Terms in Literature

Most Important Terms in Literature

Comedy

it is a type of drama in which characters amuse the audience and it ends happily .

Classical

Classical means a piece of literature that shows the traditions and modes of Greek and Latin writings.

Antithesis

It means reversal of something It describes the opposite of something or someone.

Allusion

It is used for direct reference it can be an idea,person or piece of text.

Allegory

It is used to reveal the true story or hidden meanings.In this type of term characters stand for an abstract idea.Its purpose is to moralize people.

Alliteration

It is a stylistics device used to describe the the repetition of a consonant in 2 or more words.

Ballad

It is a form of verse.It is a poem or song which describes the story in stanzas.

Biography

It is the type of literature genre in which history of a person’s life written by one else.

Blank Verse

It is the type of verse written in iambic pentameter.there is no any rhyme pattern that is why it is called Blank verse.

Auto-Biography

It is bio data of one's life written by the same person.

Act

It is the important division of a play .In which we can see rising action, climax and resolution of the play.

Canto

It is the type of poetic term in which long poems divided into many sections .

Chorus

Chorus were very important in Greek plays they were stand for group of singers who narrates the circumstances and used to comment on the pathetic conditions of a tragic hero.

Catharsis

It is the purification of feelings and emotions in tragedy and arouses the elements of pity and fear in audience.

Catastrophe

It is the end of the hero or downfall of the tragic hero in a tragedy.

Didactic

It is the type of poetry used to aim at teaching something instructional to its readers.

Dirge

It is the kind of song that expresses mourning or grief.

Diction

It is the use or choice of words,selection of words in literary work

Dialect

It can be a language of specific area or a group of people .

Difference between drama and novel

Drama is for performance while a novel is for reading.

Epic

It is long poem.It has grand style and always have supernatural characters.Paradise Los by Milton.

Epilogue

It can be the concluding part of a play novel or poem .

Fable

It is the kind of story that describes the story based on morality.

Farce

It is a comic work aim to provoke laughter in audience.

Foot

It is the basic unit of meter in poem.It is usually contains one stressed syllable .

Fiction

It is the type of prose fiction in which imaginations plays an important part.

Genre

it refers to a classification of English literature.

Hyperbole

It is taken from Greek word which means over-casting .It is a figure of speech writers used to exaggerate thing.

Limerick

It is the kind of poem which has five line stanza.

Metaphysical Poetry

It is highly philosophical poetry.it discusses the maters of love and existence of life.It was first coined by Samuel Johnson.

Metaphor

Metaphor is a figure of speech that describes the things or objects,actions that is not true literally true .

Novelette

It is extensive than a short story and less than a novel.

Ode

It is a lyric poem which deals with serious matters.

Prologue

it is the beginning of a fiction or a drama.

Romanticism

It was movement in literature which stands for reason and focuses on emotions and feelings.