Literary Terms and Definitions for Writing and Analysis

moral:

a lesson, especially one concerning what is right or prudent, that can be derived from a story, a piece of information, or an experience.

onomatopoeia:

words whose sounds echo their meaning used to intensify images.

parallelism:

similar grammatical constructions to express related or equally important ideas.

parts of speech:

a category that a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic function

pathos:

an appeal to emotion, and is a way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response.

personification:

figure of speech that gives human qualities to an object, animal, or idea.

plot:

the sequence of events in a story; focuses on a central conflict faced by the characters and typically develops in five stages: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution.

point of view:

the method of narration used in a short story, novel, narrative poem, or work of nonfiction. First-person, third person omniscient or limited,

primary source:

an artifact, a document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, a recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study.

quotation marks:

punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to set off direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase.

refrain:

one or more lines repeated in each stanza of a poem

rhetoric:

language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.

secondary source:

information is one that was created later by someone who did not experience first-hand or participate in the events or conditions you're researching.

setting:

the place or type of surroundings where something is positioned or where an event takes place.

simile:

figure of speech that compares two unlike things using like or as

soliloquy:

an act of speaking one's thoughts aloud when by oneself or regardless of any hearers, especially by a character in a play.

stanza:

a group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse.

theme:

a central idea or underlying message about life or human nature that the writer wants the reader to understand

tone:

the attitude the writer takes toward a subject.

verse:

writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme.