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Guide to Literary Terms
There are quite a few questions at work here! Let's think about it. There isn't an example of outright criminality in this story. Is Dave a criminal for killing Jenny? He has certainly misbehaved...
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Guide to Literary Terms
When we talk about a word's denotation, we are referring to its dictionary definition. When we talk about a word's connotation, we are referring to the emotional baggage, so to speak, that it picks...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Here are some similes and metaphors you might consider using: 1. INTELLEGENCE: Johnny raised his arm to asnwer every question so the others thought he was as smart as a rocket-scientist. (simile)...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Prose is any kind of writing without a metrical structure. Poetry, in contrast, includes meter, rhyme, and rhythm, so none of these elements are related to prose. Prose solely relies on sentences...
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Guide to Literary Terms
If found in poetry, this device may be a couplet, which consists of two lines, usually rhyming, at the end of a stanza or poem. William Shakespeare commonly used couplets at the end of his sonnets...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Interesting question. The term you might be looking for is zoomorphism, which, according to one of its definitions, is "the tendency of viewing human behaviour in terms of the behaviour of animals,...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Basically, an interior monologue is an author's way to let the audience see what is going on in the mind of a character. It allows us to glimpse the inner lives of characters. The author uses...
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Guide to Literary Terms
A metaphor is a figure of speech comparing unlike things by describing them as something else. Metaphors are often used to help you clearly picture something. They use a linking verb like “is”...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Words are signifiers, part of a language code to convey thoughts from sender to receiver. The “denotation” of a word is its “lexical" meaning, its definition; its referent is an object,...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Those sentence types are common terms from the AP English Language and English Literature exams. So, if you can master not only analyzing them but also writing them now, you will be in good shape...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Character develops theme in several ways. The author uses a character as the spokesperson for the author's views or opposes the author's views, either of which becomes obvious by what happens to...
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Guide to Literary Terms
As a literary term, "epic" modifies either "poem" or "hero." When we define a work of literature as an "epic poem," it will meet certain criteria. It is a long narrative poem: so it tells a story...
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Guide to Literary Terms
An idiom is a form of figurative language, in this case, using words in a way that their meaning can't be determined from the meaning of the words alone, which is what can make them problematic....
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Guide to Literary Terms
You will find an example of a sound and unsound deductive argument here. http://knowled.co.uk/59985?q=deductive%20argument A sound deductive argument would be: All squares are rectangles. A...
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Guide to Literary Terms
What a great question! These two words often are used interchangably, but they do mean different things. Confusion arises because the two words are related in meaning. They both reflect some truth...
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Guide to Literary Terms
There are two possibilities for the term you're looking for. One is "exposition," which is the basic narrative or story line. The other, which I think is what you want, is called...
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Guide to Literary Terms
The term "prose" simply means anything other than poetry, so nearly every book or short story you have read is written in prose. (A few notable exceptions would be Seamus Heaney's translation of...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Kennedy's Inaugural Address uses the literary techniques of simile, reversal, climatic parallelism, and metaphor. I offer an example of each by using the first few words that identifies where the...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Similes (comparisons using "like" or "as") and metaphors (direct comparisons without using "like" or "as") are wonderful tools by which an author relates something familiar to something unfamiliar...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Onomatopoeia are words that sound like their meaning. For example, buzz, crash, or tick all sound like the noise they represent. For the three words you ask about, I would assign these meanings: Oh...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Much Renaissance love poetry uses extended metaphors or other figures of speech as a means of talking about love or sexuality. One charming example is Thomas Campion’s song “There Is a Garden...
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Guide to Literary Terms
In literature, a Tragedy is a story which "treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events encountered or caused by a heroic individual" (Encyclopedia Britannica) and shows...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Prosody, or the study of meter and rhythm, is crucial to the study of many poems. Consider, for instance, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 12, which begins with a line of perfect iambicmeter. In an iamb,...
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Guide to Literary Terms
In English literature, such as poetry or even some prose, personification is a technique whereby the author bestows human characteristics or personality on another entity such as a tree, a flower,...
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Guide to Literary Terms
One annotates a passage that need explanation to be completely understood and appreciated. Often, in works of literature, an editor will annotate the text in the margin (or at the bottom of each...
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Guide to Literary Terms
The example you have given is not described by any of the terms on your list. "It's all in the family but with no relation" is actual an example of a kind of irony. We can also say that this phrase...
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Guide to Literary Terms
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...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Since experience comes to people predominantly through the senses, the use of imagery in literary works is essential because it is "the representation through language of sense experience."...
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Guide to Literary Terms
An allegory, according to the eNotes site under Guide to Literary Terms, is: an extended metaphor in which a person, abstract idea, or event stands for itself and for something else. It usually...
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Guide to Literary Terms
There are basically 6 elements to a short story: 1. Setting: Time and location of when and where the story takes place. Often significant in understanding the short story. Items to consider:...
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Guide to Literary Terms
An expository essay is one that explains, describes, or informs. It lists events in chronological order and tells how to do something, such as giving directions to a destination or how to make...
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Guide to Literary Terms
The difference lies not in its seriousness but in its length and structure. A symbol can be any thing – an image, a word picture, a reference to a parallel of any kind – it simply “stands...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Characterization is how a writer depicts a character either directly or indirectly. Direct characterization is done through (exactly as it sounds) directly describing the character. This is...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds at the beginning of words. It is a sound device authors use to add pep to their work. You probably will recognize it best if I describe...
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Guide to Literary Terms
The setting is the time and place where a story takes place. It may seem trivial, but in many instances, the setting plays a very large part in how stories are played out. Can you imagine how...
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Guide to Literary Terms
This is a great question, though I see you're in 9th grade and some of my best examples may be from things you haven't yet read. An epiphany, of course, is a moment of awakening, of realization,...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Irony is the juxtaposition of two elements that do not "fit," that are surprising together, situational irony; saying something in a way that suggests you mean something altogether different,...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Allegory is a metaphor that usually teaches a lesson. Allegories have frequently been used to comment on some aspect of society in attempts to change it, admire or mock it. One of the most famous...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Foregrounding is used as a major stylistic device by many authors whether that is in plays, novels, short stories or long poems. One of the most illustrative (if a little brash) examples of the use...
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Guide to Literary Terms
There are other possible answers for all of these, but this is what I am guessing for most of them. I hope it helps. 1. Personification: the heart is given human-like characteristics. 2....
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Guide to Literary Terms
In terms of literary characteristics, the conflicts within a story are not always easy to identify. A brief overview of each type of conflict should adapt universally to literature. Internal vs....
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Guide to Literary Terms
A kenning is a descriptive phrase that is used in place of a standard noun. Many kennings are compound phrases: wound-tool in place of sword. Others use possesive phrases: wave's horse in place...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Suspense can be defined in at least two ways. We can look at suspense as a state of mind created in the audience by a work of literature or film. We can also define suspense as a genre of...
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Guide to Literary Terms
These two forms of literature, the novel and drama, share a number of similarities. We may even argue that there are more similarities than differences in these forms. The most fundamental...
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Guide to Literary Terms
There are three kinds of irony, generally referred to as verbal, situational, and dramatic. Verbal irony is defined as "ironic statements" with typically "a meaning in opposition to their literal...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Since you did not specify any book in particular, let's focus on what plot means and looks like in a fiction book: The word plot is a literary term used to describe the relation of events within a...
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Guide to Literary Terms
Another term for Falling Action is the Denouement. This follows the story's climax. The Climax is the most exciting part of the story. This is usually where the story's conflicts come to a head....
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Guide to Literary Terms
If the question is regarding how to find or discover the mood in the story, there are some steps that can be taken to effectively determine this. One way to "read" this is to examine the level of...
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Guide to Literary Terms
The main difference between these types of fiction is in their mass appeal and accessibility. Literary fiction tends to be very symbolic, thick, poetic, and focus more on themes, the actual...
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Guide to Literary Terms
A parody is a spoof, a mockery of something. In literature, parodies are used to criticize and poke fun at something. By imitating the very thing that is the object of the spoof, an author can...