Literature 5V definitions

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Literature 1

Definitions

• allegory
• alliteration
• antagonist
• assonance
• couplet
• free verse 
• graphic novel
• iambic pentameter 
• irony
• metaphor 
• mood

Definitions

• motif
• naturalism
• onomatopoeia
• personification
• protagonist
  
• rhyme
  
• setting
  
• short story
• simile
• sonnet
• tone 

Allegory

a story, play, poem, picture, or other work in which the characters and events represent particular qualities or ideas that relate to morals, religion, or politics.

Alliteration

Usually, the repetition of the first consonant through a sequence of words.

Example: 

'While I nodded, nearly napping'

Edgar Allen Poe - 'The Raven'

Antagonist

The opposing force, character or non-human that opposes or is in conflict with the protagonist.

Example:

Heinrich

How to Stop Time - Matt Haig

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words with different endings.

Example:

'His tender heir might bear his memory'

Shakespeare - 'Sonnet 1'

Couplet 

Two lines of verse linked by rhyme (and meter)

Example:

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

   To eat the world’s due, by the grave and thee.

Shakespeare - 'Sonnet 1'

Free verse

Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition. 

Example: 

'The Weary Blues'  - Langston Hughes

Graphic Novel

A book containing a long story told mostly in pictures but with some writing.

It differs from a comic in that it contains serious literary themes and sophisticated artwork.

Iambic pentameter

A metrical form in which most lines consist of five 'iambs', a unit of rhythm (a 'foot') in poetry, consisting of two syllables. The first one is unstressed, the second one stressed. 

One day / I wrote / her name/ upon / the strand

but came / the waves / and wash / ed it / away

Again / I wrote / it with / a se /cond hand

But came  / the tide / and made / my pains / his prey

Irony

A situation or statement characterised by a significant difference between what is expected or is understood and what actually happens or is meant. 

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared implicitly, without the use of as or like.

Motif

A recurring device, formula or situation within a literary work, often used to draw attention to a particular aspect of that work. 

Mood

As a literary device, mood refers to the emotional response that the writer wishes to evoke in the reader

Naturalism

showing people and experiences as they really are, instead of suggesting that they are better than they really are or representing them in a fixed style

Onomatopoeia

a sound device in which the words used to imitate the sounds they are describing

Personification

the description of an object or an idea as if it had human characteristics

Protagonist

The main character in a work

Example:

Tom Stoppard in Matt Haig's How to Stop Time 

Rhyme

repetition of the terminal sounds of a word 

end rhyme: last words of two or more sentences rhyme

internal rhyme: a word within a line rhymes with another word in the same or following line. 

eye rhyme: the words don't rhyme actually but they look like they do. 

slant rhyme/near rhyme: only the final consonant sounds rhyme but the vowels do not or vice versa. 

Setting

The time and place of the action in a fictional work.

Example:

A remote mountain village, long ago

'The Elephant in the Village of the Blind' - anon.

Short story

A relatively short work of prose fiction, approx. 500 to 10,000 words, that, according to Edgar Allan Poe, can be read in a single sitting of two hours or less. The short story works to create a single effect. 

Simile

A figure of speech that involves a direct explicit comparison of one thing to another.

'My love is like a red, red rose'

Robert Burns

Sonnet

A fixed verse form consisting of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter.

English sonnet: three quatrains (= 4 lines) and a couplet (=2 lines)

Italian sonnet: octave (= 8 lines) and a sestet (6 lines).

Tone 

The attitude a literary work or its characters take toward its subject, especially in the way that the language is used when discussing this subject.