Literary and Poetic Terms Quiz

Literary and Poetic Terms

• Allegory: A narrative with a hidden meaning; characters, events, and things represent abstract qualities.
• Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds close together.
• Anachronism: Placing something out of its historical time period.
• Analogy: Comparing something to something else to show similarity.
• Allusion: Indirect reference to another work, historical event, or figure.
• Anecdote: A short story about a particular event.
• Archetype: Common symbols, characters, or patterns in literature.
• Aside: Dialogue in a play where a character addresses the audience but not other characters.
• Attitude: The author's opinion or feeling toward the subject.
• Blank verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter poetry.
• Caesura: A pause in a line of poetry.
• Colloquial: Informal language used in everyday conversation.
• Comic relief: Humor used to lighten the mood in a serious text.
• Concrete language: Words that describe specific, observable things.
• Connotation: Implied meaning of a word beyond its literal definition.
• Denotation: Literal meaning of a word.
• Dialect: Language specific to a region or group.
• Diction: Word choice.
• Elegy: Poem expressing mourning.
• Epiphany: A moment of realization or insight.
• Epithet: descriptive word or phrase used in place of a name (e.g., rosy-fingered dawn).
• Exposition: Background information in a narrative.
• Euphemism: Replacing a harsh term with a milder one.
• Figurative language: Language using figures of speech such as metaphors and similes.
• Flat character: Simple character with few distinct traits.
• Foil: A character who contrasts with another character to highlight their qualities.
• Formal diction: Elegant and sophisticated language.
• Genre: Category of literature (e.g., tragedy, comedy).
• Hubris: Excessive pride that leads to downfall.
• Hyperbole: Extreme exaggeration.
• Iambic: A metrical foot with an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.
• Imagery: Use of language to create sensory experiences.
• Informal diction: Ordinary language.
• Irony: Discrepancy between expectation and reality.
• Metaphor: Comparison of two unlike things without using "like" or "as."
• Meter: Pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem.
• Motif: Repeated element in a literary work.
• Mood: Atmosphere or feeling in a literary work.
• Onomatopoeia: Words that imitate sounds.
• Oxymoron: Contradictory terms.
• Parable: Short story with a lesson.
• Paradox: Seemingly contradictory statement that may be true.
• Parody: Humorous imitation of another text.
• Parallelism: Use of similar grammatical structures.
• Personification: Giving human qualities to nonhuman things.
• Periodic sentence: Main clause at the end of the sentence.
• Plot: Sequence of events in a story.
• Point of View: Perspective from which a story is told.
• Round character: Complex character with many traits.
• Sarcasm: Irony used to mock.
• Satire: Use of humor to criticize something.
• Setting: Time and place of a story.
• Soliloquy: A character's speech expressing inner thoughts.
• Stock character: Stereotypical character.
• Style: Manner of writing.
• Symbol: Object, action, or event that represents a larger idea.
• Syntax: Word order in a sentence.
• Theme: Central idea or message in a literary work.
• Tone: Author's attitude toward the subject.
• Tragic flaw: Weakness in a character that leads to downfall.
• Understatement: Downplaying something.