Literary Terms
A step to SOL Reading success
Accuracy of information
Make sure the information
You use in an essay is correct.
Check the source for credibility.
Allegory
• A story whose elements mirror another concept.
Alliteration
Repetition of beginning consonant sounds
Allusion
A reference to something from literature, religion, history, or
Culture that adds to the passage.
apostrophe
• Addressing something or someone not
present or unable to answer.
• Ex: Asking your pencil
for the answer to a
difficult question on
a test.
aside
• A dramatic device in which a character
addresses the audience.
Characterization
• The way the author gives us information
about characters:
– His hair was disheveled.
– He had pillow lines on his face.
– His eyes kept drooping in class.
Citations
• Giving credit to a source that you use in a
paper or project
• In the epic poem Beowulf, Beowulf is described as “Higlac's
Follower and the strongest of the Geats -- greater And
stronger than anyone anywhere in this world –
”(“BeowulfTranslations”)
• "BeowulfTranslations.net: Translations by Burton Raffel
(1963)." BeowulfTranslations.net: Start Page. Web. 29 Oct.
2010. <http://www.beowulftranslations.net/raff.shtml>.
Cliche
• An overused expression
• As cold as ice
• Between the sword and the wall
• Life is a bowl of cherries
Conflict
• The major problem of a story
Person vs. society
Person vs. Nature
Person vs. self
Person vs. Person
Dialect
• The way people actually speak as shown in
dialogue
• From The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
• "Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere
else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and
some hot corn-bread."
"Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim.
You'd a ben down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en
gittn' mos' drownded, too; dat you would, honey.
Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do de
birds, chile."
Dialogue
• Words showing the actually conversation
between characters.
• After the meal, the two sat and read the paper and spoke of
the day’s events.
“Did you hear about the tornado in Kansas?” asked the wife.
“No,” her husband responded, “was it bad?”
“Not too bad, but it ripped a roof of a high school. I can’t
imagine the fear the teachers and students felt as they knew the
tornado was bearing down on them.”
“Do you think the Kansas schools have basements just in
case?” her husband replied.
Diction
• Word choice
• In The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
uses formal language: “The stranger had
entered the room with the characteristic
quietude of the profession to which he
announced himself as belonging.” (chapter 4)
• In the hallways, students
use informal diction.
Drama - A story told entirely in dialogue
• Example: Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
•
ROMEO
I take thee at thy word:
Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized;
Henceforth I never will be Romeo.
JULIET
What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night
So stumblest on my counsel?
ROMEO
By a name
I know not how to tell thee who I am:
My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,
Because it is an enemy to thee;
Had I it written, I would tear the word.
JULIET
My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words
Of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound:
Exaggeration
• Representing something in an excessive
manner.
• In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,
Huck learns about a girl who was
obsessed with death: she “kept a scrapbook when she was alive, and used to
paste obituaries and accidents and cases
of patient suffering… and write poetry
after them out of her own head.” (Twain
137)
Fiction/fictitious
• A story that is not true. So something that is fictitious is not
true.
• Excerpt from Robin Hood
• Robin Hood was captain of the band of Merry Men.
Next to him came Little John. He was called Little John
because he was so tall, just as Midge the miller's son was
called Much because he was so small.
Robin loved Little John best of all his friends. Little John
loved Robin better than any one else in all the world. Yet
the first time they met they fought and knocked each
other about dreadfully.
Figurative language
• Using words that go beyond the literal
description to describe something.
• Literal
Figurative
We are at the top of
a very steep slope.
flashback
• When a character remembers back to events
that happened prior to the current scene in
the story.
foreshadowing
• Hints an author gives about what is coming
next.
Don’t try to carry all those
boxes up the stairs at
once. I’m afraid you might
fall down the stairs…
Free verse
a poem written w/o a specific rhyme or pattern
•
Ants
by Ravi Shankar
One is never alone. Saltwater taffy colored
beach blanket spread on a dirt outcropping
pocked with movement. Pell-mell tunneling,
black specks the specter of beard hairs swarm,
disappear, emerge, twitch, reverse course
to forage along my shin, painting pathways
with invisible pheromones that others take
up in ceaseless streams. Ordered disarray,
wingless expansionists form a colony mind,
no sense of self outside the nest, expending
summer to prepare for winter, droning on
through midday heat. I watch, repose, alone.
Heading
The titles of different sections in a paper.
http://www.oceanconservancy.org/site/PageSer
ver?pagename=program_fisheries
Imagery
Using words to paint a picture by appealing to the
Five senses: sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch
Irony
Contrast between expectation and reality
situational – different twist from what
Is expected
Metaphor
• Direct comparison between to things
• Example
• The train, a bright blue snake, slid along the
river.
Mood -The emotional feeling of a piece of writing
Examples; happy, tense, sad, scary, angry
• Excerpt from Dracula
• Then he took my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood
close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a
projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the
stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time
and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the
reins. The horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the
dark openings.
I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or
knocker there was no sign. Through these frowning walls and dark window
openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited
seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of
place had I come to, and among what kind of people?
narrator
• The character telling the story.
Oxymoron
• When a figure of speech creates a sense of
confusion or incongruity
– Jumbo shrimp
- clean dirt
paradox
• An idea that seems to contradict itself but
ends up being true.
paraphrase
• To put someone else’s idea into your own
words.
Because of unsatisfactory performance and the
recent economic downturn, I’m afraid that your
position is no longer available, as it will be filled by
someone more able to perform the functions of
the job…
personification
• Giving human qualities
to non-human things.
• The clock laughed at
me.
plagiarism
• Copying someone
else’s words or ideas
without giving them
credit.
I knew I should
have cited my
sources!
Point of view
• First—I went to the store.
• Third—He went to the store.
• Omniscient—He went to the store to buy
flowers to apologize to his wife for forgetting
their anniversary.
• Limited—He went to the store and bought the
most expensive flowers he could find (but no
one knows why yet!)
Pun
A pun is a play on words, here Snow White
is waiting for her pictures, “prints”, but
Grimmy makes a play on the word “Prince.”
Sarcasm
• A sharp, bitter expression often meant to
criticize.
• “I was late to school, I
forgot my homework,
and my lunch got
squished in my backpack.
I’m having the best
day of my life!”
Setting
• The time and place of a story.
New York City, 2008
New England, 1630
Simile
Comparison using like or as
Sonnet
• lyric poem – 14 lines, iambic pentameter
•
Shakespearean/English – 3 quatrains and a
couplet
•
Italian/Petrarchan – 2 quatrains followed
by a sestet
• (quatrains 4 lines usually of ABAB rhyme,
sestet – six lines, in a sonnet they will be
rhymed)
Stage directions
• Descriptions (usually in italics) that describe
characters’ actions, moods, or settings in a
play.
• Example:
Matt: (taking two steps backwards) Good
grief, Dan, don’t you EVER shower?
• Vespertina Cognito
by Natasha Trethewey
Stanza
Overhead, pelicans glide in threes—
their shadows across the sand
dark thoughts crossing the mind.
Stanza
Beyond the fringe of coast, shrimpers
hoist their nets, weighing the harvest
against the day's losses. Light waning,
concentration is a lone gull
circling what's thrown back. Debris
weights the trawl like stones.
All day, this dredging—beneath the tug
of waves—rhythm of what goes out,
comes back, comes back, comes back.
summary
• To condense the main idea in your own words.
Symbol
Love
When a word represents an
idea.
Sunrise = rebirth
Sunset = death
Freedom/patriotism
Peace
Sympathetic character
• A character for whom the reader feels
sympathy.
MISSING!
Please help!
synonym
• A word that means the same thing as another
word.
• Example:
fat
obese
big-boned
overweight
theme
• The broad idea, moral, or message of a story.
• Examples:
Friendship
Overcoming challenges
tone
• The attitude of the speaker
Don’t you take
that tone with me!
transition
• A word or phrase that bridges two different
topics.
• Transitional words and phrases include:
For example,
Similarly,
On the other hand,
Another reason for _______ is __________.
understatement
• An expression of speech that contains less
strength than would be expected.
• Example: The
hiking trail is
a little bit
dangerous.
There’s a slight
chance of
death.
Works cited
• A page at the end of an essay that gives credit
to sources.
Types of Writing: analytical
• A type of writing in which the author analyzes
something in depth.
• For example, analyze symbols in a book.
In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge
represents society’s greed.
Types of Writing: symbolic
• Writing that makes use of symbols to convey
the main idea.
• Example: An old man might be used to
symbolize death.
Types of Writing: informational
• Writing meant to convey information.
• Example: a brochure or an encyclopedia
article.
Example from Encyclopedia Britanica:
Portuguese Rio Amazonas
It is the largest river in the world in volume and in area of
drainage basin; only the Nile River of eastern and northeastern
Africa exceeds it in length. It originates within 100 mi (160 km) of
the Pacific Ocean in the Peruvian Andes Mountains and flows
some 4,000 mi (6,400 km) across northern Brazil into the Atlantic
Ocean. Its Peruvian length is called the Marañón River, and the
stretch of river from the Brazilian border to the mouth of the
Negro River is the Solimões River.
Types of Writing: satire
• A type of writing meant to make
fun of something in order to
criticize an element in society.
• In Swift’s A Modest Proposal, he
writes about eating babies in order
to solve a hunger problem. This is
an obvious exaggeration meant to
raise social awareness.
Types of Writing: tall tale
• A humorous or witty tale with unbelievable or
exaggerated elements.
• Example: Johnny Appleseed
Types of Writing: personal essay
• An essay written about personal experiences
• Example: the college essay—describe a person
who has had an impact on you.
A person who has had a significant
impact on my is my grandfather. I’ve
never known anyone more dedicated
to his job than my grandfather. Each
morning, he awoke at 3 a.m. to get
to the bakery…
Types of writing: editorial
• A type of writing that expresses an opinion.
• Example: an editorial in a newspaper.
Switch Leesburg town elections to November
On Election Day, Nov. 2, Leesburg voters will go to the polls to elect
someone for the House of Representatives, and vote on state
constitutional amendments and a school bond.
It would be great if Leesburg Town voters could also vote for their
mayor and members of the Town Council in November.
Leesburg and many other towns and cities have held their elections in
May for years. In recent years however, turnout has been terrible.
Despite a vigorous mayoral election this past May, only 13 percent of
voters came to the polls, and the weather was perfect…
-Loudoun Times-Mirror
Friday, Oct. 29, 2010
Types of writing: fable
• A story usually containing animal characters
and a moral.
• Example: The Tortoise and the Hare
Types of writing: biography
• A work written about the life of someone.
Types of writing: narrative
• Writing that tells a story
Legend
• A type of story that is
thought to be based
on historical truth or
values, usually
containing heroic
characters.
Types of writing: objective
• Unbiased writing
• Informational research papers
Types of writing: subjective
• Biased writing
• Commercials
• Political ads
Archetypes: typical characters
repeated in literature
Villain
Dreamer
Rebel
Trickster
Organizational Patterns
•
•
•
•
Compare/contrast
Problem/solution
Cause/effect
Spatial layout
Organizational Patterns
• Compare/contrast—present similarities and
differences between people, places, things, or
events.
Many people think downhill skiing and crosscountry skiing are similar sports. While both require
specialized ski gear, athletic fitness, and endurance,
each requires different skills. A downhill skier travels
at high speed down steep slops and must respond
quickly to sudden turns and obstacles. The skier
works with gravity. In contrast, a cross-country skier
travels over fairly level trails at a relatively slow
speed, striving to maintain a steady pace. The skier
works against gravity.
Organizational Patterns
• Problem/solution
• In America today, many people are distracted
by their cell phones. So distracted that they
ignore their children, their teachers, their
parents, and even the laws of the road.
Driving while texting or even talking leads to
more car crashes and deaths. One state’s
response is to make driving while using a
hand-held cell phone illegal. Although this
may irritate drivers, it lowers the crashes from
distracted driving.
Organizational Patterns
• Cause/effect
• "Many of today's kids are engaged in sedentary pursuits made possible by
a level of technology unthinkable as recently as 25 to 30 years ago.
Computer, video, and other virtual games, the ready availability of feature
films and games on DVD, plus high-tech advancements in music-listening
technology have come down into the range of affordability for parents and
even for the kids themselves. These passive pursuits have produced a
downside of reduced physical activity for the kids, often with the explicit
or implicit consent of the parents. . . .
"Other fairly recent developments have also contributed to the alarming
rise in child obesity rates. Fast food outlets offering consumables that are
both low in price and low in nutritional content have exploded all over the
American landscape since the 1960s, especially in suburban areas close to
major highway interchanges. Kids on their lunch breaks or after school
often congregate in these fast food outlets, consuming food and soft
drinks that are high in sugar, carbohydrates, and fat. Many parents,
themselves, frequently take their children to these fast food places, thus
setting an example the kids can find justification to emulate."
(MacKie Shilstone, Mackie Shilstone's Body Plan for Kids. Basic Health
Publications, 2009)
Organizational Patterns
• Spatial layout—presenting details to reflect
their positions in space.
When you first enter the high school
• For example:
through the north entrance, you can turn
right towards the Science Wing. Continue
through this hallway, and you’ll turn left
onto the Social Studies hallway. Here, you
can exit to the courtyard located at the
center of the school. Through the courtyard,
you can enter the back hallway, where
English and Foreign Language classes are
located. From there, turn left until you reach
the main office, the nurse, and the guidance
offices.