Guide to Literary Terms

Most plays and movies are enacted as if they are happening in the present. The scripts are almost invariably written in the present tense. Novels and short stories are usually written in the past...

Drama, poetry, and the short story are all genres of literature that rely on exquisitely careful word choice. Drama, as a form, is written exclusively as lines spoken by different characters. These...

A word’s denotation is its dictionary definition. A word’s connotation is the emotional baggage, so to speak, that it has acquired through popular usage. Consider words that we use to describe...

The lyrics to "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Freddie Mercury are enigmatic and open to interpretation. Thus what one listener might take as literal language could be taken as figurative language by someone...

Within the study of linguistics, semantics examines the meaning of words and sentences. A semantic field is thus the range of words that is employed to discuss some common topic. For example, the...

Prose can be best defined formally and can be defined in contrast to poetry and to other forms of writing (like certain lists or certain kinds of directions/instructions). "Prose - the ordinary...

Critical appreciation is analyzing a work to evaluate its contents and explain why it should be appreciated. While it's easy to like something, showing a critical justification for your...

This term for this is personification, I believe.

In language, being direct eliminates confusion and ensures that miscommunication is minimized. However, when subtlety or emphasis is needed or creativity is required or perhaps a reader or receiver...

In linguistics, intonation refers to the way in which a speaker varies his or her pitch when pronouncing words. Along with stress (the way certain words are emphasized), intonation is an element of...

I have compiled a list of similes and metaphors that could generally fall into one of these topics: O, speak again, bright angel, for thou artAs glorious to this night, being o’er my head,As is a...

3. on some bright tomorrow they will come to the end of endurance. I would say this is irony. A bright tomorrow indicates a positive end. The end of endurance sounds defeated. 4. Don't...

Here are the simplified definitions of prose and poetry: Prose--the ordinary, matter-of-fact, ordinary form of language Poetry--the art of rhythmical composition for exciting pleasure by...

There is a classical sense in which literary and nonliterary may be distinguished. This distinction is important for those studying Literature. In the context of classical literature studies,...

Subject can be related to topic while theme will always be, to some extent, conceptual. Subject matter can be topical, localized and stated often as a simple noun phrase. (Examples: the medical...

To describe someone's appearance using similes, you might say that he or she is as thin as a pole, or as scruffy as a cat that's been dragged through a bush. Or you might say that he or she has...

The main character in a work of literature is also known as the protagonist. The protagonist is not necessarily the "good guy," just as the antagonist is not always the "bad guy." An antagonist...

Mock epic is a poetic genre derived from the epic, a genre invented by Homer that sought to immortalise the deeds of heroes and gods through poetry. However, where traditional epics like Homer's...

This is a good question! In order to have the passive voice, words need to be arranged so that what would ordinarily be the subject in the sentence, the word that performs the action, is relegated...

It is probably quite safe to assert that there are as many styles of prose as there are writers of prose. Each author uses his or her favorite grammatical and syntactic structures, words, and...

Kennings are an interesting feature of Anglo-Saxon poetry that modern readers encounter in Old English works like Beowulf, The Wanderer and The Seafarer. To create kennings for "school," you'll...

The theme of a work of art or literature can be more subtle than its subject. The subject is the main topic, while a theme may have deeper undercurrents or be unspoken. The setting is the time and...

An epic is a dramatic story told in the form of a poem. Traditional epics are lengthy and take the reader on a journey through various settings and times. The Homerian epics are classic examples,...

A complex word is defined as a base word combined with a derivational element, such as an affix or a suffix. I.E, the word live + ly= lively. There are four origins that explain the formation of...

Appreciation means to recognize and/or enjoy the good qualities of someone or something. Poetry appreciation is that attitude about poetry. Some people flat out enjoy reading poetry. There...

While one does typically hear the word illiterate to describe an individual who can neither read nor write, there are other possibilities. I've also heard the word unlettered to describe such a...

The theme is the unviersal truth that a work of fiction embodies. Macbeth's famous soliloquy "Tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow" of Act V, for example, has as its theme the illusionary nature of...

In the early days of Greek drama there was only one actor on stage, playing all the different parts. The introduction of the chorus, then, was largely practical. It provided the audience with a...

This is a great question. Agency is often times a term used in either philosophy and sociology, however it can be used in a literature sense as well. What agency means, is essentially the freedom...

In many respects, the decision as to which point of view a writer will employ is one of the most important decisions in the writing process, with lasting implications in shaping the story that will...

An ode is a poem in praise of something or someone. An ode can be serious or humorous, but in all instances it is thoughtful, in that the poet is exploring important aspects of the thing being...

A metaphor is a comparison of two unalike things—where one thing is said to be the other. It does not use the words like or as, as a simile would do, and it often does not even include a variant of...

The closest answer is zoomorphism, which is giving animal traits to non-animal subjects or objects, as in the sidewalk that "purrs." There is an interesting issue bubbling under the surface of this...

Staccato sentences can be used for a variety of effects in writing; they are, by nature, short and often emphatic. For example: "I said no." "Just no." "No!" This series of three staccato sentences...

Characters develop theme in a variety of ways: Sometimes, characters help develop a theme because of their unique perspectives. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout Finch tells the story of Tom...

Pronunciation, in any language, is crucial for good communication and understanding. Vowels and diphthongs are not unique to English speakers, and their use is always to ensure pronunciation in...

The distinction is basically artificial. Historically, the notion of the "figures" originated in Graeco-Roman education. This educational system included "grammar" as the main part of the secondary...

A literary movement is a general term for pieces of literature by different authors (usually over the same time period) who share a similar impetus for writing in some way. Usually these authors...

Foregrounding is a literary concept borrowed from Russian Formalism and developed by formalist Jan Mukařovský who called it aktualisace, which has been translated to English as foregrounding....

Essentially, conversion in morphological terms is the process of one word being changed or converted from one word class to another without there being any actual change to the form of the...

There are many more poetic devices than there are figures of speech because figures of speech are actually poetic devices (which is a much broader category). A poetic device could be something as...

Personification is when a poet or speaker gives human attributes or abilities to something that is not human. Fear knocked at the door. Faith answered. And lo, no one was there. This proverb is a...

I agree with the other posters; The Importance of Being Earnast is a comedy of manners, while the Pink Panther series is a comedy of humor. The difference is that one uses the conceptions of the...

The format of a letter really depends on what type of letter you are writing. If you are writing a business letter you would use the block formatting where everything is lined up on the left hand...

Plot is the overall story line of a piece of fiction. It is what you would talk about if someone asked you what happened in the story. Plots typically consist of set elements such as rising...

A "prose summary" is a short statement that expresses the main ideas of a passage. These statements provide an overview of the major ideas in a reading passage and leave out minor ideas or details....