Literary Terms Game 1

A-C

100

The character who works against the main character and is usually the source of the conflict.

Antagonist

200

The ways individual characters are represented by the narrator or author of a text. This includes descriptions of the characters’ physical appearances, personalities, actions, interactions, and dialogue.

Characterization

300

When a text references, incorporates, or responds to an earlier work (including literature, art, music, film, event, etc).

Allusion

400

A protagonist of a story who embodies none of the qualities typically assigned to traditional heroes and heroines. Not to be confused with the antagonist of a story, this character is a protagonist whose failings are typically used to humanize him or her and convey a message about the reality of human existence.

Anti-hero

500

a literary mode that attempts to convert abstract concepts, values, beliefs, or historical events into characters or other tangible elements in a narrative. Examples include, Gulliver’s Travels, The Faerie Queene, Pilgrim’s Progress, and Paradise Lost.

Allegory

C-F

100

The part of the story where setting, characters, and background information is established.

Exposition

200

A work comprised primarily of letters sent and received by its principle characters. This type of novel was particularly popular during the eighteenth century.

Epistolary

300

According to Taafe, “Literally, in Latin, the ‘god from the machine’; a deity in Greek and Roman drama who was brought in by stage machinery to intervene in the action; hence, any character, event, or device suddenly introduced to resolve the conflict” (43).

Deus Ex Machina

400

The “falling action” of a narrative, when the climax and central conflicts are resolved and a resolution is found. In a play, this is typically the last act and in a novel it might include the final chapters.

Denouement

500

NAME THE LITERARY TERM: In many medieval literature pieces, a raven, a wolf, eagle or vulture appear and because these creatures scavenge bodies of fallen warriors, they allow the reader to predict a battle is about to begin. So, an omen or que concerning later action.

Foreshadowing

G-I

100

A category of literature or film like comedy, mystery, tragedy, satire, elegy, romance, and epic.

Genre

200

Exaggeration or overstatement.

Hyperbole

300

Typically refers to saying one thing and meaning the opposite, often to shock audiences and emphasize the importance of the truth.

Irony

400

Mental pictures or other sense engagement that a reader experiences with a passage of literature.

Imagery

500

Beginning in “the middle of things,” or when an author begins a text in the midst of action. This often functions as a way to both incorporate the reader directly into the narrative and secure his or her interest in the narrative that follows.

In media res

I-R

100

a figure of speech that refers to one thing by another in order to identify similarities between the two (and therefore define each in relation to one another). A comparison if dissimilar things.

Metaphor

200

The primary character in a text, often positioned as “good” or the character with whom readers are expected to identify.

Protagonist

300

The perspective (visual, interpretive, bias, etc) a text takes when presenting its plot and narrative. For instance, an author might write a narrative from a specific character’s understanding of the action, which means that that character is our narrative and readers experience events through his or her eyes.

Point of View

400

NAME THE LITERARY TERM: 'Pink is what red looks like when it kicks off its shoes and lets its hair down. …Pink is as laid back as beige, but while beige is dull and bland, pink is laid back with attitude.'

Personification

500

a narrative work or writing style that mocks or mimics another genre or work. Typically, these works exaggerate and emphasize elements from the original work in order to ridicule, comment on, or criticize its message.

Parody

R-Z Category

100

A narrative told from the perspective of an outside figure who does not participate directly in the events of a story. This mode uses “he,” “she,” and “it” to describe events and characters.

Third Person

200

A style of writing that mocks, ridicules, or pokes fun at a person, belief, or group of people in order to challenge them. Often, texts employing this device use sarcasm, irony, or exaggeration to assert their perspective.

Satire

300

The way an author conveys his/her attitude about particular characters and subject matter. In poetry, it is often called “voice.” It is the feeling the author brings to the piece or the attitude the author takes (toward the subject, audience, or character[s]).

Tone

400

Comprised of an author’s diction, syntax, tone, characters, and other narrative techniques, this is used to describe the way an author uses language to convey his or her ideas and purpose in writing.

Style

500

According to Baldick, this is “a salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work’s treatment of its subject-matter; or a topic recurring in a number or literary works” (Baldick 258). .

Theme