Literary Terms

Main character, may be a hero or heroine, with whom the audience tends to identify

An author's distinctive style.

A type of literature in which language,images,sounds&rhythm are combined for emotional effect.

Assigning human qualities to an animal, object, or idea

Emotional quality of the story or poem( how the reader feels)

Pattern formed by the end rhyme in a poem

Struggle within a single character.

The pattern of ryhme within a poem

Expresses the writer's attitude toward his or her subject

Person, animal, or creature in a literary work

A short narrative song or poem

Long narrative poem,written w/a dignified style,that celebrates heroic figure of legend/history

The central struggle between opposing forces in a story or play.

The sequence of events in a story.

Language used by the author for a specific effect

Language that empasizes sense impressions to help the reader see, hear, feel, smell and taste

A narrative emphasizing the narrator's personal experience during a period or event

Comparison of two things that have some quality in common without using "like" or "as"

The methods a writer uses to develop the personality of a person in a story.

Writing based on fact, not imagination

Force or character working against the main character

Literature in which situations and characters are fabricated by author.

Traditional story of unknown origin that explains the beliefs and practices of a people.

The attitude of the narrator toward a subject.

Time and place in which the events of a short story, novel, or drama occur

Conflict within oneself

Time, place, and physical characteristics of where a story takes place

The use of a word or a phrase that actually imitates or suggests the sound of what it describes

The person who tells a story

Japanese form of poetry that has three lines and seventeen syllables. 5, 7,5

An exaggeration

Language that communicates ideas beyond literal meanings of words.

A feeling of curiosity, uncertainty, or even dread about what is going to happen next.

Hints to the reader what may happen later in the story.

A person or other creature in a literary work.

The story of a person's life written by that person.

Comparison of two unlike things, using "like" or "as"

A piece of literature that accurately sets fictional characters in an earlier historical time

An interruption in a chronological narrative to scenes that happened before that point in story

The point of greatest interest or suspense in a narrative.

A contrast between what is said or done and what is expected (opposite of what is expected).

A figure of speech using like or as to compare unlike things

An exaggeration

A feeling a literary work conveys to its readers.

Repetition of consonant sounds, most often at the beginnings of words.

Struggle between character and outside force

A short simple tale that teaches a moral and uses animals as characters

Descriptive language appealing to the senses.

The main idea of a story, poem, novel, or play.

The repetition of identical/similar sounds at ends of wordsthat are close together in a poem

Any object, person, place or experience that means more than what it is

Category of literature

Conversation between characters in a literary work

The relationship of the narrator to the story

A humorous play on two or more meanings of the same word.

Repetition of same ending sounds of words

A group of lines forming a unit in a poem

Regular pattern of stressed unstressed syllables that gives a line of poetry predictable rhythm