Literary Terms antithesis - cacophony

Aphorism

- a concise statement (of) or principle or precept given in pointed words

Asyndeton -

- a condensed form of expression in which elements customarily joined by conjunctions are presented in series without the conjunctions; omission of conjunctions between parts of a sentence.

Cacophony

- a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds; the opposite of euphony.

Bildungsroman

- a novel that deals with the development of a young person, usually from adolescence to maturity; it is frequently autobiographical; novel, often autobiographical, dealing with the development of a young person.

biography

- a written account of a person's life, a life history; life story written by another person.

*Byronic hero

- an antihero who is a romanticized but dark character. Conventionally, the figure is a young and attractive male with a bad reputation. He defies authority and conventional morality, and becomes paradoxically ennobled by his peculiar rejection of virtue. Named after George Gordon, Lord Byron, a Byronic hero holds these characteristics: morose/gloomy in spirit/moody; passionate; unrepentant wanderer; isolated; self-reliant; harbors a tormenting memory of an enormous guilt, which drives him toward an inevitable doom; exerts an attraction on other characters (meaning other characters are drawn to him).

Assonance

- repetition of identical or similar vowels (especially in stressed syllables) in nearby words. Assonance in final vowels of lines can often lead to half-rhyme. Example: "on a proud round cloud in white high night." - E. E. Cummings; repetition of vowel sounds.

black humor/comedy

Black Humor/Comedy (Tragic comedy/tragi-comedy) - the use of the morbid and the absurd for darkly comic purposes in modern literature; work making light of a serious subject.

aside

a dramatic convention by which an actor directly addresses the audience but is not supposed to be heard by the other actors on the stage, revealing the character's innermost thoughts and feelings; character's short speech heard by the audience and usually unheard by other characters, thereby revealing inner thoughts and feelings.

Antithesis

a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasted words, clauses, sentences, or ideas. Antithesis is a balancing of one term against another

apostrophe

a figure of speech in which someone (usually but not always absent), some abstract quality, or nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present; directly addressing someone or something as though present.

ballad

a form of verse to be sung or recited and characterized by presentation of a dramatic or exciting episode in simple narrative form; narrative poem or song.

Bon mot -

a witty repartee or statement; a clever saying; witty remark.

archetype

an image, a descriptive detail, a plot pattern or a character type that occurs frequently in literature, myth, religion, or folklore, and is believed to provoke profound emotions because it touches the unconscious memory and thus calls into play illogical but strong responses; stereotypical image, descriptive detail, plot pattern, or character.

balance

characterizes the structure in which parts of the whole - as words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence - are set off against each other so as to emphasize a contrast; words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence of equal length and importance

Bombast -

originally, any sort of ornamental but unnecessary padding. Now, mostly limited to ranting, insincere, and extravagant language.

apposition

the placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate elements, one of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first; consecutive words or phrases in which the second modifies the first.

atmosphere

the prevailing tone or mood of a literary work, particularly, but not exclusively, when that mood is established in part by setting or landscape.

autobiography

the story of a person's life as written by that person; self-written life story.

Blank verse -

unrhymed but otherwise regular verse, usually iambic pentameter; unrhymed poetry, usually using iambic pentameter.