fable
short tale often featuring nonhuman characters that act as people whose actions enable the author to make observations or draw useful lessons about human behavior
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| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| fable | short tale often featuring nonhuman characters that act as people whose actions enable the author to make observations or draw useful lessons about human behavior |
| falling action | the action in a play or story that occurs adter the climax and that leads to the conclusion and often to the resolution of the conflict |
| farce | a comedy that contains an extravagant and nonsensical disregard of seriousness, although it may have a serious, scornful purpose |
| figure of speech | in contrast to literal language, language implies meanings; include metaphors, similies, personification, among many others |
| first-person narrative | a narrative told by a character involved in the story, using first-person pronouns such as I and we |
| flashback | a return to an earlier time in a story or play in order to clarify persent action or circumstances |
| foil | a minor chacter whose personality or attitude contrasts with that of the main character |
| foot | a unit of stressed and unstressed syllables used to determine the meter of a poetic line |
| foreshadowing | providing hints of things to come in a story or play |
| frame | a structure that provides premise or setting for a narrative |
| free verse | a kind of poetry without rhymed lines, rhythm, or fixed metrical feet |
| genre | a term used to describe literary forms, such as novel, play, and essay |
| Gothic novel | a novel in which supernatural horros and an atmosphere of unknown terrors pervades the action |
| heroic couplet | two rhymed lines written in iambic pentameter and used widely in eighteenth-centruy verse |
| hubris | the excessive pride that often leads tragic heroes to their death |
| hyperbole | overstatement; gross exaggeration for rhetorical effect |
| idyll | a lyric poem or passage that describes a kind of ideal life or place |
| image | a word or phrase representing that which can be seen touched, tasted, smelled, or felt |
| in medias res | a latin term for a narrative that starts not at the beginning of events but at some other critical point |
| irony | a mode of expression in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is stated, often implying ridicule or light sarcasm; a state of affairs or events that is the reverse of what might have been expected |
| lampoon | a mocking, satirical assault on a person or situation |
| light verse | a variety of poetry meant to entertain or amuse but sometimes with a satirical thrust |
| litotes | a form of understatement in which the negative of the countrary is used to achieve emphasis or intensity |
| lyric poetry | personal, reflective poetry that reveals the speaker's thoughts and feelings about the subject |
| melodrama | a literary form in which events are exaggerated in order to create an extreme emotional response |
| metaphor | a figure of speech that compares unlike objects |
| meter | the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables found in poetry |
| metonymy | a figure of speech that uses the name of one thing to represent something else with which it is associated |
| mock epic | a parody of traditional epic form |
| mood | the emotional tone in a work of literature |
| moral | a brief and often simplistic lesson that a reader may infer from a work of literature |
| motif | a phrase, idea, or event that through repetition erves to unify or convey a theme in a work of literature |
| naturalism | a term often used as a synonym for realism; also a view of experience that is generally characterized as bleak and pessimistic |
| non sequitur | a statement or idea that fails to follow logically from the one before |
| novella | a work of fiction of roughly 20,000 to 50,000 words-longer than a short story, but shorter than a novel |
| novel of manners | a novel focusing on and describing the social customs and habits of a particular social group |
| ode | a lyric poem usually marked be serious, respectful, and exalted feelings toward the subject |
| omniscient narrator | a narrator with unlimited awareness, understanding, and insight of characters, setting, background, and all other elements of the story |
| onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sounds suggest their meaning |
| oxymoron | a term consiting of contradictory elements juxtaposed to create a paradoxical effect |