Literary Terms
A brief, indirect reference to a well-known person, place, event, or work of literature.
Allusion
A comparison between two things to explain or clarify an idea.
Analogy
When the audience knows something important that the characters do not.
Dramatic Irony
An extreme exaggeration used for emphasis or effect.
Hyperbole
A literary style that depicts life accurately and truthfully without idealization.
Realism
A story in which characters and events symbolize deeper moral or political meanings.
Allegory
The emotional or cultural associations attached to a word beyond its literal meaning.
Connotation
A recurring element, image, or idea that has symbolic significance in a work.
Motif
A statement that seems contradictory but reveals a deeper truth.
Paradox
The repetition of sound, word, or phrase for emphasis or effect.
Echo
Language that can be interpreted in more than one way.
Ambiguity
A short, witty statement that expresses an idea in a clever or surprising way.
Epigram
An exaggerated statement that goes beyond the truth (similar to hyperbole).
Overstatement
An event or experience marking a significant transition from one stage of life to another.
Rite of Passage
A serious work in which the main character suffers downfall due to fate or a personal flaw.
Tragedy
A work that idealizes rural life and nature.
Pastoral
A humorous work featuring exaggerated characters and improbable situations.
Farce
A narrative poem or song that tells a story, often with repetition.
Ballad
A speech in which a character speaks their thoughts aloud, usually alone on stage.
Soliloquy
When a speaker addresses someone absent, dead, or nonhuman as if they were present.
Apostrophe
A pause or break within a line of poetry.
Caesura
An extended metaphor that compares two very different things in a surprising way.
Conceit
A poem or song that mourns the loss of someone, often reflecting on death.
Elegy
A traditional story that explains natural or cultural phenomena, often involving gods.
Myth
Informal, everyday language used in writing or speech.
Colloquial Diction