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List of literary terms
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| Literature |
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Major forms
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Novel · Poem · Drama |
| Genres |
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Epic · Lyric · Drama |
| Media |
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Performance (play) · Book |
| Techniques |
| History and lists |
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Basic topics · Literary terms |
| Discussion |
The following is a list of literary terms; that is, those words used in discussion, classification, criticism, and analysis of poetry, novels and picture books.
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[edit] A
- Abecedarius
- Academic drama
- Acatalectic
- Accent
- Accentual verse
- Acrostic
- Allegory
- Alliteration
- Allusion
- Anachronism
- Anacrusis
- Analects
- Analogue
- Analogy
- Anapest
- Anaphora
- Anastrophe
- Anecdote
- Angry Young Men
- Annal
- Annotation
- Antagonist
- Antepenult
- Anthology
- Anticlimax
- Anti-hero
- Anti-masque
- Anti-romance
- Antinovel
- Antistrophe
- Antithesis
- Antonym
- Aphorism
- Apocope
- Apocrypha
- Apollonian and Dionysian
- Apologue
- Apology
- Apothegm
- Aposiopesis
- Apostrophe
- Apron stage
- Arcadia
- Archaism
- Archetype
- Aristeia
- Argument
- Arsis
- Art for art's sake
- Asemic writing
- Aside
- Assonance
- Atmosphere
- Attitude
- Aube
- Aubade
- Audience
- Autobiography
- Autotelic
- Avant-garde
[edit] B
"The Leopard" from the 13th-century bestiary "Rochester Bestiary."
- Ballad
- Ballade
- Ballad stanza
- Bard
- Baroque
- Bathos
- Beast epic
- Beast poetry
- Beat Generation
- Beginning rhyme
- Belles-lettres
- Bestiary
- Beta reader
- Bibliography
- Bildungsroman
- Biography
- Black humor
- Blank verse
- Bloomsbury Group
- Body
- Bombast
- Boulevard drama
- Bourgeosis drama
- Bouts-rimés
- Bowdlerize
- Breviloquence
- Broadside
- Burlesque
- Burletta
- Burns stanza
- Buskin
- Byronic hero
[edit] C
- Caca
- Cadence
- Caesura
- Calligram
- Canon
- canso
- Canticum
- Canto
- Canzone
- Capa y espada
- Captivity narrative
- Caricature
- Carmen figuratum
- Carpe diem
- Catachresis
- Catalectic
- Catalexis
- Catastrophe
- Catharsis
- Caudate sonnet
- Cavalier drama
- Cavalier poetry
- Celtic Renaissance
- Celtic Twilight
- Cesura
- Chain of Being
- Chain verse
- Chanson de geste
- Chansonnier
- Chant royal
- Chantey
- Chanty
- Chapbook
- Character
- Characterization
- Charactonym
- Chaucerian stanza
- Chiasmus
- Chivalric romance
- Choriamb
- Choriambus
- Chorus
- Chronicle
- Chronical play
- Cinquain
- Classicism
- Classification (literature)
- Classification of rhymes (Peter Dale)
- Clerihew
- Cliché
- Climax
- Cloak-and-sword play
- Closed heroic couplet
- Closet drama
- Comédie larmoyante
- Comedy
- Comedy of errors
- Comedy of humors
- Comedy of intrigue
- Comedy of manners
- Comedic relief
- Commedia dell'arte
- Comic relief
- Common measure
- Commonplace book
- Common rhyme
- Comoedia erudate
- Comparative linguistics
- Compensation
- Complaint
- Conceit
- Concordance
- Concrete universal
- Confessional literature
- Confidant/confidante
- Conflict
- Connotation
- Consistency
- Consonance
- Contradiction
- Contrast
- Convention
- Copyright
- Counterplot
- Coup de théâtre
- Couplet
- Courtesy book
- Courtly love
- Cowleyan ode
- Cradle books
- Craft cycle
- Crisis
- Criticism
- Cross acrostic
- Crown of sonnets
- Curtain raiser
- Curtal sonnet
[edit] D
- Dactyl
- Dada
- Dale's classification of rhymes
- Dandyism
- Débat
- Decadence
- Decasyllabic verse
- Decorum
- Denotation
- Dénouement
- Description
- Descriptive lingustics
- Detective story
- Deus ex machina
- Deuteragonist
- Dialect
- Dialogue
- Dibrach
- Diction
- Didactic
- Digest
- Digression
- Dime novel
- Diameter
- Dipody
- Dirge
- Dissociation of sensibility
- Dissonance
- Distich
- Distributed Stress
- Dithyramb
- Diverbium
- Divine afflatus
- Doggerel
- Dolce stil nuove
- Domestic tragedy
- Donnée
- Doppelgänger
- Double
- Double rhyme
- Drama
- Drama of sensibility
- Dramatic character
- Dramatic irony
- Dramatic lyric
- Dramatic monologue
- Dramatic proverb
- Dramatis personae
- Dramaturgy
- Dream allegory
- Dream vision
- Droll
- Dumb show
- Duodecimo
- Duologue
- Duple meter/duple rhythm
- Dystopia
[edit] E
- Echo verse
- Eclogue
- Edition
- Ekphrasis
- Elegiac couplet
- Elegiac meter
- Elegy
- Elision
- Emblem
- Emblem book
- Emendation
- Emotive language
- Encomiastic verse
- End rhyme
- End-stopped line
- English sonnet
- Enjambment
- Entr'acte
- Envoy/envoi
- Èpater le bourgeois
- Epic poetry
- Epic simile
- Epic Theater
- Epigraph
- Epilogue
- Epiphany
- Episode
- Epistle
- Epistolary novel
- Epistrophe
- Epitaph
- Epithalamion
- Epithet
- Epizeuxis
- Epode
- Eponymous author
- Equivalence
- Erziehungsroman
- Essay
- Ethos
- Eulogy
- Euphony
- Euphuism
- Evidence
- Exegesis
- Exemplum
- Existentialism
- Exordium
- Experimental novel
- Explication de texte
- Exposition
- Expressionism
- Extended metaphor
- Extension
- Extrametrical verse
- Extravaganza
- Eye rhyme
[edit] F
- Fable
- Fabliau
- Falling action
- Falling rhythm
- Fancy and imagination
- Fantasy
- Farce
- Feeling
- Feminine ending
- Feminine rhyme
- Fiction
- Figurative language
- Figure of speech
- Fin de siècle
- Flashback
- Flat character
- Fleshly school
- Foil
- Folio
- Folk drama
- Folklore
- Folk tale
- Foot
- Foreshadowing
- Form
- Four levels of meaning
- Four meanings of a poem
- Fourteener
- Frame story
- Free verse
- French forms
- Freytag's pyramid
- Fugitives and Agrarians
- Fustian
- Futurism
[edit] G
From the 13th-century Carmina Burana, a collection of love and vagabond songs in Goliardic verse from Benediktbeurn Monastery.
- Gallows humor
- Gamebooks
- Gathering
- Genetic fallacy
- Genius and talent
- Genre
- Georgian poetry
- Georgic
- Gesta
- Gloss
- Gnomic verse
- Golden line
- Goliardic verse
- Gongorism
- Gonzo journalism
- Gothic novel
- Grand Guignol
- Graveyard poetry
- Graveyard school
- Greek tragedy
- Grub Street
- Grundyism
- Guignol
[edit] H
- Hagiography
- Hagiology
- Haikai
- Haikai no renga
- Haiku
- Half rhyme
- Hamartia
- Handwaving
- Headless line
- Head rhyme
- Hebraism-Hellenism
- "The Hedgehog and the Fox"
- Hemistich
- Hendecasyllable
- Hendecasyllabic verse
- Heptameter
- Heptastrich
- Heresy of paraphrase
- Hero
- Heroic couplets
- Heroic drama
- Heroic quatrain
- Heroic stanza
- Hexameter
- Hexastich
- Hiatus
- High comedy
- Higher criticism
- Historical linguistics
- Historical novel
- Historic present
- History play
- Hokku
- Holograph
- Homeric epithet
- Homeric simile
- Homily
- Horatian ode
- Horatian satire
- Hornbook
- Hovering accent
- Hubris
- Hudibrastic verse
- Humor
- Humours
- Hybris
- Hymn
- Hymnal stanza
- Hyperbole
- Hypercatalectic
- Hypermetrical
- Hypocorism
- Hysteron-proteron
[edit] I
- Iambic pentameter
- Ideology
- Idiom
- Imagery
- Imagism
- Impressionism
- Indeterminacy
- Inference
- In medias res
- Internal rhyme
- Interpretation
- Intertextuality
- Irony
[edit] J
- Jacobean era
- Jeremiad
- Journal
- Judicial criticism
- Juncture
- Juggernaut
- Juvenalian satire
- Juxtaposition
[edit] K
[edit] L
- Lai
- Lake Poets
- Lament
- Lampoon
- L'art pour l'art
- Laureate
- Lay
- Leaf
- Legend
- Legitimate theater
- Leonine rhyme
- Letters
- Level stress (even accent)
- Libretto
- Light ending
- Light poetry
- Light rhyme
- Light stress
- Light verse
- Limerick (poetry)
- Linguistics
- Linked rhyme
- Link sonnet
- Literary ballad
- Literary criticism
- Literary epic
- Literary realism
- Literary theory
- Literature
- Litotes
- Litterateur
- Liturgical drama
- Living newspaper
- Local color
- Logaoedic
- Logical fallacy
- Logical stress
- Logos
- Long measure
- Loose sentence
- Lost Generation
- Low comedy
- Lyric
[edit] M
- Macaronic verse
- Madrigal
- Magical realism
- Malapropism
- Märchen
- Marginalia
- Marinism
- Marivauge
- Marxist literary criticism
- Masculine ending
- Masculine rhyme
- Masked comedy
- Masque
- Maxim
- Meaning
- Medieval drama
- Meiosis
- Melic poetry
- Melodrama
- Memoir
- Menippean satire
- Mesostich
- Metaphor
- Metaphysical conceit
- Metaphysical poetry
- Meter
- Metonymy
- Metre
- Metrical accent
- Metrical foot
- Metrical structure
- Middle Comedy
- Miles gloriosus
- Miltonic sonnet
- Mime
- Mimesis
- Minnesinger
- Minstrel
- Miracle play
- Miscellanies
- Mise en scène
- Mixed metaphor
- Mock epic
- Mock heroic
- Mode
- Modernism
- Monodrama
- Monody
- Monograph
- Monologue
- Monometer
- Monopody
- Monostich
- Monograph
- Mood
- Mora
- Moral
- Morality play
- Motif
- Motivation
- Movement
- Mummery
- Muses
- Musical comedy
- Mystery play
- Mythology
[edit] N
- Narrative point of view
- Narrator
- Naturalism
- Neologism
- Non-fiction
- Non-fiction novel
- Novel
- Novelette
- Novella
- Novelle
- narrative poem
[edit] O
- Objective correlative
- Objective criticism
- Obligatory scene
- Octameter
- Octave
- Ode
- Oedipus complex
- Onomatopoeia
- Open couplet
- Oulipo
- Orchestra_(literary term)
- Oxymoron
[edit] P
- Palinode
- Pantoum
- Pantun
- Parable
- Paraclausithyron
- Paradelle
- Paradox
- Pararhyme
- Partimen
- Pastourelle
- Pathetic fallacy
- Pathya Vat
- Parallelism
- Parody
- Pastoral
- Pathos
- Pentameter
- Periodic sentence
- Peripetia
- perspective
- Persona
- Personification
- Pièce bien faite
- Picaresque novel
- Plain Style
- Platonic
- Plot
- Poem
- Poem and song
- Poetic diction
- Poetic transrealism
- Poetry
- Point of view
- Polysyndeton
- Post-colonialism
- Postmodernism
- Pound's Ideogrammic Method
- Prologue
- Progymnasmata
- Prose
- Prosimetrum
- Prosody
- Protagonist
- Proverb
- Pruning poem
- Psychoanalytic literary criticism
- Psychoanalytic theory
- Pun
- Purple patch
- Pyrrhic
[edit] Q
[edit] R
- Reader-response criticism
- Realism
- Refrain
- Renga
- Renku
- Repetition
- Resolution
- Rhapsodes
- Rhetoric
- Rhyme
- Rhythm
- Roman a clef
- Romance novel
- Romanticism
- Russian formalism
[edit] S
- Satire
- Scanning
- Scansion
- Scene a faire
- Sea shanty
- Semiotics
- Semiotic literary criticism
- Setting
- Shanty
- Sestet
- Shakespearean sonnet
- Simile
- Slice of life
- Sobriquet
- Soliloquy
- Sonnet
- Sonneteer
- Speaker
- Sprung rhythm
- Stanza
- Static character
- Stereotype
- Stream of consciousness
- Structuralism
- Subplot
- Syllogism
- Symbol
- Synecdoche
- Synaesthesia
- Syntax
[edit] T
- Tableau
- Tail rhyme
- Tagelied
- Tale
- Tall Tale
- Telestich
- Tanka
- Tenor
- Tension
- Tercet
- Terza rima
- Tetrameter
- Tetrastich
- Textual criticism
- Texture
- Theater of Cruelty
- Theatre of the Absurd
- Theme
- Thesis
- Thesis play
- Threnody
- Tirade
- Tone
- Tract
- Tractarian Movement
- Tragedy
- Tragedy of blood
- Tragic flaw
- Tragic Hero
- Tragic irony
- Tragicomedy
- Tranche de vie
- Transcendentalism
- Transferred epithet
- Transition
- Translation
- Travesty
- Triad
- Tribe of Ben
- Tribrach
- Trimeter
- Triolet
- Triple rhyme
- Triple meter
- Triple rhythm
- Triplet
- Tristich
- Tritagonist
- Trivium
- Trobar clus
- Trochee
- Trope (literature)
- Troubadour
- Trouvère
- Truncated line
- Tumbling verse
- Type character
[edit] U
- Ubi sunt
- Underground culture
- Underground press
- Understatement
- Unities
- Unity
- Universality (disambiguation)
- University Wits
- Unobtainium
- Utopia
- Utopian and dystopian fiction
- Unreliable narrator
[edit] V
- Variable syllable
- Variorum
- Varronian satire (Menippean satire)
- Vates
- Vaudeville
- Vehicle
- Verbal irony
- Verisimilitude
- Verism
- Vers de société
- Verse
- Verse paragraph
- Vers libre
- Verso
- Victorianism
- Viewpoint
- Vignette
- Villain
- Villanelle
- Virelay
- Virgule
- Voice (of the writer)
- Voice (in phonetics)
- Volta
- Vorticism
- Vulgate
[edit] W
- Wardour Street English
- Weak ending
- Weak foot
- Well-made play
- Wellerism
- Western fiction
- Wimmering
- Wit
- Word accent
- Wrenched accent
- Watermark
[edit] References and further reading
- M. H. Abrams. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Thomson-Wadsworth, 2005. ISBN 1413004563.
- Chris Baldick. The Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Univ. Press, 2004. ISBN 0198608837.
- Chris Baldick. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. ISBN 019280118X.
- Edwin Barton & G. A. Hudson. Contemporary Guide To Literary Terms. Houghton-Mifflin, 2003. ISBN 0618341625.
- Mark Bauerlein. Literary Criticism: An Autopsy. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. ISBN 0812216253.
- Karl Beckson & Arthur Ganz. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989. ISBN 0374521778.
- Peter Childs. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. Routledge, 2005. ISBN 0415340179.
- J. A. Cuddon. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Penguin Books, 2000. ISBN 0140513639 .
- Dana Gioia. The Longman Dictionary of Literary Terms: Vocabulary for the Informed Reader. Longman, 2005. ISBN 032133194X.
- Sharon Hamilton. Essential Literary Terms: A Brief Norton Guide with Exercises. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 0393928373.
- William Harmon. A Handbok to Literature. Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN 0131344420.
- X. J. Kennedy, et al. Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Language, Theory. Longman, 2004. ISBN 0321202074.
- V. B. Leitch. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. W. W. Norton, 2001. ISBN 0393974294.
- Frank Lentricchia & Thomas McLaughlin. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN 0226472035.
- David Mikics. A New Handbook of Literary Terms. Yale Univ. Press, 2007. ISBN 030010636X.
- Ross Murfin & S. M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. ISBN 0312259107.
- John Peck & Martin Coyle. Literary Terms and Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0333962583.
- Edward Quinn. A Dictionary of Literary And Thematic Terms. Checkmark Books, 2006. ISBN 0816062447.
- Lewis Turco. The Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, and Scholarship. Univ. Press of New England, 1999. ISBN 0874519551.

