Plot Twists
What is a literary device whereby the reader is left in doubt as to the conclusion of a very dramatic event?
Cliffhanger
What is an object which represents a more intangible element in a story?
Symbol
What do you call a contrasting character that serves to point out the differing qualities in another character?
Foil
What are the four major elements of traditional poetry?
Meter, rhyme scheme, form, and structure
What do you call a group of poetic lines that has a set patter, usually a pattern that is repeated throughout the poem?
Stanza
What is a literary device by which an author prepares the reader for future events?
Foreshadowing
Who is the main character of a story, usually the hero?
Protagonist
What is the poetic effect when one line of a poem must be read without a pause to carry over meaning into the second line?
Enjambment
What is the rhythmic pattern of words or phrases through the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem?
What is a common poetic form within a poem that has two rhyming lines?
Couplet
What is the technique where the narrator or one of the characters will reveal something that happened in the past that affects the emotions or actions of the present?
Flashback
What is the major literary work of a writer?
Magnum opus
What is a recurring phrase, object, or image in a book that is used to thread the story together and to unify the whole?
Leit-motif
What do you call the organization of the content of the poem, such as chronologically, by similar ideas or images, or by the intentions of the poet?
Structure
What is a metrical unit in poetry, similar to a measure in music and identified by their pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables?
Foot
What is the term for a narrative in which another story, often the main story, is set and which often explains where the author supposedly got the information for the story, or why the story is being told?
Frame
What is a literary device by which objects or intangible concepts are given the attributes of a person?
Personification
What do you call a reference to something outside the story, usually something that is within the common experience of the reader?
Allusion
What do you call the specific structure of the poem, determined by how long it is, how many lines or words it uses, and the writer’s use of meter and rhyme? Examples include the haiku, limerick, sonnet, and blank verse.
Form
What is a line of poetry that is repeated throughout the poem?
Refrain
What is a a Latin term meaning “in the middle of things”? The epic author would use this method to capture the attention of the audience from the beginning.
In medias res
What is a set of literary elements or themes that we come to expect from certain types of literature?
Literary conventions
What is a concise poetic phrase in which an adjective and noun or two nouns are combined into a descriptive term that substitutes for another noun, usually marked by a hyphen between the two parts, such as “swan-road” to refer to the sea?
Kenning
What term refers to the pattern of the rhyming words at the ends of poetic lines?
Rhyme scheme
What is the term for a group of poetic lines that has a set pattern, usually a pattern that is repeated throughout the poem, and are usually separated by an empty space, like a paragraph in prose?
Stanza