lit terms #6

Simile: a figure of speech comparing two essentially unlike things through the use of a specific word of comparison.
- Her eyes are as blue as the sky.

Soliloquy: an extended speech, usually in a drama, delivered by a character alone on stage.
- Hamlet's "to be or not to be" speech.

Spiritual: a folk song, usually on a religious theme.

Speaker: a narrator, the one speaking.
- Dr. Sueus is a speaker in his books.

Stereotype: cliché; a simplified, standardized conception with a special meaning and appeal for members of a group; a formula story.
- All pit bulls are dangerous

Stream of Consciousness: the style of writing that attempts to imitate the natural flow of a character’s
thoughts, feelings, reflections, memories, and mental images, as the character experiences them.

Structure: the planned framework of a literary selection; its apparent organization.

Style:  the manner of putting thoughts into words; a characteristic way of writing or speaking.
- Poe has a very creepy style of writing.

Subordination: the couching of less important ideas in less important  structures of language.

Surrealism: a style in literature and painting that stresses the subconscious or the non-rational aspects of man’s existence characterized by the juxtaposition of the bizarre and the banal.

Suspension of Disbelief: suspend not believing in order to enjoy it.
- people watch/ read fiction things but know the things in it aren't real.

Symbol: something which stands for something else, yet has a meaning of its own.
- a bed symbolizes sleep.

Synesthesia: the use of one sense to convey the experience of another sense.
- a dark noise

Synecdoche: another form of name changing, in which a part stands for the whole.

Syntax: the arrangement and grammatical relations of words in a sentence.
- "Powerful you have become; the dark side I sense in you."

Theme:  main idea of the story; its message(s).
-the theme of  "Kite Runner" is forgiveness/ getting over guilt.

Thesis: a proposition for consideration, especially one to be discussed and proved or disproved; the main idea.
- should be in the very beginning of an essay, must have the main ideas.

Tone: the devices used to create the mood and atmosphere of a literary work; the author’s perceived point of view.
-- eerie, cheerful, relaxing.
Tongue in Cheek: a type of humor in which the speaker feigns seriousness; a.k.a. “dry” or “dead pan”

Tragedy: in literature: any composition with a somber theme carried to a disastrous conclusion; a fatal event; protagonist usually is heroic but tragically (fatally) flawed
- Romeo and Juliet

Understatement: opposite of hyperbole; saying less than you mean for emphasis
- I am so tired I think I only got 5 minutes of sleep.

Vernacular: everyday speech
- talking with friends/ family

Voice:  The textual features, such as diction and sentence structures, that convey a writer’s or speaker’s persona.
- the way the narrator sounds.

Zeitgeist: the feeling of a particular era in history
- a picture can help you feel how a time period is.