Literary Terms Quiz

Literary Terms

• Alliteration: Repetition of initial consonant sounds in a series of words.
• Analogy: Comparison between two things to explain or clarify similarities.
• Antagonist: Character, group, or force opposing the protagonist.
• Approximate Rhyme (Near Rhyme/Slant Rhyme): Words with similar, but not identical, sounds.
• Archetypal Characters: Universal characters found across cultures and literature (e.g., hero, villain, mentor).
• Assonance: Repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words for a musical effect.
• Character: Person, animal, or other being in a story.
• Characterization: Methods used to reveal a character's personality and motivations.
• Climax: The most intense point of conflict in a story.
• Common Meter: Poetic meter with alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter lines, often used in hymns.
• Conflict: Struggle between opposing forces driving the plot.
• Consonance: Repetition of consonant sounds, often at the end of words.
• Contemporary Realism: Literary genre depicting life accurately, often addressing current issues.
• Dystopia: Unfavorable or frightening fictional society often exploring social/political issues.
• Emotional Realism: Literary technique portraying believable and relatable emotions of characters.
• End Rhyme: Rhyme between final words of two or more lines in a poem.
• Enjambment: Continuation of a sentence beyond the end of a line or stanza in poetry.
• Exposition: Part of a story providing context on characters, setting, and conflict.
• Factual Realism: Focuses on accurate and realistic descriptions of events or settings.
• Fairy Tale: Story, often for children, involving magical creatures and events.
• Falling Action: Events following climax leading to story's resolution.
• Fantasy: Genre with magical elements and imaginative worlds.
• First-Person Point of View: Narrative perspective where the author is a character within the story ("I").
• Flat Characters: Simple, one-dimensional characters lacking development.
• Folk Literature: Traditional stories, myths, and legends passed down through generations.
• Folk Tale: Story from popular culture, typically passed down orally.
• Foreshadowing: Hints/clues suggesting future events in a story.
• Form: Structure or organization of a piece of writing (e.g., poem, novel).
• Gothic Novel: Genre of mystery, horror, and supernatural, often set in dark locations.
• Grotesque: Style or character with bizarre, absurd or distorted elements.
• Iambic Tetrameter: Four iambs (unstressed-stressed) in a line of poetry.
• Iambic Trimeter: Three iambs (unstressed-stressed) in a line of poetry.
• Imagery: Descriptive language appealing to senses, creating mental pictures.
• Internal Rhyme: Rhyme within a single line of poetry.
• Lyric: Short poem expressing personal feelings and emotions.
• Metaphor: Comparing unlike things without "like" or "as."
• Motif: Recurring element, theme, or symbol in a work of literature.
• New Realism: Literary movement focusing on authentic, gritty depictions of life.
• Non Sequitur: Statement not logically following previous statements.
• Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human things.
• Plot: Sequence of events in a story (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution).
• Point of View: Perspective from which a story is told (first-person, third-person).
• Protagonist: Main character facing challenges or conflicts.
• Reader Response Theory: Theory emphasizing reader's role in interpreting a text based on experience.
• Realism: Literary style aiming to depict life accurately and truthfully.
• Resolution: Conclusion of a story where conflicts are resolved.
• Rhyme Scheme: Pattern of rhymes in a poem (marked with letters, e.g., ABAB).
• Rising Action: Events in a story that build tension leading up to climax.
• Round Characters: Complex characters with depth and development.
• Science Fiction: Genre exploring speculative ideas like technology, space, or futuristic worlds.
• Semiotics: Study of signs and symbols and their meanings.
• Setting: Time and place of a story.
• Signs: Elements conveying meaning in language/culture (studied in semiotics).
• Simile: Comparing two things using "like" or "as."
• Social Realism: Literary movement highlighting social problems and injustices.
• Stanza: Grouped lines in a poem, separated by space.
• Symbol: Object, character, or event representing deeper meaning.
• Theme: Central idea or message of a literary work.
• Third-Person Point of View: Narrative perspective where the narrator is not a character and uses pronouns like "he," "she," or "they."
• Tricksters: Archetypal characters known for cleverness and outsmarting others.
• Uncanny: Feeling of eerie familiarity or strangeness, often related to the supernatural.
• Utopia: Imagined perfect society free from problems.
• Verisimilitude: Appearance of truth or reality in a work of fiction.