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A SHORT GLOSSARY OF LITERARY TERMS Excerpted from: NTC'S Dictionary of Literary Terms. Kathleen Morner & Ralph Rausch. National Text Book Company: Lincolnwood, Illinois 1991.
Analogy: A comparison of similar things, often for the purpose of using something familiar to explain something unfamiliar. Antagonist: Usually, the character in fiction or drama who stand in direct opposition to or in conflict with the central character. Antihero: A central character, or protagonist, who lacks traditional heroic qualities and virtues. An antihero may be comic, antisocial, inept, or even pathetic, while retaining the sympathy of the reader. Archetype: A pattern or model of an action, a character type, or an image that recurs consistently enough in life and literature to be considered universal. Autobiography: An account of all or apart of a person’s life written by that person, usually with publication in mind. Biography: A written account of a person’s life that focuses on the character and career of the subject, written by someone other than the subject. Characterization: The method by which an author creates the appearance and personality of imaginary persons and reveals their character. Classic: A work of literature that is universally acknowledged to be superior to other works of the same type and to be of enduring value and appeal. Cliché: Any expression that has been used so often it has lost it freshness and precision. By extension, cliché has also come to mean any hackneyed, or timeworn, plot theme or situation in fiction or drama. Climax: The moment of highest intensity and interest in a drama or story. Conflict: The struggle between opposing forces that determines the action in drama and most narrative fiction. Criticism: The classification, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation of works of literature. Description: The picturing in words of people, places, and activities through detailed observations of color, sound, smells, touch, and motion. Epiphany: A moment of revelation or profound insight. First-person point of view: The vantage point assumed by a writer from which an “I” narrator experiences the story he or she is telling. Foreshadowing: In literature, the technique of giving hints or clues that suggest or prepare for events that occur later in a work. Genre: A type of literary work. The novel, the short story, and the lyric poem are all genres, with their own sets of characteristics or conventions. Hero/heroine: Usually the central character in a literary work, a figure directly involved in the main action, one who commands the most interest and sympathy of the reader or audience. Imagery: The making of “pictures in words,” the pictorial quality of a literary work achieved through a collection of images. Mood: The prevailing emotional attitudes in a literary work or in part of a work, for example, regret, hopefulness, bitterness. Motif: In literature, a recurring image, word, phrase, action, ideas, object, or situation hat appears in various works or throughout the same work. Narrator: The teller of a story or other narrative. A narrator may be the author speaking in his or her own voice, or a character or persona created by the author to tell the story. Pathos: The quality in a work of art or literature that arouses feelings of sympathy, pity, or sorrow in the viewer or reader. Pen name: A fictitious name assumed by an author to conceal his or her true identity. Personification: A figure of speech in which human characteristics and sensibilities are attributed to animals, plants, inanimate objects, natural forces, or abstract ideas. Plot: The careful arrangement by an author of incidents in a narrative to achieve a desired effect. Plot is more than simply the series of happenings in a literary work. It is the result of the writer’s deliberate selection of interrelated actions and choice of arrangement in presenting and resolving a conflict. Point of view: The vantage point, or stance, from which a story is told, the eye and mind through which the action is perceived and filtered; sometimes called narrative perspective. There are two general narrative points of view, first person (I) and third person (he, she, they). Protagonist: The principal and central character of a novel, short story, play, or other literary work. Setting: The general locale, time in history, or social milieu in which the action of a work of literature takes place. Stereotype: In literature, a character who represents a trait generally attributed to a social or racial group and lacks other individualizing traits. Symbolism: The conscious and artful use of symbols, objects, actions, or character meant to be taken both literally and as representative of some higher, more complex and abstract significance that lies beyond ordinary meaning. Theme: In literature, the central or dominating idea, the ‘message’ implicit in a work. Third-person point of view: A method of telling a story I which a person standing outside the action of the story acts as the narrator of events. Tone: The reflection in a work of the author’s attitude toward his or her subject, characters, and readers. Viewpoint: The stance or vantage point from which the action and setting of a work are viewed and commented on by the narrator.
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