Literary Elements 1
What is the dictionary definition of a word?
Denotation
What is a gross exaggeration?
Hyperbole
What is the attitude a writer takes towards his subject, character or the reader?
Tone
What is the writer's or speaker's distinctive use of language in a text?
Style
What is the vantage point from which a writer narrates or tells the story?
Point of view
What is an object that stands for an idea or a theme?
Symbol
What is a narrative in which characters stand for abstract ideas or moral qualities?
Allegory
What is a statement or situation that seems to be a contradiction but that reveals a truth?
Paradox
What is the writer's or speaker's choice of words?
Diction
What is poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme?
Free verse
What is a contrast between expectation and reality?
What is a type of writing that ridicules human weakness, vice, or folly in order to reveal a weakness or to bring about social reform.
Satire
What is the author's method of revealing what a character is like?
Characterization
What is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without using connective words such as like or as?
Metaphor
What is a polite word or phrase used in place of an offensive or crude word or phrase?
Euphemism
What is an interruption of the present action of the plot to show events that happened earlier in time?
Flashback
What is a 14 line lyric poem, usually written in iambic pentameter?
Sonnet
What is the repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds in words that are close together.
Assonance
What is the repeating of words, line, or phrases in a literary work.
Repetition / anaphora
What is a story's atmoshpere or the feeling it evokes?
Mood
What is a reference to another text or artwork within a text?
Allusion
What is a play on the multiple meaning of a word or tow words that sound alike but have different meanings.
Pun
Foreshadowing
What the use of clues to hint at events that wil occur later in the plot.
What is two consecutive lines of poetry that form a unit, often emphasized by rhythm or rhyme?
Couplet
What is a character's tragic flaw?
Hamartia