Directions: Copy these important literary terms in full (in script) into the "Handbook" section of your Language Arts notebook; highlight or underline each term; be neat!

Short Story

Ambiguity

Extended Metaphor

Realistic Fiction

Historical Fiction

Mystery

Science Fiction

Narrative Essay

Renaissance Literature

Tragedy

Comedy

Aside

Solioquy

Monologue

Dramatic Irony

Blog

Wikipedia

Interpretation

Paraphrase

Direct Quotation

Citation

Research Paper



Antagonist

An antagonist is a character or force in conflict with a main character or protagonist.

Character

A character is a person or animal who takes part in the action of a literary work. The main character is the most important character in a story, poem, or play. A minor character is one who takes part in the action, but who is not the focus of attention. Characters are sometimes classified as flat or round. A flat character is one-sided and often stereotypical. A round character, on the other hand, is fully developed and exhibits many traits-often both faults and virtues. Characters can also be classified as dynamic or static. A dynamic character is one who changes or grows during the course of the work. A static character is one who doesn’t change.

Characterization

Characterization is the act of creating and developing a character. Writers use two major methods of characterization - direct and indirect. When describing a charter directly, a writer states the character’s traits, or characteristics. When describing a character indirectly, a writer depends on the reader to draw conclusions about the character’s traits. Sometimes, the writer describes the character’s appearance, actions, or speech. At other times, the writer tells what other participants in the story say and think about the character. The reader than draws his or her own conclusions.

Conflict

A conflict is a struggle between opposing forces. Conflict is one of the most important elements of stories, novels, and play because it causes the action. There are two kinds of conflict: external and internal. An external conflict is one in which a character struggles against an outside force. An internal conflict is one that takes place within the mind of a character. The character struggles to make a decision, take an action, or overcome a feeling.

Dialogue

A dialogue is a conversation between characters. In poems, novels, and short stories, dialogue is usually, set off by quotation marks to indicate a speaker’s exact words. In a play, dialogue follows the names of the characters, and no quotation marks are used.

Exposition

Exposition is writing or speech that explains a process or presents information. This Literary Terms Handbook is an example of exposition. So are the selections in this text. In the plot of a story or drama, the exposition, or introduction, introduces the characters, setting, and basic situation.

Extended Metaphor

In an extended metaphor, as in a regular metaphor, a subject is described as though it were something else. However, an extended metaphor differs from a regular metaphor in that several comparisons are made.

Fiction

Fiction is prose writing that tells about imaginary characters and events. Short stories and novels are works of fiction. Some writers base their fiction on actual events and people, adding invented characters, dialogue, settings, and plots. Other writers of fiction rely on imagination above to provide their materials.

Figurative Language

Figurative language is writing that is not meant to be taken literally. The many types of figurative language are known as figures of speech. Common figures of speech include hyperbole, metaphor, simile, and personification. Writers utilize figurative language to state ideas and point out connections in vivid, exciting, and imaginative ways.

Flashback

A flashback is a section of a literary work that interrupts the sequence of events to relate an event from an earlier time.

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is the use, in a literary work, of clues that suggest events that have yet to occur. Writers use foreshadowing to build their readers’ expectations and to create suspense.

Hyperbole

Exaggerated statements/claims/comparisons not meant to be taken literally.

Image

An image is a word or phrase that appeals to one or more of the five senses. Writers use images to describe how their subjects look, sound, feel, taste, and smell.

Irony

Irony is the general name given to literary techniques that involve surprising, interesting, or amusing contradictions. In verbal irony, words are used to suggest the opposite of their usual meanings. In dramatic irony, there is a contradiction between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience knows to be true. In irony of situation, an event occurs that directly contradicts the expectations of the characters, the reader, or the audience.

Metaphor

A metaphor functions like a simile but without using like or as; something is described as though it were something else. A metaphor, like a simile, works by pointing out a similarity between two unlike things.

Mood

Mood, or atmosphere, is the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage. Writers use many devices to create mood, including images, dialogue, setting, and plot. Often, a writer creates a mood at the beginning of a work and then sustains this mood through out. Sometimes, however, the mood of the work changes dramatically.

Motivation

A motivation is a reason that explains or partially explains a character’s thoughts, feelings, actions, or speech. Writers try to make their characters’ motivations, or motives, as clear and believable as possible. Characters are often motivated by needs, such as food and shelter. They are also motivated by feelings, such as fear, love, and pride.

Narration

Narration is writing that tells a story Fictional works, such as novels and short stories are examples or narration. Narration can also be found in many kinds of nonfiction, including autobiographies, biographies, and newspaper reports, or even in drama is called a narrative.

Novel

A novel is a long work of fiction. Novels contain all the elements of short stories, including characters, plot, conflict, and setting. However, novels are much longer than short stories. The writer of novels, or the novelist, can therefore develop these elements more fully than a writer of short stories can. In addition to its main plot, a novel may contain one or more subplots, or independent, related stories. A novel may also have several themes.

Personification

Personification is a type of figurative language in which a non-human object is given human characteristics.

Plot

Plot is the sequence of events in a literature work. In most novels, dramas, short stories, and narrative poems, the plot involves both characters and a central conflict. The plot usually begins with an exposition that introduces the setting, the character, and the basic situation. This is followed by the introduction of the central conflict. The conflict then increases during the rising action until it reaches a high point of interest or suspense, the climax. The climax is followed by the falling action, or end, of the central conflict. Any events that occur during the falling action make up the resolution, or denouement. Some plots do not have all three parts. Some stories begin with the inciting incident and end with the resolution. In some, the inciting incident has occurred before the opening of the story.

Point of View

Point of view is the perspective, or vantage point, from which a story is told. Three commonly used points of view are first person, omniscient third person, and limited third person. In stories told from the first person point of view, the narrator is a character in the story and refers to him or herself with the pronoun “I.” The two kinds of third-person points of view, limited and omniscient, are called third person because the narrator uses third person pronouns such as “he” and “she” to refer to the characters. There is no “I” telling the story. In stories told from the omniscient third point of view, the narrator knows and tells about what each characters feels and thinks. In stories told from the limited third-person point of view, the narrator relates the inner thoughts and feelings of only one character, and everything is viewed from this character’s perspective.

Setting

The setting of a literary work is the time and place of the action. The time includes not only the historical period - the past, present, or future - but also the year, the season, the time of day, and even the weather. The place may be a specific country, state, region, community, neighborhood, building, institution, or home. Details such as dialects, clothing, customs and modes of transportation are often used to establish setting. In most stories the setting serves as a backdrop - a context in which the characters interact. In some stories, the setting is crucial to the plot.

Simile

A simile is a figure of speech that uses like or as to make a direct comparison between two unlike things/ideas. Writers use similes to describe people, places, and things vividly; they create similes to point out new and interesting ways of viewing the world.

Symbol