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unreliable narrator
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one with faulty information
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setting
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where a story takes place
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protagonist
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the main character
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antagonist
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opposes protagonist in some way
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dynamic character
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a character that changes in some way
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What is a flat character?
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A character that has a single distinguishing trait and is not developed into a whole personality.
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What is a stereotype?
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A character based on a fixed or generalized idea about people or a group of people.
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What are foils?
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Characters (usually stereotypes) used to contrast with and thereby highlight some aspect of the protagonist.
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What is an accent? (AKA Stress)
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When a syllable is given a greater amount of force in speaking than is to given to another
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What is Alexandrine?
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In English verse, a line of iambic hexameter, usually having a caesura after the third foot.
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What is an Allegory?
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A narrative in either verse or prose in which characters, events, and in some cases setting, represent abstract concepts apart from the literal meaning of the story.
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What is an Alliteration?
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The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or within them, especially in accented syllables.
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What is an Allusion?
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An indirect reference to a person, place, or thing - fictitious, historical, or actual.
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What is an Analogy?
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A comparison made between two objects, situations, or ideas that share something in common but are otherwise totally different.
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What is an Anapest?
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A metrical foot consisting of three syllables, two unaccented followed by one accented.
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What is an Anaphora?
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The repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of several successive clauses, verses, or paragraphs.
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What is an Apostrophe? (no, not in grammar.)
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A figure of speech in which a character or narrator directly addresses an abstract concept, an inanimate object, or a person who is not present.
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What is an Assonance?
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The repetition of similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables or words; like alliteration, assonance may occure either initially or internally.
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What is a Ballad?
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A narrative song or poem passed on orally.
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What is Blank Verse?
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Verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
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What is a Caesura?
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A light but definite paus within a line of poetry.
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What is catharsis?
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The purification of emotions by vicarious experience, especially through drama.
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What is Characterization?
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The methods used by an author to develop the personality of a character in a literary work.
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What is Chiasmus?
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A rhetorical device in which words or phrases initially presented are restated in reverse order; for example, "Do not live to eat, but eat to live."
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What is a Chorus?
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In ancient Greek drama, a group of actors who sang and danced in unison and provided commentary on the actions of the main characters.
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What is a Cliché?
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A trite or hackneyed expression, idea, plot, character development, etc.
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What is a Climax?
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A decisive moment that is of maximum intensity or is a major turning point in a plot; a point when the action changes course and begins to resolve itself in some manner.
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What is a Comedy?
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A play written primarily to amuse the audience, usually featuring a protagonist whose fortunes take a turn for the better.
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What is a Comic relief?
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An amusing scene, incident, character, or speech introduced into a serious or tragic work to relieve tension.
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What is a Conceit?
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An elaborate, extended, and often surprising comparison made between two very dissimilar things that exhibits the author's ingenuity and cleverness; (from the Italian "concetto" meaning concept, bright idea)
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What is a Concrete poem?
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A poem in which the visual arrangement of the letters and words suggests its meaning.
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What is a Conflict?
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A struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem; a conflict can be external or internal; there are four common types of conflicts: a person against another person, a person against nature , a person against society, and a person against him or herself.
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What is a Connotation?
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The emotional associations that surround a word as opposed to its denotation.
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What is the Consonance?
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The repetition of consonant sounds that are preceded by a different vowel.
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What is a couplet?
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Two successive lines of verse that have the same meter and in many cases rhyme.
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What is a Dactyl?
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A three syllable metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.
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What is a Denotation?
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The literal meaning of a word - its "dictionary definition" that does not take into account any other emotions or ideas the reader may associate with it.
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What is Denouement?
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The resolution of the plot of a literary work; the final unravelling of the complications of a plot; the word "denouement" is French for "unknotting" or "untying"
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What is Deus ex machina?
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A Latin term meaning "the god from the machine" ; in ancient dramas, a god would often descend to the stage to rescue the protagonist from doom; thus this term is used to refer to any power, event, person, or thing that comes in the nick of time to solve a difficulty; also can refer to providential interposition, especially in a novel or a play.
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What is a Dialect?
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A variety of language spoken by a social group or spoken in a certain locality that differs from the standard speech in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammatical form.
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What is Diction?
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The author's choice of words and phrases; diction involves both connotation and denotation.
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What is Didactic poetry?
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Poetry whose purpose is to teach the reader some kind of lesson.
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What is Dramatic irony?
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A situation in which the author and the audience share knowledge by which they can recognize that the character's actions are inapporopriate or that the character's words have a significance but these things are unknown to the character - the audience or reader has knowledge that the character does not have.
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What is Dramatic monologue?
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A lyric poem in which the speaker addresses someone whose replies are not recorded; in a dramatic monologue, the poet adopts the voice of a fictive or historical voice or some other persona.
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What is a Dramatic situation?
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A situation that drives the plot of a drama that involves the dynamic relation between a character and a goal or objective and the obstables that intervene between the character and the objective.
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What is a Dynamic Character?
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A character that changes in some way - usually for the better - during the course of a story.
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What is an Elegy?
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A lament or a sadly meditative poem, sometimes written on the occasion of a death; usually formal in language and structure and solemn or melancholy in tone.
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What is End rhyme?
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Rhyming of words at the ends of lines of poetry.
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What is End-stopped line?
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A line of poetry that contains a complete thought, usually ending with a period, colon, or semicolon, and therefore ends in a full pause; the opposite of a run-on line.
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What is an English or Shakespearean Sonnet ?
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A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter having a rhyme scheme of abab/cdcd/efef/gg; is usually presented in a four-part structure in which a theme or idea is developed in the first three guatrains and then is brought to a conclusion in the couplet.
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