Lit Terms Project!

Lit Terms Project! Colette Hernandez Chelsea Skubal

Anaphora • The repetition of a word or phrase at the start of successive clauses. • "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun." - Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely

Foot (poetic) • A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry. An iamb or iambic foot is represented by ˘', that is, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. • "Whose woods these are I think I know“ –Robert Frost

Paradox • A statement that appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense. • "I must be cruel to be kind". - Hamlet

Elegy • A mournful, contemplative lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is dead, often ending in a consolation. • “Sundays too my father got up earlyAnd put his clothes on in the blueback cold,then with cracked hands that achedfrom labor in the weekday weather madebanked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.”- “Those Winter Sundays”, Robert Hayden

Metonymy • A type of metaphor in which something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it. • “As he swung toward them holding up the handHalf in appeal, but half as if to keepThe life from spilling.” – “Out, Out” by Robert Frost (Life being blood)

Character • A person presented in dramatic or narrative work. (Stock, round, and flat) • “Whoever said orange was the new pink was seriously disturbed.” -Elle Woods Legally Blonde. Stock characters embody stereotypes such as “dumb blondes.” • Flat Character- Elle’s Mother • Static Character-Emmett • Dynamic Character- Elle Woods

Foil • A character in a work whose behavior and values contrast with those of another character in order to highlight the distinctive temperament of that character. • “Look, my lord, it comes!” –Hamlet Horatio acts as Hamlet's confidant and therefore lets the audience know what Hamlet is thinking and makes it seem like Hamlet is not mad because he sees it too.

Litotes • A Figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negative its opposite. • “I'm really glad that you have come to visit,” said the spider to the fly. –The Spider and the Fly by Mary Howitt (The fly did not come to visit, he became stuck and is now his next meal.)

Tone • The author’s implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author’s style. • “It dartingly darkened in spots, paled, pulsed, compressed, distended, yet held an identity firm: a flock of starlings, as much one thing as a rock.” –The Great Scarf of Birds, John Updike Using the word, “distended”, made it “painfully” stick out.

Rising Action • A set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of a play's or story's plot leading up to the climax. • One night the big bad wolf, who dearly loved to eat fat little piggies, came along and saw the first little pig in his house of straw. He said "Let me in, Let me in, little pig or I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll blow your house in!” –The Three Little Pigs

Vernacular • Literature written in the vernacular--the speech of the "common people". • “Lord, what fools these mortals be!” - A Midsummer Night’s Dream. (for the time it was written, (The Renaissance ) it was the speech of the “common people”)

Anecdote • Short free-standing tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident. • “Vince Lombardi never wore a watch. When he showed up you knew it was time for practice. If you’re 15 minutes early you’re on time, if you’re on time you’re late, and if you’re late don’t even show up.”-Matt Nicolo

Lit Terms Project!