Literary Terms

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Literary Terms

• We will be using these literary terms throughout
  the school year.
• These terms are the building blocks to the
  English language try to commit them to your
  brain!
• You need to keep up with your notes. Dont lose
  your terms! You might be able to use them
• be RESPONSIBLE!!

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We will use the following terms

• Alliteration Antagonist Author
• Character Characterization Climax
• Conflict Connotation Denotation
• Dialogue Diction Exposition
• Falling Action Fiction Flashback
• Foreshadowing Hyperbole Imagery
• Irony Metaphor Mood
• Motive Nonfiction Onomatopoeia
• Oxymoron Personification Plot
• Point of View Protagonist Resolution/Denouement
• Rhyme Rhythm Rising Action
• Setting Simile Style
• Suspense Symbolism Theme
• Tone

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Terms you should already know!!

• Author the person or persons who wrote the
  story or play or poem
• Dialogue Where characters speak to one
  another
• Fiction an invented story
• Nonfiction literature that is true

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Character

• Charater- a person or an animal that takes part
  in the action of a literary work.

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Characterization

• Characterization is the authors means of
  conveying to the reader the characters
  personality, life history, physical attributes,
  values, etc.

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Antagonist

• The Antagonist is a character or force in
  conflict with a main character, or protagonist.

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Do you know your Antagonists???

• On your paper take a few minutes to write down
  some Antagonists that you can recall from movies,
  television shows, and video games
• Remember the Antagonist is in conflict with the
  Protagonist or, main character!
• Helpful hint you should now know why people use
  the saying Dont antagonize me!

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Protagonist

• The Protagonist is the main character in a
  literary work
• Can you name some famous Protagonists that are
  found in literature?

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Diction

• Diction is the manner in which we express words
  the wording used.
• Diction enunciation
• Some easy examples are Dont say goin
  say going
• Dont say wanna say want to

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Denotation

• The denotation of a word is its dictionary
  meaning, independent of other associations that
  the word may have.

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Connotation

• The connotation of a word is the set of ideas
  associated with it in addition to its explicit
  meaning. The connotation of a word can be
  personal, based on individual experiences. More
  often, cultural connotations those recognizable
  by most people in a group determine a writers
  word choices.

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Denotation versus Connotation

• Some examples
• Cheap is low in cost (denotation) but stingy
  or poorly made are the connotations of cheap

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• Lets use the word HOT
• The denotation (or dictionary definition
  remember d in denotation dictionary) of HOT
  is having a temperature higher than that of a
  human body.
• However, when you say Man! He/She is hot!, are
  you saying Man! He is having a temperature
  higher than that of a human body!? No!!
• You are saying the CONNOTATION of HOT which
  could mean a variety of things man he/she is
  cute, attractive, beautiful, and many other
  meanings those come from personal experiences
  and cultural meanings, etc.

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Symbolism

• Symbolism is using an object or action that means
  something more than its literal meaning
• Symbols Flag means freedom Winter means late
  in life or near death Cross symbolizes religion

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Imagery

• Imagery is words or phrases that appeal to one or
  more of the five senses. Writers use imagery to
  describe how their subjects look, sound, feel,
  taste, and smell.

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MOOD

• Mood, or atmosphere, is the feeling created in
  the reader by a literary work or passage.
  Writers use many devices to create mood,
  including images, dialogue, setting, and plot.
  Often, a writer creates a mood at the beginning
  of a work and then sustains the mood throughout.
  Sometimes, however, the mood of the work changes
  dramatically.

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Motive

• The reason why the character did something
• This is what motivation means it is why you do
  something. Is it for a grade? For praise? For
  money? Whatever your are doing something for,
  that drive behind why you do it is your motive.

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Plot

• Plot is the sequence of events. The first event
  causes the second, the second causes the third,
  and so forth.
• In most novels, dramas, short stories, and
  narrative poems, the plot involves both
  characters and a central conflict.

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PLOTLINE
Climax
Rising Action
Falling Action
Resolution or Denouement
Exposition
Conflict Introduced
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• Plot
• Exposition introduces characters and established
  the setting
• Conflict problem, or struggle taking place in
  the story
• Rising Action actions or events that build
  suspense toward the climax
• Climax turning point of the conflict, exciting
  point of the story
• Falling Action unraveling of the conflict
  between the protagonist and antagonist
• Resolution or Denouement solution, ending, or
  outcome of the story

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Conflict

• Conflict is the struggle between opposing forces
  in a story or play. There are two types of
  conflict that exist in literature.

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External Conflict

• External conflict exists when a character
  struggles against some outside force, such as
  another character, nature, society, or fate.
• Man vs. Man
• Man vs. Nature

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Internal Conflict

• Internal conflict exists within the mind of a
  character who is torn between different courses
  of action.
• Man vs. Himself

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Flashback

• A flashback is a literary device in which an
  earlier episode, conversation, or event is
  inserted into the sequence of events. Often
  flashbacks are presented as a memory of the
  narrator or of another character.

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Flashback continued

• The movie Titanic is told almost entirely in a
  flashback.
• What are some other films that contain flashback
  to help tell stories?
• Holes
• Willy Wonka Think of some more

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Foreshadowing

• Foreshadowing is the authors use of clues to
  hint at what might happen later in the story.
  Writers use foreshadowing to build their readers
  expectations and to create suspense. This is
  used to help readers prepare for what is to come.

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Suspense

• Suspense is the growing interest and excitement
  readers experience while awaiting a climax or
  resolution in a work of literature. It is a
  feeling of anxious uncertainty about the outcome
  of events. Writers create suspense by raising
  questions in the minds of their readers.

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Point of View

• Point of View is the perspective, or vantage
  point, from which a story is told. It is the
  relationship of the narrator to the story.

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• Point of View
• 1st person the narrator is directly involved in
  the plot the narrator tells the story by using
  the first-person pronoun I
• 3rd person Omniscient is an all-knowing,
  all-seeing narrator
• 3rd person Editorial the narrator provides
  commentary often times addressing the reader
• 3rd person Limited the narrator does NOT use
  I in the story and is restricted in mobility
  they are an outsider looking in (remember that in
  3rd person situations the pronouns he and she
  and they will be used to refer to characters

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Irony

• Irony is an implied discrepancy between what is
  said and what it meant.

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There are three kinds of Irony.

• Verbal when an author says one thing and means
  something else (I love taking notes for English
  class! when what you really mean is this is
  going to break my hand!)
• Dramatic when the audience perceives something
  that the character does not know
• Situational this is a discrepancy between the
  expected result and the actual result (think of
  movies that have an ending that was twisted and
  you never saw that coming like The Sixth Sense)

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Setting

• The setting of a literary work is the time and
  place of the action.
• The setting includes all the details of a place
  and time the year, the time of day, even the
  weather. The place may be a specific country,
  state, region, community, neighborhood, building,
  institution, or home.
• Details such as dialect, clothing, customs, and
  modes of transportation are often used to
  establish setting.
• In most stories, the setting serves as a backdrop
  a context in which the characters interact.
  The setting of a story often helps to create a
  particular mood, or feeling.

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Style

• Style is the distinctive way in which an author
  uses language.
• Word choice, phrasing, sentence length, tone,
  dialogue, purpose, and attitude toward the
  audience and subject can all contribute to an
  authors writing style.

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Theme

• The theme of a literary work is its central
  message, concern, or purpose. A theme can
  usually be expressed as a generalization, or
  general statement, about people or life. The
  theme may be stated directly by the writer
  although it is more often presented indirectly.
  When the theme is stated indirectly, the reader
  must figure out the theme by looking carefully at
  what the work reveals about the people or about
  life.

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Tone

• Tone is a reflection of a writers or speakers
  attitude toward a subject of a poem, story, or
  other literary work. Tone may be communicated
  through words and details that express particular
  emotions and that evoke and emotional response
  from the reader.
• For example, word choice or phrasing may seem to
  convey respect, anger, lightheartedness, or
  sarcasm.

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Figures of Speech

• A figure of speech is a specific device or kind
  of figurative language, such as hyperbole,
  metaphor, personification, simile, or
  understatement.
• Figurative language is used for descriptive
  effect, often to imply ideas indirectly. It is
  not meant to be taken literally. Figurative
  language is used to state ideas in vivid and
  imaginative ways.

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Metaphor

• A Metaphor is a type of speech that compares or
  equates two or more things that have something in
  common. A metaphor does NOT use like or as.
• Example Life is a bowl
• of cherries.

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Simile

• A Simile is another figure of speech that
  compares seemingly unlike things. Similes DO
  use the words like or as.
• Example Her voice was like nails on a
  chalkboard.

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Hyperbole

• A figure of speech involving great exaggeration,
  the effect may be satirical, sentimental or
  comical.
• Im so hungry I could eat a horse!

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Onomatopoeia

• The use of a word or words whose sounds imitate
  the sound of the thing mentioned.
• Moo! Buzz!

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Oxymoron

• An Oxymoron is a figure of speech that is a
  combination of seemingly contradictory words.
• Examples Same difference
• Pretty ugly
• Roaring silence

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Personification

• Personification is a figure of speech in which an
  animal, object, force of nature, or idea is given
  human qualities or characteristics.
• Example Tears began to fall from the dark
  clouds.

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Alliteration

• Alliteration is the repetition of sounds, most
  often consonant sounds, at the beginning of
  words. Alliteration gives emphasis to words.
• Example Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
  peppers