Literary+Terms

Below, please find a comprehensive list of literary terms that will help you through our reading and analysis of classic literature.
**ALLEGORY** - Story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities. > **Example**: Animal Farm; Dante’s Inferno; Lord of the Flies **ALLITERATION** - Repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together. > **Example**: “When the two youths turned with the flag they saw that much of the regiment had crumbled away, and the dejected remnant was coming slowly back.” –Stephen Crane (Note how regiment and remnant are being used; the regiment is gone, a remnant remains…) **ALLUSION** - Reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture. An indirect reference to something (usually from literature, etc.).

**AMBIGUITY** - Deliberately suggesting two or more different, and sometimes conflicting, meanings in a work. An event or situation that may be interpreted in more than one way - this is done on purpose by the author, when it is not done on purpose, it is vagueness, and detracts from the work.

**ANALOGY** - Comparison made between two things to show how they are alike

**ANAPHORA** - Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row. This is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer’s point more coherent.

**ANASTROPHE** - Inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a sentence. Purpose is rhythm or emphasis or euphony. It is a fancy word for inversion.

**ANECDOTE** - Brief story, told to illustrate a point or serve as an example of something, often shows character of an individual

**ANTAGONIST** - Opponent who struggles against or blocks the hero, or protagonist, in a story.

**ANTIMETABOLE** - Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order. > **Example**: Moliere: “One should eat to live, not live to eat.” In poetry, this is called chiasmus.

**ANTITHESIS** - Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure.

**ANTIHERO** - Central character who lacks all the qualities traditionally associated with heroes. May lack courage, grace, intelligence, or moral scruples.

**ANTHROPOMORPHISM** - Attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object (Personification)

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**APHORISM** - Brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life, or of a principle or accepted general truth. Also called maxim, epigram.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**APOSTROPHE** - Calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea. If the character is asking a god or goddess for inspiration it is called an invocation. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Example**: Josiah Holland - “Loacöon! Thou great embodiment/ Of human life and human history!”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**APPOSITION** - Placing in immediately succeeding order of two or more coordinate elements, the latter of which is an explanation, qualification, or modification of the first (often set off by a colon). > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Example**: - Paine: “These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it Now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**ASSONANCE** - The repetition of similar vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds especially in words that are together.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**ASYNDETON** - Commas used without conjunction to separate a series of words, thus emphasizing the parts equally: instead of X, Y, and Z... the writer uses X,Y,Z.... see//polysyndeton//.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**BALANCE** - Constructing a sentence so that both halves are about the same length and importance. Sentences can be unbalanced to serve a special effect as well.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**CHARACTERIZATION** - The process by which the writer reveals the personality of a character. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **INDIRECT CHARACTERIZATION** - The author reveals to the reader what the character is like by describing how the character looks and dresses, by letting the reader hear what the character says, by revealing the character’s private thoughts and feelings, by revealing the characters effect on other people (showing how other characters feel or behave toward the character), or by showing the character in action. Common in modern literature. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **DIRECT CHARACTERIZATION** - The author tells us directly what the character is like: sneaky, generous, mean to pets and so on. Romantic style literature relied more heavily on this form. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **STATIC CHARACTER** - Is one who does not change much in the course of a story. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **DYNAMIC CHARACTER** - Is one who changes in some important way as a result of the story’s action. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **FLAT CHARACTER** - Has only one or two personality traits. They are one dimensional, like a piece of cardboard. They can usually be summed up in one phrase. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **ROUND CHARACTER** - Has more dimensions to their personalities. They are complex, just a real people are.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **CHIASMUS** - In poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **Example**: Coleridge: “Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike.” In prose this is called antimetabole. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**CLICHE** - A word or phrase, often a figure of speech, that has become lifeless because of overuse. Avoid clichés like the plague. (That cliché is intended.)

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **COLLOQUIALISM** - A word or phrase in everyday use in conversation and informal writing but is inappropriate for formal situations. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **Example**: “He’s out of his head if he thinks I’m gonna go for such a stupid idea. <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**COMEDY** - In general, a story that ends with a happy resolution of the conflicts faced by the main character or characters.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**CONCEIT** - An elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different. Often an extended metaphor.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**CONFESSIONAL POETRY** - A twentieth century term used to describe poetry that uses intimate material from the poet’s life.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**CONFLICT** - The struggle between opposing forces or characters in a story. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **EXTERNAL CONFLICT** – A conflict between two people, between a person and nature or a machine, or between a person a whole society. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **INTERNAL CONFLICT** – A conflict involving opposing forces within a person’s mind.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**CONNOTATION** - The associations and emotional overtones that have become attached to a word or phrase, in addition to its strict dictionary definition.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**COUPLET** - Two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**DIALECT** - A way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain social group or of the inhabitants of a certain geographical area.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**DICTION** - A speaker or writer’s choice of words.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**DIDACTIC** - Form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**ELEGY** - A poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. A **Eulogy** is great praise or commendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who has died.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**EPANALEPSIS** - Device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated both at the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Example**: Voltaire: “Common sense is not so common.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **EPIC** - A long narrative poem, written in heightened language, which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**EPIGRAPH** - A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**EPISTROPHE** - Device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences (it is the opposite of anaphora).

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **EPITHET** - An adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality. “Father of our country” and “the great Emancipator” are examples. A **Homeric epithet** is a compound adjective used with a person or thing: “swift-footed Achilles”; “rosy-fingered dawn.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**ESSAY** - A short piece of nonfiction prose in which the writer discusses some aspect of a subject.

> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> ** ESSAY TYPES TO KNOW: ** > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **ARGUMENTATION** - One of the four forms of discourse which uses logic, ethics, and emotional appeals (logos, ethos, pathos) to develop an effective means to convince the reader to think or act in a certain way. >> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">o **PERSUASION** - Relies more on emotional appeals than on facts >> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">o **ARGUMENT** - Form of persuasion that appeals to reason instead of emotion to convince an audience to think or act in a certain way. >> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">o **CAUSAL RELATIONSHIP** - Form of argumentation in which the writer claims that one thing results from another, often used as part of a logical argument. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **DESCRIPTION** - A form of discourse that uses language to create a mood or emotion. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **EXPOSITION** - One of the four major forms of discourse, in which something is explained or “set forth.” > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **NARRATIVE** - The form of discourse that tells about a series of events.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**EXPLICATION** - Act of interpreting or discovering the meaning of a text, usually involves close reading and special attention to figurative language.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**FABLE** - A very short story told in prose or poetry that teaches a practical lesson about how to succeed in life.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**FARCE** - A type of comedy in which ridiculous and often stereotyped characters are involved in silly, far-fetched situations.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE** - Words which are inaccurate if interpreted literally, but are used to describe. Similes and metaphors are common forms.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**FLASHBACK** - A scene that interrupts the normal chronological sequence of events in a story to depict something that happened at an earlier time.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**FOIL** - A character who acts as contrast to another character. Often a funny side kick to the dashing hero, or a villain contrasting the hero.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**FORESHADOWING** - The use of hints and clues to suggest what will happen later in a plot.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**FREE VERSE** - Poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**HYPERBOLE** - A figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement, for effect. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Example**: “If I told you once, I’ve told you a million times….”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**HYPOTACTIC** - Sentence marked by the use of connecting words between clauses or sentences, explicitly showing the logical or other relationships between them. (Use of such syntactic subordination of just one clause to another is known as **hypotaxis**). I am tired because it is hot.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**IMAGERY** - The use of language to evoke a picture or a concrete sensation of a person, a thing, a place, or an experience.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**INVERSION** - The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**IRONY** - A discrepancy between appearances and reality.

> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **SITUATIONAL IRONY** - Takes place when there is a discrepancy between what is expected to happen, or what would be appropriate to happen, and what really does happen. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **VERBAL IRONY** - Occurs when someone says one thing but really means something else. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **DRAMATIC IRONY** - Is so called because it is often used on stage. A character in the play or story thinks one thing is true, but the audience or reader knows better.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**JUXTAPOSITION** - Poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, creating an effect of surprise and wit. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Example**: Ezra Pound: “The apparition of these faces in the crowd;/ Petals on a wet, black bough.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Juxtaposition** is also a form of contrast by which writers call attention to dissimilar ideas or images or metaphors. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Example**: Martin Luther King: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **LITOTES** - Is a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form Example: Hawthorne--- “…the wearers of petticoat and farthingale…stepping forth into the public ways, and wedging their **not unsubstantial persons**, if occasion were, into the throng…”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**LOCAL COLOR** - A term applied to fiction or poetry which tends to place special emphasis on a particular setting, including its customs, clothing, dialect and landscape.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**LOOSE SENTENCE** - One in which the main clause comes first, followed by further dependent grammatical units. See **periodic sentence**. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Example**: Hawthorne: “Hester gazed after him a little while, looking with a half-fantastic curiosity to see whether the tender grass of early spring would not be blighted beneath him, and show the wavering track of this footsteps, sere and brown, across its cheerful verdure.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**LYRIC POEM** - A poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of the speaker. A **ballad** tells a story.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **METAPHOR** - A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison as like, as, than, or resembles.

> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **IMPLIED METAPHOR** - Does not state explicitly the two terms of the comparison: “I like to see it lap the miles” is an implied metaphor in which the verb lap implies a comparison between “it” and some animal that “laps” up water. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **EXTENDED METAPHOR** - A metaphor that is extended or developed as far as the writer wants to take it. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **DEAD METAPHOR** - Is a metaphor that has been used so often that the comparison is no longer vivid: “The head of the house”, “the seat of the government”, “a knotty problem” are all dead metaphors. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **MIXED METAPHOR** - Is a metaphor that has gotten out of control and mixes its terms so that they are visually or imaginatively incompatible. “The President is a lame duck who is running out of gas."

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **METONYMY** - A figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing, is referred to by something closely associated with it. “We requested from the crown support for our petition.” The crown is used to represent the monarch.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**MOOD** - An atmosphere created by a writer’s diction and the details selected.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**MOTIF** - A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work (or in several works by one author), unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme. Kurt Vonnegut uses “So it goes” throughout Slaughterhouse-Five to remind the reader of the senselessness of death.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**MOTIVATION** - The reasons for a character’s behavior.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**ONOMATOPOEIA** - The use of words whose sounds echo their sense. “Pop.” “Zap.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**OXYMORON** - A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase. “Jumbo shrimp.” “Pretty ugly.” “Bitter-sweet”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PARABLE** - A relatively short story that teaches a moral, or lesson about how to lead a good life.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PARADOX** - A statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**KOAN** - Is a paradox used in Zen Buddhism to gain intuitive knowledge: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PARALLEL STRUCTURE** (parallelism) - The repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PARATACTIC SENTENCE** - Simply juxtaposes clauses or sentences. I am tired: it is hot.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PARODY** - A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer’s style.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PERIODIC** - Sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PERSONIFICATION** - A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **PLOT** - The series of related events in a story or play, sometimes called the storyline.

> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> ** Characteristics of PLOT: ** > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **EXPOSITION** - Introduces characters, situation, and setting > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **RISING ACTION** - Complications in conflict and situations (may introduce new ones as well) > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **CLIMAX** - That point in a plot that creates the greatest intensity, suspense, or interest. Also called “turning point” > · **FALLING ACTION** - What happens directly after the conflict? How do things immediately play out? > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **RESOLUTION** - The conclusion of a story, when all or most of the conflicts have been settled; often called the denouement.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> **POINT OF VIEW** - The vantage point from which the writer tells the story.

> <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **FIRST PERSON POINT OF VIEW** - One of the characters tells the story. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **THIRD PERSON POINT OF VIEW** - An unknown narrator, tells the story, but this narrator zooms in to focus on the thoughts and feelings of only one character. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **OMNISCIENT POINT OF VIEW** - An omniscient or all knowing narrator tells the story, also using the third person pronouns. This narrator, instead of focusing on one character only, often tells us everything about many characters. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">· **OBJECTIVE POINT OF VIEW** - A narrator who is totally impersonal and objective tells the story, with no comment on any characters or events.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**POLYSYNDETON** - Sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to separate the items in a series. Instead of X, Y, and Z... Polysyndeton results in X and Y and Z.. Kurt Vonnegut uses this device.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PROTAGONIST** - The central character in a story, the one who initiates or drives the action. Usually the **hero** or **anti-hero**; in a **tragic hero**, like John Proctor of //The Crucible//, there is always a **hamartia**, or **tragic flaw** in his character which will lead to his downfall.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**PUN** - A “play on words” based on the multiple meanings of a single word or on words that sound alike but mean different things.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**QUATRAIN** - A poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**REFRAIN** - A word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**RHYTHM** - A rise and fall of the voice produced by the alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**RHETORIC** – The art of effective communication, especially persuasive discourse.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**RHETORICAL QUESTION** - A question asked in order to provoke thought, and not actually requiring an answer.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**ROMANCE** - In general, a story in which an idealized hero or heroine undertakes a quest and is successful.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**SATIRE** - A type of writing that ridicules the shortcomings of people or institutions in an attempt to bring about a change.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**SIMILE** - A figure of speech that makes an explicitly comparison between two unlike things, using words such as like, as, than, or resembles.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**SOLILOQUY** - A long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**STEREOTYPE** - A fixed idea or conception of a character or an idea which does not allow for any individuality, often based on religious, social, or racial prejudices.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS** - A style of writing that portrays the inner (often chaotic) workings of a character’s mind.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**STYLE** - The distinctive way in which a writer uses language: a writer’s distinctive use of diction, tone, and syntax.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**SUSPENSE** - A feeling of uncertainty and curiosity about what will happen next in a story.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**SYMBOL** - A person, place, thing, or event that has meaning in itself and that also stands for something more than itself.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**SYNECDOCHE** - A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole. “If you don’t drive properly, you will lose your wheels.” The wheels represent the entire car.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**SYNTACTIC FLUENCY** - Ability to create a variety of sentence structures, appropriately complex and/or simple and varied in length.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**SYNTACTIC PERMUTATION** - Sentence structures that are extraordinarily complex and involved. Often difficult for a reader to follow.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**TALL TALE** - An outrageously exaggerated, humorous story that is obviously unbelievable.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**TELEGRAPHIC SENTENCE** - A sentence shorter than five words in length.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**THEME** - The insight about human life that is revealed in a literary work.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**TONE** - The attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience, revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**TRAGEDY** - In general, a story in which a heroic character either dies or comes to some other unhappy end.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**TRICOLON** - Sentence of three parts of equal importance and length, usually three independent clauses.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**UNDERSTATEMENT** - A statement that says less than what is meant. > <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**Example**: During the second war with Iraq, American troops complained of a fierce sand storm that made even the night-vision equipment useless. A British commando commented about the storm: “It’s a bit breezy.”

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**UNITY** - Unified parts of the writing are related to one central idea or organizing principle. Unity is dependent upon coherence.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**VERNACULAR** - The language spoken by the people who live in a particular locality.