Literature Homework Help!

Lague 1

Elements of Literature

Glossary of Literary Terms

When you study literature, like any other discipline, you should become familiar with the terminology that is used. There are more

terms than those listed below, but this list is a good place to start. You can always learn more terms as the semester progresses.

Alliteration:

Alliteration is a poetic method of repeating the first consonant sounds in a line of poetry.

Assonance:

Assonance is a poetic method that relies on close repetition of vowel sounds to create rhymes. The rhymes may seem to be just a little off,

not quite what one might expect. For example, vowels sounds are sometimes close, but not identical, like love and prove.

Audience:

This is the reader. Unlike the audience for a TV program, the audience for fiction must be engaged. That means the person reading the

story, novel, play or poem, has to work a bit to get everything out of the literature that the creator put in to it.

Character:

The protagonist is the character at the center of the story, the main character; sometimes called the “hero” or “heroine,” the protagonist

does not necessarily act in a “heroic” manner. Sometimes, there is a major character that works against the interests of the protagonist

whether he/she realized it or not. This character is called an antagonist. Sometimes, the protagonist meets his or her match in the

antagonist.

Major characters are those characters about which the audience learns the most and comes to care about the most while minor

characters are less central to the story than major characters..

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Round characters are very clearly individuals. They seem like real people. The audience gets to know a lot about them because they

express a full range of human emotions and are firmly placed in the community. On the other hand, flat characters can be somewhat lost

in the background, needing to be in the story, but not a main part of it.

A dynamic character is one that changes during the course of the story because of what he or she experiences in it. A flat character does

not change through the course of the story. He or she is the same kind of person at the end of the story as he or she is at the beginning.

Dramatic elements:

Dramatic elements are those elements that apply to plays. Reading a play is somewhat artificial because plays are merely scripts of

dialogue whose true meaning does not come alive until the play is performed before a life audience.

The dramatis personae is a list of characters in the play. The terms for “character” apply here. There are no narrators in drama, unlike

other fictional forms.

An act is a large division in a play made up of “scenes.” They function like chapter breaks in a book. The number of acts and scenes

varies from one-act plays to plays with several acts. Usually, the text of the play also applies numbers to the lines of the play (not the

sentences or paragraphs).

Dialogue is the term given to the words characters speak to each other. A soliloquy is a speech by one character given alone on the stage

that gives the character’s innermost thoughts to the audience. An aside is a brief comment by one character, supposedly muttered so that

the other characters on stage do not hear it. Only the audience hears the aside. Like the soliloquy, an aside tells the audience what the

character is really thinking.

Stage directions are the playwright’s directions about motivation, gesturing, tone of voice, costuming and setting.

The stage set is composed of all the props (structures and items) that indicate where and when the action takes place. Therefore, the stage

set supplies the setting for the play.

Foreshadowing:

Foreshadowing is something that happens or something that is said, either by the narrator in prose fiction or a character, that gives a hint

about what is to come later in the story. In using foreshadowing, the writer does not undermine any suspense he or she is building into the

story. Instead, the elements of foreshadowing may only be clear when the story ends or when it is read a second time. The more literary

fiction you read, the more likely you will be to be able pick out foreshadowing the first time you see it.

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Fictional Genre:

Genres pertain to distinctive types of literature. There are many types of genre fiction. Children’s fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery,

romance, science fiction, detective stories, thrillers, westerns, and young adult are the major fiction genres. Each of these genres include

elements that are specific to the genre. For example, in a children’s novel, the main character is always a child or at least a character that a

child can relate to, the themes are aimed at children, and the vocabulary and sentence structure or aimed at a very young reader.

Irony:

Verbal irony is at work when the words literally mean the opposite of what the speaker really means. One type of irony is “understatement,” which deliberately diminishing the response of an idea to an extreme degree. “Hyperbole” is the opposite of

“understatement.” It is a gross exaggeration of the truth.

Dramatic irony occurs in plays (and sometimes in other forms) when the audience knows something a character does not know.

Metaphor:

A metaphor is a type of figurative (rather than literal) language that is used to imply a comparison between one thing and another. A

simile is a type of metaphor that is recognized by the use of the words “as” or “like.” They are part of the visual/figurative imagery of

prose or poetry.

Meter:

Meter is the rhythm of the language used in poetry. Sometimes the rhythm is broken within a line of poetry; this break is called a caesura.

There are many types of rhythmical patterns:

The iamb is the natural rhythm of the everyday speech of English. It is defined as one “unstressed” syllable followed by one “stressed”

syllable, which is called a foot. For example, the word “hotel” has a first unstressed syllable (ho) and a final stressed syllable (tel) where

the voice stresses that last syllable over the first one as the word is spoken. Lines of poetry that used “iambs” are defined by the number of

“iambs” they contain. Common forms are iambic trimester (three iambs), iambic tetrameter (four iambs), and iambic pentameter (five

iambs), which is the form that Shakespeare used. Varying the meter helps to create interest as conforming to closely to a certain meter for

too long in a poem quickly becomes boring to the audience.

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Narrator:

The narrator is the person who provides additional information about what is happening in fiction or what the characters are thinking.

There are several varieties of narrator that an author may create. The narrator is not usually considered to be a character, but a kind of

speaker who tells the story. The audience should not assume that the narrator and the author are the same person. That does not happen in

fiction.

The limited-omniscient narrator seems to know everything, but is limited in some way. He or she may know all about only one of some

of the characters, giving that character’s point of view about a situation and that character’s prejudices.

The omniscient narrator is one that is completely reliable. The audience can believe everything he or she says because the omniscient

narrator knows everything about all the characters.

A first person narrator is one who tells his or her story from the first person point of view (I/me/my). He or she is an active participant in

the actions of the story and interacts with the other characters. This is the only time a narrator can also be considered as a character. Like

everyone, the first-person narrator is limited by his or her personal experience, beliefs and values. The reader must always keep in mind

that a first person narrator is always telling the story from his or her own perspective and may not know everything that is going on the the

story.

The third-person narrator is either an omniscient or limited omniscient narrator who speaks in an objective manner (never using

I/me/my). The characters are referred to as “he,” “she,” or “they.” The narrator, therefore, is outside the story, not a part of the action.

An unreliable narrator is one that the audience cannot trust for some reason. The fact that the narrator is not reliable may be withheld

from the reader until the end of the story and he or she could turn out to be prejudiced or even insane! Part of the work the audience needs

to do is figure out how much of the narrator’s information is accurate.

Paradox:

Paradox literally means “beyond what is thought” and indicates that two contradictory ideas are considered equally believable. One

example is the “oxymoron,” which is a word or phrase that contains its opposite within itself.

Personification:

Personification occurs when human characteristics are applied to something that is not alive. It works best in short works, and is usually

found in poetry.

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Plot:

The plot is what happens in the story. Keep that work “what” in mind. The plot is composed of the events that happen to the characters

and what the characters do in the story. The main plot, then, is what holds most of the audience’s interest. A subplot also tells what

happens in the story, but it is less important than the main plot. Subplots are usually about minor characters. The longer the work of

literature, the more subplots there may be.

There are several elements that feed into the plot of a story: Stories depend on an emotional, physical, or social problem; there are

conflicts between characters or within a character’s mind (an internal conflict). The chronology of the story is the time sequence of

events. Sometimes, writers disrupt their chronology with flashbacks that explain events prior to the opening of the story, or they sometime

use foreshadowing to look ahead.

The plot in prose fiction (novels, novellas, short stories) follow a certain structure:

The exposition conveys information at the beginning of a story. It introduces the

characters and places the story in a setting of time and place. In other words, it gets

the story going.

The rising action begins where the story starts to get complicated. Conflicts arise

that move the story forward. Obstacles are placed in the way of the characters.

Sometimes, conflicts are resolved or thought to be resolves only for new conflicts to

arise. Rising action, as shown in the image to the left, makes up most of the story.

The climax of a story is the point at which everything must change. It marks a

turning point in the story. Things may get better or worse, but they definitely change. The climax is the most dramatic point in the story.

Falling action occurs after the climax as the plot starts to wind down to the end of the story. The story is still moving forward, but the

reader knows the end is near.

The resolution, or dénouement, is the point at which the conflict in the story disappears; the problem is solved. Usually this happens at

or near the end of the story. However, sometimes there is a false resolution earlier in the story. It seems as if the conflict has disappeared

in a certain way, but as the reader continues, he or she learns that the conflict truly disappears in a completely different way at the end of

the story.

Poetic genres:

Genres pertain to distinctive types of literature. There are several poetic genres. Here are a few of them. A ballad is a long singing poem

that tells a story (usually of love or adventure), written in quatrains (four lines). This is called “narrative form” because it tells a story.

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Blank verse is an unrhymed iambic pentameter line, which so often what Shakespeare used in his plays. Free verse has no regular rhythm

other than the natural rhythm of the language.

Point of view:

Point of view in literature is what the narrator (or the “speaker” in a poem) sees or tells the audience. As you read, you should notice your

own impression of the narrator (or speaker) at the beginning and whether or not (and why) your impression changes as your reading

progresses.

Prose fiction:

Prose fiction is composed of short stories, novellas, and novels. A novel is longer than 150 pages. Unlike the short story, it is meant to be

read over several. There tend to be more characters with the minor characters being fully developed with life histories and “inner lives” of

their own. They interact with each other, creating social conflicts. The novels tend to comment on social issues. The novel has the space to

contain a whole world and a lifetime. The novella is a long short story or a short novel that is anywhere from 75 to 150 pages. A short

story does not usually exceed 75 pages. It is meant to be read in one sitting. It is closer to poetry than to the novel in that they both rely on

the intensity of the emotional effect. A short story restricts itself to one or two settings and only a handful of characters. It emphasizes one

dramatic event and the characters’ actions to it, often with one event and one character’s reaction to it. Therefore, the short story tends to

be psychological.

Prosody:

Prosody is an understanding of the poems poetic language and structure. The language tends to communicate the ideas expressed in the

poem is a less direct manner than prose. Meaning is derived both from the denotation of words (their literal meaning) and the

connotation of words (the emotional meanings the words convey in their context in the literary text). A good reader pays attention to

both. Figurative language is also important. Metaphors may be used liberally, or the whole poem may be an extended metaphor.

Prosody also includes symbols.

Rhyme schemes:

The rhyme scheme is the rhyming pattern of a poem. Alliteration is a poetic form that repeats initial consonant sounds while assonance

is a rhyme based solely on the repetition of vowels sounds. Vowels sounds are sometimes close, but not identical, like love and prove.

End rhyme occurs at the end of a line. Slant rhyme describes words that almost rhyme, like bush and brush.

Satire:

Satire is an indirect attack at someone or something. Occasionally, the attack is so indirect that a person being satirized might not even

recognize him or herself in the satire. Be careful not to confuse this term with irony.

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Setting:

The setting is the impression of place and time that is described in the story and is given in the story’s exposition. It can affect the

atmosphere or mood of the story and is meant to evoke an emotional response from the audience. It can also be used to foreshadow later

events. Physical setting is made up of the physical places where the plot unfolds. Temporal setting is the time in which the events occur.

A cultural setting is one that contains a set of beliefs and values. These will change with the physical/temporal setting and with the

characters. They are not necessarily beliefs and values that the author holds or that he or she expects the audience to accept as their own,

but they are beliefs and values that are logical and natural with the physical/temporal setting of the story.

Sonnet:

A sonnet is a one-stanza poem of fourteen lines. There are three types of sonnets: Italian (or Petrarchan), Spenserian and Shakespearean.

For the purposes of this course, the Shakespearean sonnet is the most important of the two as he wrote some of the most famous sonnets in

the English language. Usually, the Shakespearean sonnet is composed of four divisions within the poem, three quatrains (three sets of

four lines each; lines 1-12), with each quatrain having its own rhyme scheme, and a rhymed couplet (lines 13-14) with end rhyme (line

of poetry whose last words rhyme). The couplet at the end is usually a commentary on what came earlier in the poem, and the meaning of

the sonnet can be completely changed by that couplet.

Speaker:

Speaker is the term used for the narrator of a poem. Ordinarily, you should not confuse the speaker with the poet. However, sometimes

the speaker of the poem seems to be the poet speaking about him or herself. Often, though, what seems to be the poet speaking about him

or herself is really the poet creating a speaker who merely speaks using the poet’s beliefs, anxieties, values, etc. Some speakers may reveal

a lot about themselves; others are less visible, not seeming to reveal themselves at all. The concept of a first- or third-person speaker, as it

is discussed under narrator can apply to poetry as well a prose.

Stanza:

A stanza is one section of a poem. Stanzas are separated from each other by white space on the page. Each stanza usually one idea or

image.

Symbol:

Symbols are elements in prose or the imagery of poems that represent something other than the obvious. In that way, they are like the

denotation and connotation of words (as explain in prosody): They indicate some literal object or concept, but also have a deeper meaning

that adds to the meaning of the story, play, or poem.

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Theme:

The theme is the basic idea behind the story. It is something special that the author wants to say, some message he or she wants to express

to the audience through the plot and characters. Sometimes, the theme of a story is not obvious, and the audience has to work a bit (think!)

to figure it out.

Tone:

Tone is developed by the diction (word choices) used by the author. It indicates the solemnity, playfulness, or teasing quality of the

writing. In poetry, meter and rhyme contribute to tone.