Plain definitions with original examples. Terms are best used to explain an effect, not just to name it. Learn them with the flashcard tool, and try the literary terms quiz or the revision guide.
A
- Allegory
- A story whose characters and events stand for larger ideas, often moral or political. Example: A tale in which a tired lighthouse keeper stands for a country losing its way. See also: symbolism, motif.
- Alliteration
- Repetition of the same sound at the start of nearby words. Example: "Slow, soft sighs slid under the door." See also: assonance.
- Ambiguity
- Language that can reasonably be read in more than one way. Example: "I left it with her" could mean entrusted or abandoned. See also: connotation, irony.
- Anaphora
- Repeating a word or phrase at the start of successive lines or sentences. Example: "We waited. We watched. We wondered." See also: repetition.
- Antagonist
- Character or force that opposes the main character. Example: A landlord who keeps blocking the heroine's plans. See also: protagonist, foil.
- Assonance
- Repetition of similar vowel sounds in nearby words. Example: "Pale rain fell on the waiting lane." See also: alliteration.
- Atmosphere
- Overall mood a reader feels from a setting or scene. Example: Fog, silence and a flickering lamp create a tense atmosphere. See also: mood, tone, setting.
C
- Caesura
- A pause within a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation. Example: "I waited there; nobody came." See also: enjambment.
- Characterisation
- Methods a writer uses to build a character: speech, actions, description and what others say. Example: Showing a man is mean by having him count out every coin twice. See also: protagonist, foil.
- Colloquial
- Everyday, informal language that sounds like speech. Example: "Ain't no way I'm going back." See also: register.
- Connotation
- Ideas and feelings a word suggests beyond its literal meaning. Example: "Home" suggests warmth, where "house" suggests only a building. See also: ambiguity.
- Context
- Circumstances in which a text was written or is set, such as social attitudes or historical events. Example: A tale of a servant's limited choices makes more sense knowing the rigid class system of its setting. See also: theme, perspective.
- Couplet
- Two successive lines that rhyme. Example: "The night was dark, the wind was cold, / We huddled close, as we had been told." See also: sonnet, rhyme.
D
- Dramatic irony
- When the audience knows something a character does not. Example: A letter is forged and the audience knows, while the character trusts it. See also: irony, soliloquy.
- Dramatic monologue
- A poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener and reveals more than they intend. Example: A speaker coolly describing a quarrel while unwittingly showing jealousy. See also: persona.
E
- Enjambment
- A sentence or phrase running on across a line break without punctuation. Example: "She ran towards the / door and never looked back." See also: caesura.
F
- Foil
- A character who contrasts with another to highlight qualities. Example: A cheerful, careless friend who makes a cautious hero seem more serious. See also: characterisation, antagonist.
- Form
- Shape or type of a text: sonnet, play, novel, free verse, and so on. Example: Choosing a sonnet to compress a feeling into fourteen lines. See also: structure, stanza.
H
- Hyperbole
- Deliberate exaggeration for effect. Example: "I've told you a million times." See also: understatement.
I
- Iambic pentameter
- A line of ten syllables in five pairs, each pair unstressed then stressed. Example: "I walked along the shore at break of day." (I WALKED a-LONG the SHORE at BREAK of DAY)
- Imagery
- Language that creates pictures or sensory impressions. Example: "A bruise of cloud over the harbour." See also: metaphor, simile, symbolism.
- Irony
- A gap between what is said or expected and what is meant or happens. Example: A fire station burning down. See also: dramatic irony.
J
- Juxtaposition
- Placing contrasting things side by side to sharpen the difference. Example: A feast scene followed directly by an empty street. See also: oxymoron, structure.
M
- Metaphor
- Describing one thing as if it were another, without "like" or "as". Example: "Our classroom was a beehive." See also: simile, imagery.
- Mood
- Feeling a text produces in the reader. Example: Uneasy, from empty rooms and slow footsteps. See also: atmosphere, tone.
- Motif
- A repeated image, idea or detail that builds meaning. Example: Recurring references to keys across a novel. See also: symbolism, theme.
N
- Narrator
- Voice that tells a story. Example: A first-person narrator describing events years afterwards. See also: perspective, unreliable narrator.
O
- Oxymoron
- Two contradictory words placed together. Example: "A deafening silence." See also: juxtaposition, paradox.
P
- Paradox
- A statement that seems contradictory yet may contain truth. Example: "She was lonely in a crowd." See also: oxymoron, irony.
- Pathetic fallacy
- Giving human feelings to nature, often to mirror mood. Example: Rain "weeping" outside as a character grieves. See also: personification, atmosphere.
- Persona
- A voice a writer adopts that is not their own. Example: A poet writing as an elderly sailor. See also: dramatic monologue, narrator.
- Personification
- Giving human qualities to something that is not human. Example: "Wind muttered at the windows." See also: pathetic fallacy, metaphor.
- Perspective
- Viewpoint from which events are presented. Example: A story told through a child who does not grasp what the adults mean. See also: narrator.
- Protagonist
- Central character of a text. Example: A girl whose choices drive the story forward. See also: antagonist, characterisation.
R
- Register
- Level of formality of language, suited to audience and purpose. Example: Formal address to a king versus slang between friends. See also: colloquial, tone.
- Repetition
- Using a word, phrase or structure more than once for emphasis. Example: A refrain that returns at the end of every stanza. See also: anaphora, motif.
- Rhyme
- Matching sounds at the ends of lines. Example: "Light" and "night". See also: couplet, rhyme scheme.
- Rhyme scheme
- Pattern of rhymes in a poem, labelled with letters. Example: ABAB: lines one and three rhyme, lines two and four rhyme. See also: rhyme, stanza.
- Rhythm
- Beat created by the sound pattern of words. Example: Short sharp words that feel like marching. See also: caesura, iambic pentameter.
S
- Setting
- Time and place of a text. Example: A cramped flat in a rainy city. See also: atmosphere, context.
- Simile
- A comparison using "like" or "as". Example: "Quiet as a held breath." See also: metaphor, imagery.
- Soliloquy
- A speech in which a character speaks their thoughts aloud, alone on stage. Example: A character alone at night revealing a plan to the audience. See also: dramatic irony.
- Sonnet
- A fourteen-line poem, often in a set rhyme scheme. Example: Eight lines posing a problem, six answering it. See also: couplet, form, volta.
- Stanza
- A group of lines in a poem, like a paragraph. Example: Four lines, then a space, then four more. See also: form, rhyme scheme.
- Structure
- How a text is organised: order of events, shifts in focus, endings. Example: A story that opens at its end and then flashes back. See also: form, volta.
- Symbolism
- Using an object, person or place to represent a larger idea. Example: A locked gate standing for a refused chance. See also: motif, allegory.
- Syntax
- Way words and sentences are arranged. Example: Short broken sentences to show panic. See also: tone, caesura.
T
- Theme
- A central idea explored across a text. Example: Loss, or the cost of ambition. See also: motif, context.
- Tone
- Attitude of a writer or speaker, as revealed by language. Example: Bitter, gentle, playful or detached. See also: mood, register.
U
- Understatement
- Describing something serious in deliberately mild terms. Example: Calling a flooded house "a little damp". See also: hyperbole, irony.
- Unreliable narrator
- A narrator whose account the reader has reason to doubt. Example: A speaker who insists he was calm while his actions suggest otherwise. See also: narrator, perspective.
V
- Volta
- A turn in thought or argument, especially in a sonnet. Example: A poem about spring that shifts at line nine to regret. See also: sonnet, structure.
Part of the GCSE English Literature revision set: the revision guide, self-marking quiz and comparison of the three exam boards.