- narration = relates/tells a story
- description = details described through senses
- exposition = logical patterns to inform or explain
- persuasion = convince readers to adopt opinion or act in a certain manner
Myths = traditional stories passed down through the generations
Constitution = written or unwritten laws for a society
Oral storytelling = passing tales along by word of mouth
History = factual account of an event
Lyric poetry = brief poems that express personal feelings and thoughts
Figurative language = evokes images/suggestions (example: his thoughts were like scattered leaves). Figurative language is used for freshness, to illustrate similarities and/or to express abstract ideas (word pictures)
Conceits = elaborate and unusual comparison between two completely different things (lengthy and intricate)
Journals = diary, personal record/account of events, moments
Speech techniques = logical argument, appeal to past traditions, appeal to audience, emotions or sense of reason, rhetorical question, repetition, restatement, parallelism
Style = how writer puts his/her thoughts into words, the choice and arrangement of words, length and structure of sentences, the relationship between sentences and paragraphs, and the use of literary devices.
Hero/heroine
Trickster
Faithful companion
Outsider/outcast
Rugged individualist
Innocent
Villain
Caretaker
Earth mother
Rebel
Misfit
Lonely orphan looking for a home
American dream
Loss of innocence
Coming of age
Relationship with nature
Relationship with society
Relationship with science
Alienation and isolation
Survival of the fittest
Disillusionment
Rebellion and protest
Rhetorical question
Sarcasm
Satire
Parallelism
Connotation/denotation
Pun
Dialect
Word choice
Irony
Literal and figurative language
Tone
Age of Reason = ideas of reason and discipline, public writing offered sound, clear, arguments in support of the causes
Autobiography = person’s account of his or her life, generally in first person
Aphorisms = short concise statement expressing a wise or clever observation or general truth (example: when the going gets tough, the tough get going), can contain: rhymes, repetition, 2 phrases with contrasting ideas
Oratory = art of skilled, eloquent, public speaking devices (rhetorical questions, restatement, repetition, parallelism)
Personification = attribution of human powers and characteristics to something that is not human (example: the angry wind mercilessly pounded the walls).
Parallelism = repeated use of phrases, clauses or sentences that are similar in structure or meaning, used to emphasize important ideas, create rhythm, make writing forceful and direct
Descriptive writing = creates an impression of a person, place or thing through the use of details appealing to one or more of the 5 senses. (Reader Can Visualize)
Epistles = (literary letter) formal composition written in the form of a letter addressed to a distant person or group of people, carefully crafted, intended for a general audience
Folktales = stories handed down orally among the common people of a particular culture
Setting = the time, environment and conditions in which the vents in a work of literature occur
Blank Verse = regular rhythm, a recurring pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables (meter)
Foot = basic unit of meter/ 1 stressed syllable and 1 or more unstressed syllables
Iamb = 1 unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
Blank verse consists of unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter
Short story = constructed to obtain a certain unique or single effect
Sound devices = used to give writing a musical quality
Alliteration = repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants at the beginning of words or accented syllables
Consonance = repetition of consonant sounds at the end of words or accented syllables
Assonance = repetition of vowel sounds
Frame story = story told within the framework of another story
Allusions = reference to another literary work or a figure, place, or event from history, religion, or mythology
Transcendentalism = an intellectual movement that indirectly or indirectly affected most of the writers of the New England Renaissance.
Apostrophe = literary device in which a writer directly addresses an inanimate object, an abstract idea, or an absent person
Style = manner in which a writer puts his or her thoughts into words
Anti-Transcendentalism = literary movement that essentially consisted of only two writers (Hawthorne and Melville)
Symbolism = a symbol is a person, place, thing that has a meaning in itself and also represents something larger than itself.
Stanza forms = unit of poetry consisting of two or more lines arranged in a pattern according to rhyme, meter or rhythm (stanzas organize ideas into units) p. 337
Meter / scansion = meter is the systematic arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables. Scansion = analysis of meter. P. 347
Tone = writer’s attitude toward his or her subject, characters or audience
Imagery = words or phrases that create mental pictures or images that appeal to one or more of the five senses
Style = manner in which a writer puts his or her ideas into words
Theme = central idea or insight into life that a writer conveys in a work of literature
Simile/metaphor = simile = explicit comparison between two seemingly dissimilar things (using like or as). Metaphor = same definition as simile but the comparison is implied rather than stated.