Short Definitions of Literary Terms
Below is a list of definitions of some literary terms, the understanding of which, is essential to your analysis of any work. These definitions are brief and meant only as a guide. For a more complete understanding of some of these terms, you may want to consult a dictionary or encyclopedia of literary terms.
ALLEGORY: a narrative in which abstractions (ideas) are made concrete; characters stand for principles, attitudes, etc.
ALLEGORICAL FIGURE: a character in an allegory, generally not three dimensional, but more the representation of an abstraction; contrast with SYMBOL.
AMBIGUITY: the state of having more than one possible meaning.
ANTAGONIST: the character or force whose opposition to the protagonist is the main source of conflict.
ATMOSPHERE: the mood pervading a literary work, particularly created by the setting; helps establish the expectations and attitude of the reader.
CARICATURE: a distorted character resulting from the author's deliberate exaggeration of a trait or traits of personality.
A CHARACTER: a person in a literary work (must be plausible and properly motivated [compare to CARICATURE]).
CHARACTERIZATION: the art by which an author imbues a character with life; accomplished through the behavior and speech of the character, the reactions of other characters to a character, and the direct statements of the narrator about a character.
A CLASSIC: a work whose excellence has achieved for it an eminent place in literature.
CLIMAX: the turning point of the action; the moment when the action reaches its highest point of conflict or tension.
CONFLICT: the meeting of opposing forces; may be interior (i.e., two forces inside one character), exterior (i.e., between two or more characters, or between a character or group of characters and some other force, e.g., nature, God, etc.), or both.
DENOUEMENT: the unraveling of the action; follows the climax or occurs simultaneously with it.
DIALECT: the speech pattern of a region or class.
DIALOGUE: conversation between two or more characters.
FICTION: a literary form, most often prose narrative, drawn from imagination rather than solely from fact.
FORESHADOWING: the planting of important clues to prepare the reader for what is to come.
FLASHBACK: the depiction of an incident which occurred before the opening of a work; not merely a reference to the incident.
GENRE: a category of literary work (e.g., fiction, drama, poetry).
IMAGE: an expression which evokes an appeal to the senses.
IMAGERY: the production of sense appeal through the use of figurative language.
IRONY: a literary device which presents a conflict between appearance and reality; may be intentional or unintentional on the part of a character, but always intentional on the part of the author.
DRAMATIC IRONY: a discrepancy between the real and the expected.
VERBAL IRONY: a statement which has the opposite of the intended meaning.
MONOLOGUE: speech by one character to him/herself or the reader/audience; may be interior or exterior.
MOOD: the atmosphere (e.g., pensive, reflective, comic, etc.) which prevails in a work; the attitude the reader gets from the work.
PLOT: a series of intervening events, showing cause and effect, making up the total action of a work.
POINT OF VIEW: the vantage point of the narrator from which the action is related; may be first person, third person limited, third person omniscient, or objective.
PROTAGONIST: the main character in a work.
SATIRE: the ridiculing of customs or mores, usually comic in tone; may have a purgative or a corrective intent.
SETTING: the time, place, and other circumstances which form the physical background of a work.
STRUCTURE: the formal pattern of a work; its component parts are both material and technical.
SYMBOL: a concrete object in a work which has more than its literal significance (i.e., also represents something abstract).
THEME: the fundamental idea explored in a literary work.
TONE: the attitude of the author toward the reader and the subject.
