Literacy Terms Unit 1
novel
A Novel is a long narrative work of fiction with some realism. It is often in prose form and is published as a single book. The word 'novel' has been derived from the Italian word 'novella' which means "new". Similar to a short story, a novel has some features like a representation of characters, dialogues, setting, plot, climax, conflict, and resolution. However, it does not require all the elements to be a good novel.
sequence
a particular order in which related events, movements, or things follow each other.
biography
A biography is simply an account or detailed description about the life of a person. It entails basic facts, such as childhood, education, career, relationships, family, and death. Biography is a literary genre that portrays the experiences of all these events occurring in the life of a person, mostly in a chronological order. Unlike a resume or profile, a biography provides a life story of a subject, highlighting different aspects of his of her life. A person who writes biographies, is called as a "biographer."
Literary elements
A literary element, or narrative element, or element of literature is a constituent of all works of narrative fictiona necessary feature of verbal storytelling that can be found in any written or spoken narrative.
atmosphere
A literary technique, atmosphere is a type of feeling that readers get from a narrative, based on details such as setting, background, objects, and foreshadowing. A mood can serve as a vehicle for establishing atmosphere. In literary works, atmosphere refers to emotions or feelings an author conveys to his readers through description of objects and settings, such as in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter tales, in which she spins a whimsical and enthralling atmosphere. Bear in mind that atmosphere may vary throughout a literary piece.
prediction
A prediction, or forecast, is a statement about a future event. A prediction is often, but not always, based upon experience or knowledge. There is no universal agreement about the exact difference between the two terms; different authors and disciplines ascribe different connotations.
short story
A short story is a fully developed story which is shorter than a novel and longer than a fable. It typically takes just a single sitting for reading. Short Story focuses on the incidents bigger or smaller and evokes strong feelings from its readers. A short story often has a few characters in the plot.
internal conflict
A struggle between opposing needs, desires, or emotions within a single character
Allusion
Allusion is a figure of speech, in which an object or circumstance from unrelated context is referred to covertly or indirectly. It is left to the audience to make the direct connection. Where the connection is directly and explicitly stated by the author, it is instead usually termed a reference
epigraph
An epigraph is a literary device in the form of a poem, quotation, or sentence - usually placed at the beginning of a document or a simple piece - having a few sentences, but which belongs to another writer. An epigraph can serve different purposes, such as it can be used as a summary, introduction, example, or an association with some famous literary work, so as to draw a comparison, or to generate a specific context for the piece.
essay
An essay is a short academic composition. The word "essay" is derived from a French word "essai" or "essayer," which mean "trail." In composition, however, an essay is a piece of non-fiction writing that talks or discusses a specific topic. Presently, essay is part of every degree program.
external conflict
An internal or psychological conflict arises as soon as a character experiences two opposite emotions or desires - usually virtue and vice, or good and evil - inside him. This disagreement causes the character to suffer mental agony, and it develops a unique tension in a story line, marked by a lack of action.
spatial order
An ordinal number refers to a number that indicates the position or order of things or objects, such as first, second, third, fourth, and so on.
Anecdote
Anecdote is defined as a short and interesting story, or an amusing event, often proposed to support or demonstrate some point, and to make the audience laugh. Anecdotes can include an extensive range of tales and stories. In fact, it is a short description or an account of any event that makes the readers laugh or brood over the topic presented for the purpose.
setting
Setting is an environment or surrounding in which an event or story takes place. It may provide particular information about placement and timing, such as New York, America, in the year 1820. Setting could be simply descriptive, like a lonely cottage on a mountain. Social conditions, historical time, geographical locations, weather, immediate surroundings, and timing are all different aspects of setting.
autobiography
Autobiography is one type of biography, which tells a life story of its author, meaning it is a written record of the author's life. Rather than being written by somebody else, an autobiography comes through the person's own pen, in his own words. Some autobiographies are written in the form of a fictional tale; as novels or stories that closely mirror events from the author's real life. Such stories include Charles Dickens' David Copperfield, and J.D Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. In writing about personal experience, one discovers himself. Therefore, it is not merely a collection of anecdotes - it is a revelation to the readers about author's self-discovery.
bibliography
Bibliography, as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology. Carter and Barker describe bibliography as a twofold scholarly discipline—the organized listing of books and the systematic description of books as objects.
Bildungsroman
Bildungsroman is a special kind of novel that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of its main character, from his or her youth to adulthood.
chronological order
Chronological order is a way of arranging actions, events or things according to the time they occurred. It is demonstrated by showing what happened first, what went on next, what came about in the succeeding occurrences, and until what took place last. This manner of presentation is also called time or linear order
climax
Climax, a Greek term meaning "ladder," is that particular point in a narrative at which the conflict or tension hits the highest point. It is a structural part of a plot, and is at times referred to as a "crisis." It is a decisive moment or a turning point in a storyline at which the rising action turns around into a falling action. Thus, a climax is the point at which a conflict or crisis reaches its peak, then calls for a resolution or denouement (conclusion). In a five-act play, the climax is close to the conclusion of act 3. Later in the 19th century, five-act plays were replaced by three-act plays, and the climax was placed close to the conclusion or at the end of the play.
coming of age
Coming of age is a term used to describe the transition between childhood and adulthood. For some cultures, coming of age is determined at a certain age when a child is no longer a minor.
denouement
Denouement is derived from the French word denoue, which means "to untie." Denouement is a literary device that can be defined as the resolution of the issue of a complicated plot in fiction. The majority of examples of denouement show the resolution in the final part or chapter, often in an epilogue.
description
Description is the pattern of narrative development that aims to make vivid a place, object, character, or group. Description is one of four rhetorical modes, along with exposition, argumentation, and narration. In practice it would be difficult to write literature that drew on just one of the four basic modes.
fiction
Etymologically, the word fiction has been derived from Latin word "fictus," which means "to form." However, in literature, Merriam Webster defines it as, "literature in the form of prose, especially novels, that describes imaginary events and people."
flash forward
Flash-forward, or "prolepsis," is a literary device in which the plot goes ahead of time; meaning a scene that interrupts and takes the narrative forward in time from the current time in the story. Generally, a flash-forward represents expected or imagined events in the future, interjected into the main plot, revealing important information to the story that has yet to be brought to light. It is the opposite of a flashback, or "analepsis," which reveals past events.
foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story. Foreshadowing often appears at the beginning of a story, or a chapter, and helps the reader develop expectations about the coming events in a story. There are various ways to create foreshadowing.
Genre
Genre means a type of art, literature, or music characterized by a specific form, content, and style. For example, literature has four main genres: poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction. All of these genres have particular features and functions that distinguish them from one another. Hence, it is necessary on the part of readers to know which category of genre they are reading in order to understand the message it conveys, as they may have certain expectations prior to the reading concerned.
verisimilitude
In a literary work, verisimilitude is likeness to the truth, such as the resemblance of a fictitious work to a real event, even if it is a far-fetched one. Verisimilitude ensures that even a fantasy must be rooted in reality, which means that events should be plausible to the extent that readers consider them credible enough to be able to relate them somehow to their experiences of real life.
conflict
In literature, conflict is a literary element that involves a struggle between two opposing forces, usually a protagonist and an antagonist.
mood
In literature, mood is a literary element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words and descriptions.
verse
In the countable sense, a verse is formally a single metrical line in a poetic composition. However, verse has come to represent any division or grouping of words in a poetic composition, with groupings traditionally having been referred to as stanzas.
Inference
Inference is a literary device used commonly in literature, and in daily life, where logical deductions are made based on premises assumed to be true. Another definition of inference suggests that it is rational but non-logical, which means that, through the observation of facts presented in a particular pattern, one ultimately sees different or new interpretations and perspectives.
flashback
Merriam Webster defines the word flashback as "an interruption of the chronological sequence (as of a film or literary work) of an event of earlier occurrence."
Narration
Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration encompasses a set of techniques through which the creator of the story presents their story, including: Narrative point of view: the perspective through which a story is communicated.
exposition
Narrative exposition is the insertion of background information within a story or narrative. This information can be about the setting, characters' backstories, prior plot events, historical context, etc. In literature, exposition appears in the form of expository writing embedded within the narrative.
non-fiction
Nonfiction or non-fiction is content that purports in good faith to represent truth and accuracy regarding information, events, or people. Nonfiction content may be presented either objectively or subjectively, and may sometimes take the form of a story.
persuasion
Persuasion is a form of influence. It is the way to get people to agree with an idea, attitude, or action by rational and emotional means. It is a problem-solving strategy and relies on "appeals" rather than force. Dissuasion is the process of convincing someone not to believe or act on something.
Plot
Plot is a literary term used to describe the events that make up a story, or the main part of a story. These events relate to each other in a pattern or a sequence. The structure of a novel depends on the organization of events in the plot of the story.
prose
Prose is a form or technique of language that exhibits a natural flow of speech and grammatical structure. Novels, textbooks and newspaper articles are all examples of prose.
rising action
Rising action in a plot is a series of relevant incidents that create suspense, interest, and tension in a narrative. In literary works, a rising action includes all decisions, characters' flaws, and background circumstances that together create turns and twists leading to a climax. We find it in novels, plays, and short stories. Rising action is one of the elements of plot, which begins immediately after its exposition.
suspense
Suspense is a literary device that authors use to keep their readers' interest alive throughout the work. It is a feeling of anticipation that something risky or dangerous is about to happen. The purpose of using this type of anxiety in literature is to make readers more concerned about the characters, and to form sympathetic association with them. Therefore, authors create scenarios that could force readers to understand, and to want to read on to see what their beloved characters face the next.
Suspension of disbelief
Suspension of disbelief, sometimes called willing suspension of disbelief, is an intentional avoidance of critical thinking or logic in examining something surreal, such as a work of speculative fiction, in order to believe it for the sake of enjoyment.
plot diagram
The Plot Diagram is an organizational tool focusing on a pyramid or triangular shape, which is used to map the events in a story. This mapping of plot structure allows readers and writers to visualize the key features of stories
resolution
The literary device resolution means the unfolding or solution of a complicated issue in a story. Technically, resolution is also known as a "denouement." Most of the instances of resolution are presented in the final parts or chapters of a story. It mostly follows the climax.
surprise ending
When it happens near the end of a story, it is known as a twist or surprise ending. It may change the audience's perception of the preceding events, or introduce a new conflict that places it in a different context. A plot twist may be foreshadowed, to prepare the audience to accept it.
basic situation
basic situation. when the setting, problem, and main characters are introduced. climax. -located at the end of the story. -when everything is solved.
complications
events which serve to further the climax or catastrophe
literary Techniques
literary Techniques, on the contrary, are structures usually a word s or phrases in literary texts that writers employ to achieve not merely artistic ends but also readers a greater understanding and appreciation of their literary works. Examples are: metaphor, simile, alliteration, hyperbole, allegory etc. In contrast to Literary Elements, Literary Techniques are not unavoidable aspect of literary works.
hook
the part of the story that gets your attention
twist
twist is the rate of rotation of a smooth ribbon around the space curve , where is the arc length of and a unit vector perpendicular at each point to .
