare and his frenemy Christopher Marlowe, both of whom made the verse accomplish all kinds of fancy feats. But it's used all over poetry, perhaps most famously in Milton's Paradise Lost. Traditionally, blank verse is used when the writer is tackling serious subjects, and you don't get much more serious than Satan.
Character - Characters are the fictional people that populate the world of whatever book you a're reading. Here are a few of my favorites:
- Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird
- The Monster from Frankenstein
- Sula Pearce from Toni Morrison's Sula
- Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame
- Scarlett from Gone With the Wind
Character foil - Foil is that shiny stuff your mom wraps your tuna fish sandwiches in before she shuttles you off to school. Or that pointy thing you stab people with in fencing. Just kidding.A foil is a character whose main purpose is to offer a contrast to another character, usually the protagonist. Foils set off and accentuate the main character and are convenient ways to complicate and deepen the characterization of the protagonist. Basically, everything the foil is, the protagonist is not. The foil's differences highlight the key qualities of the main character.
Cliche - If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me to define cliché… I'd have a nickel.According to the brightest literary minds, clichés should be avoided like the plague. So if you think clichés give you a way with words, abandon ship. At one time, every cliché was as fresh as a daisy and could take your breath away, but you know what they say: when there are too many cooks in the kitchen, these phrases just lose their cutting edge.
Sometimes a cliché is not just a cliché (and it's not always a phrase, either). Shakespeare used clichéd characters with the best of 'em, but he did it on purpose. Now that's poetry.
I dare you to write an entire paragraph entirely in clichés. But be warned: it's easier said than done. (Trust me.)
Climax - The decisive moment in a drama, the climax is the turning point of the play to which the rising action leads. This is the crucial part of the drama, the part which determines the outcome of the conflict. In Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" the climax occurs at the end of Marc Antony's speech to the Roman public.
Colloquialism - Remember that time you told your dad that a near-sighted pterodactyl must've broken the living room window, and he said, "Listen, kid. I wasn't born yesterday"? That's a colloquialism.Colloquialisms are common, informal words and sayings. Often—but not always—they express a sentiment that's different from what they literally mean. Let's go back to the broken window. Your dad isn't telling you that he's older than a newborn; he's telling you that he isn't a moron. Of course a pterodactyl didn't break the window. Pterodactyls love windows.
So what's the difference between colloquialisms and slang? Geography. While slang words and phrases like on fleek or bush league are used by specific social groups—in this case, teens and sports fans—colloquialisms are often specific to a region. Take, wicked, for example. That's a New England colloquialism that means "really," as in, "Ma, that was a wicked good pot roast! Let's save some for the vicious pterodactyl that's roaming our neighborhood."
Comedy - Comedy comes in lots of shapes and sizes, but typically it's a genre that deals in humor and entertainment. Comedies traditionally end in marriage, which is what makes a comedy different from tragedies (which end in, uh, death.) Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is an example of a romantic comedy.
Conflict - In the plot of a story, conflict occurs when the protagonist is opposed by some person or force in the play. In Henry Ibsen's drama "An Enemy of the People" Dr.Thomas Stockmann's life is complicated by his finding that the public baths, a major source of income for the community, are polluted. In trying to close the baths, the doctor comes into conflict with those who profit from them, significantly, his own brother, the mayor of the town.
Connotation and Denotation - The denotation of a word is its dictionary definition. The word wall, therefore, denotes an upright structure which encloses something or serves as a boundary. The connotation of a word is its emotional content. In this sense, the word wall can also mean an attitude or actions which prevent becoming emotionally close to a person. In Robert Frost's "Mending Wall," two neighbors walk a property line, each on his own side of a wall of loose stones. As they walk, they pick up and replace stones that have fallen. Frost thinks it's unnecessary to replace the stones since thay have no cows to damage each other's property. The neighbor only says "Good fences make good neighbors." The wall, in this case, is both a boundary (denotation) and a barrier that prevents Frost and his neighbor from getting to know each other, a force prohibiting involvement (connotation).