Allusion: a reference (usually without explicit identification) to another literary work or to a person, place, or event.

Character: a person presented in a dramatic or narrative work, who is interpreted by readers as having moral and emotional qualities expressed in what they say (dialogue) and by what they do (action).

Comedy: a) In Greek drama, a play taking as its starting point a fantastic scheme concocted by the hero, which then constitutes the plot; often included references to current events and prominent citizens; the actors wore exaggerated costumes and masks.  b) More broadly, a work primarily intended to interest and amuse, in which the characters engage the audience’s pleasurable attention (rather than profound concern) and in which the action usually turns out happily for the chief characters.

Conflict: in fiction, a struggle, opposition, or clash of interests or desires, often driving the plot. Conflict can be external --- such as between characters, between institutions, forces, or ideas, or between some combination of these --- or internal, meaning within a character.

Drama: the form of composition designed for performance in a theater by actors.  Individual works of drama are also called plays.

Dramatic monologue:  poem presenting the imaginary utterance of a single speaker who is someone other than the poet; this speaker often interacts with an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker’s life, and the speaker usually reveals significant aspects of character.

Epic: a long narrative poem on a serious subject, told in a formal and elevated style, centered on a heroic or quasi-divine figure on whose actions depend the fate of a tribe or nation.  Includes both traditional epics (written versions of poems that were originally oral, such as the Iliad) and literary epics (composed by individual poets in imitation of the traditional form, such as the Aeneid or Paradise Lost).  Sometimes loosely applied to narratives (such as novels or films) that differ from this model but still manifest the epic spirit in the scale and scope of their subjects.

Essay: a short composition in prose that undertakes to discuss a matter, express a point of view, or persuade us to accept a thesis on any subject.

Fiction: a literary narrative which is invented rather than being an account of events that actually happened; usually in prose.

Figurative language: use of language that departs from the standard meaning of words in order to achieve some special meaning or effect; a general term that includes such figures of speech as similes, metaphors, etc.

Foot: the name given to a single unit of meter, usually composed of two or three syllables; a line of poetry is made up of a given number of feet.

Genre: used to designate the types or categories into which literary works are grouped according to form, technique, and sometimes subject matter.  Works within a particular genre generally share some or all of a group of characteristics.  Major genres include such types as novels, poetry, and drama, as well as epic, tragedy, satire, and the like.  Many genres also include subcategories (or subgenres) such as the Gothic novel.

Iambic pentameter: one of the most common meters in English poetry; the meter of a line with five iambic feet.  An iambic foot consists of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Imagery: images are representations of sensory experiences or objects that can be known through one or more senses.  Imagery can include not only visual images but also descriptions that are auditory, tactile, olfactory, etc.  It can include not only literal descriptions but also objects and qualities incorporated by means of metaphor and simile.

Interpretation: to interpret is to make clear the artistic features and purport of a literary work; includes analysis of genre, component elements, structure, theme, and effects.

Irony: a statement in which the meaning a speaker implies differs sharply from the meaning that is ostensibly expressed.

Lyric: usually a fairly short poem consisting of an utterance by a single speaker, who expresses a state of mind or a process of perception, thought, and feeling.

Metaphor: a figure of speech which equates one word or expression with a distinctly different kind of thing or action; usually distinguished from simile by the absence of “like” or “as.”  For instance, “my love is a red, red rose” is a metaphor.

Meter:  the rhythm of a poem structured into regular units; the particular kind of meter is determined by the pattern of stronger and weaker stresses in the syllables composing the words in the line of verse.  Kinds of meter are named according to the type and number of feet that make up the line.  See iambic pentameter for an example.

Narrative: a story, whether in prose or verse, involving events, characters, and what the characters say and do.

Narrator: the person telling the story; sometimes clearly identified as a character in the story, but can also be someone outside the story. Narrators can be characterized according to point of view: first person, third person, or (rarely) second person.

Novel: an extended fictional narrative in prose.  Often (though not always) characterized as realistic and as developing a unified plot.

Plot: the events of a story as selected and arranged by the author; usually involves conflict of some kind and can usually be seen to have a clear pattern or structure.

Poetry: a literary form characterized by rhythm and usually by division into lines.  Often uses regular meter and thyme; poetry that uses meter (usually iambic pentameter) without rhyme is called blank verse, while poetry that uses neither is called free verse.  Poetry is often characterized by concentrated figurative language and by the effort to express fundamental human emotion and thought.

Prose: all discourse which is not patterned into the lines and rhythms of metric verse or free verse.

Rhyme: the repetition (in the rhyming words) of the last stressed vowel and all the speech sounds following that vowel.  For instance:  late/fate; follow/hollow.  Rhyme scheme is described by assigning a letter to each rhyme; thus, lines ending late/follow/fate/hollow would have a rhyme scheme abab.

Satire: the literary art of diminishing or derogating a subject by making it ridiculous; evokes attitudes of amusement, contempt, indignation; usually justified by satirists as a corrective of human vice and folly.

Setting: the general locale, historical time, and social circumstances in which the action of a work occurs.  When applied to a single episode or scene, setting can denote simply the particular physical location.

Short story: A brief work of prose fiction.

Simile: a comparison between two distinctly different things indicated by “like” or “as.”  For instance, “as green as emerald” is a simile.

Stanza: a grouping of the verse lines in a poem, set off by a space in the printed text.  Often marked by a recurrent pattern of rhyme.

Sonnet:  a lyric poem of fourteen iambic pentameter lines linked by an intricate rhyme scheme.  The two major types of sonnet—English and Italian—are differentiated by their rhyme schemes.  English sonnets usually rhyme ababcdcdefef gg.  Italian sonnets usually rhyme abbaabba cdecde.

Symbol: something that is itself and also stands for something beyond itself.  Some symbols are conventional and have meanings that are widely understood within a particular culture (e.g., an eagle); some symbols take on more specific, individual meanings generated by a particular writer in the context of his/her works (e.g., Melville’s white whale).

Tragedy: a) In Greek drama, according to Aristotle’s definition in the Poetics, tragedy aims to produce catharsis (purging or purification) through the emotions of pity and fear; he also defines the tragic hero as a noble person who is inevitably destroyed because of a tragic flaw or error in judgment.  b) More broadly, a work focusing on serious and important actions which lead to a disastrous conclusion for the protagonist.