Glossary of literary terms



The following is a list of literary terms; that is, those words used in discussion, classification, criticism, and analysis of poetry, novels and picture books.


 * See also: Glossary of poetry terms, Literary criticism, Literary theory

A

 * Abecedarius
 * Academic drama
 * Acatalectic
 * Accent
 * Accentual verse
 * Acrostic
 * Aisling
 * Allegory
 * Alliteration
 * Allusion
 * Anachronism
 * Anacrusis
 * Anadiplosis
 * Anagnorisis
 * Analects
 * Analepsis
 * Analogue
 * Analogy
 * Anapest
 * Anaphora
 * Anastrophe
 * Anecdote
 * Annal
 * Annotation
 * Antagonist
 * Antanaclasis
 * Antepenult
 * Anthology
 * Anticlimax
 * Anti-hero
 * Anti-masque
 * Anti-romance
 * Antimetabole
 * Antinovel
 * Antistrophe
 * Antithesis
 * Antonym
 * Aphorism
 * Apocope
 * Apocrypha
 * Apollonian and Dionysian
 * Apologue
 * Apology
 * Apothegm
 * Aposiopesis
 * Apostrophe
 * Apron stage
 * Arcadia
 * Archaism
 * Archetype
 * Aristeia
 * Argument
 * Arsis
 * Art for art's sake
 * Asemic writing
 * Aside
 * Assonance
 * Asyndeton
 * Atmosphere
 * Attitude
 * Aube
 * Aubade
 * Audience
 * Autobiography
 * Autotelic
 * Avant-garde

B

 * Ballad
 * Ballade
 * Ballad stanza
 * Bard
 * Baroque
 * Bathos
 * Beast fable (beast epic)
 * Beast poetry
 * Beat Generation
 * Beginning rhyme
 * Belles-lettres
 * Bestiary
 * Beta reader
 * Bibliography
 * Bildungsroman
 * Biography
 * Black comedy
 * Blank verse
 * Bloomsbury Group
 * Body
 * Bombast (fustian)
 * Boulevard theatre
 * Bourgeosis drama
 * Bouts-Rimés
 * Bowdlerize
 * Breviloquence
 * Broadside
 * Burlesque
 * Burletta
 * Burns stanza
 * Buskin
 * Byronic hero

C

 * Cadence
 * Caesura
 * Calligram
 * Canon
 * Canso
 * Canticum
 * Canto
 * Canzone
 * Capa y espada
 * Captivity narrative
 * Caricature
 * Carmen figuratum
 * Carpe diem
 * Catachresis
 * Catalectic
 * Catalexis
 * Catastrophe
 * Catharsis
 * Caudate sonnet
 * Cavalier drama
 * Cavalier poetry
 * Celtic Renaissance
 * Celtic Twilight
 * Caesura
 * Chain of Being
 * Chain verse
 * Chanson de geste
 * Chansonnier
 * Chant royal
 * Chantey
 * Chanty
 * Chapbook
 * Character
 * Characterization
 * Charactonym
 * Chaucerian stanza
 * Chiasmus
 * Chivalric romance
 * Choriamb
 * Choriambus
 * Chorus
 * Chronicle
 * Chronicle play
 * Cinquain
 * Classicism
 * Classification (literature)
 * Classification of rhymes (Peter Dale)
 * Clerihew
 * Cliché
 * Climax
 * Cloak-and-sword play
 * Closed heroic couplet
 * Closet drama
 * Comédie larmoyante
 * Colloquialism
 * Comedy
 * Comedy of errors
 * Comedy of humors
 * Comedy of intrigue
 * Comedy of manners
 * Comedic relief
 * Commedia dell'arte
 * Comic relief
 * Common measure
 * Commonplace book
 * Common rhyme
 * Comoedia erudate
 * Comparative linguistics
 * Compensation
 * Complaint
 * Conceit
 * Concordance
 * Concrete universal
 * Confessional literature
 * Confidant/confidante
 * Conflict
 * Connotation
 * Consistency
 * Consonance
 * Contradiction
 * Context
 * Contrast
 * Convention
 * Copyright
 * Counterplot
 * Coup de théâtre
 * Couplet
 * Courtesy book
 * Courtly love
 * Cowleyan ode
 * Cradle books
 * Craft cycle
 * Crisis
 * Criticism
 * Cross acrostic
 * Crown of sonnets
 * Curtain raiser
 * Curtal sonnet

D

 * Dactyl
 * Dada
 * Dale's classification of rhymes
 * Dandyism
 * Débat
 * Death poem
 * Death of the novel
 * Debut novel
 * Decadence
 * Decasyllabic verse
 * Decorum
 * Denotation
 * Dénouement
 * Description
 * Descriptive linguistics
 * Detective story
 * Deus ex machina
 * Deuteragonist
 * Dialect
 * Dialogue
 * Dibrach
 * Dicks
 * Diction
 * Didactic
 * Digest
 * Digression
 * Dime novel
 * Diameter
 * Dipody
 * Dirge
 * Discourse
 * Dissociation of sensibility
 * Dissonance
 * Distich
 * Distributed Stress
 * Dithyramb
 * Diverbium
 * Divine afflatus
 * Doggerel
 * Dolce stil nuove
 * Domestic tragedy
 * Donnée
 * Doppelgänger
 * Double
 * Double rhyme
 * Drama
 * Drama of sensibility
 * Dramatic character
 * Dramatic irony
 * Dramatic lyric
 * Dramatic monologue
 * Dramatic proverb
 * Dramatis personae
 * Dramaturgy
 * Dream allegory
 * Dream vision
 * Droll
 * Dumb show
 * Duodecimo
 * Duologue
 * Duple meter/duple rhythm
 * Dystopia
 * Dynamic Character

E

 * Echo verse
 * Eclogue
 * Edition
 * Ekphrasis
 * Elegiac couplet
 * Elegiac meter
 * Elegy
 * Elision
 * Emblem
 * Emblem book
 * Emendation
 * Emotive language
 * Encomiastic verse
 * End rhyme
 * End-stopped line
 * English sonnet
 * Enjambment
 * Entr'acte
 * Envoy/envoi
 * Èpater le bourgeois
 * Epic poetry
 * Epic simile
 * Epic Theater
 * Epigraph
 * Epilogue
 * Epiphany
 * Episode
 * Episteme
 * Epistle
 * Epistolary novel
 * Epistrophe
 * Epitaph
 * Epithalamion
 * Epithet
 * Epizeuxis
 * Epode
 * Eponymous author
 * Equivalence
 * Erziehungsroman
 * Essay
 * Ethos
 * Eulogy
 * Euphony
 * Euphuism
 * Evidence
 * Exegesis
 * Exemplum
 * Existentialism
 * Exordium
 * Experimental novel
 * Explication de texte
 * Exposition
 * Expressionism
 * Extended metaphor
 * Extension
 * Extrametrical verse
 * Extravaganza
 * Eye rhyme

F

 * Fable
 * Fabliau
 * Falling action
 * Falling rhythm
 * Fancy and imagination
 * Fantasy
 * Farce
 * Feeling
 * Feminine ending
 * Feminine rhyme
 * Fiction
 * Figurative language
 * Figure of speech
 * Fin de siècle
 * Flashback
 * Flashforward
 * Flat character
 * Fleshly school
 * Foil
 * Folio
 * Folk drama
 * Folklore
 * Folk tale
 * Foot
 * Foreshadowing
 * Form
 * Four levels of meaning
 * Four meanings of a poem
 * Fourteener
 * Frame story
 * Free verse
 * French forms
 * Freytag's pyramid
 * Fugitives and Agrarians
 * Fustian
 * Futurism

G

 * Gallows humor
 * Gamebooks
 * Gathering
 * Genetic fallacy
 * Genius and talent
 * Genre
 * Georgian poetry
 * Georgics
 * Gesta
 * Gloss
 * Gnomic verse
 * Golden line
 * Goliardic verse
 * Gongorism
 * Gonzo journalism
 * Gothic novel
 * Grand Guignol
 * Graveyard poetry
 * Graveyard school
 * Greek tragedy
 * Grub Street
 * Grundyism
 * Guignol

H

 * Hagiography
 * Hagiology
 * Haikai
 * Haikai no renga
 * Haiku
 * Half rhyme
 * Hamartia
 * Handwaving
 * Headless line
 * Head rhyme
 * Hebraism-Hellenism
 * "The Hedgehog and the Fox"
 * Hemistich
 * Hendecasyllable
 * Hendecasyllabic verse
 * Heptameter
 * Heptastrich
 * Heresy of paraphrase
 * Hero
 * Heroic couplets
 * Heroic drama
 * Heroic quatrain
 * Heroic stanza
 * Hexameter
 * Hexastich
 * Hiatus
 * High comedy
 * Higher criticism
 * Historical linguistics
 * Historical novel
 * Historic present
 * History play
 * Hokku
 * Holograph
 * Homeric epithet
 * Homeric simile
 * Homily
 * Horatian ode
 * Horatian satire
 * Hornbook
 * Hovering accent
 * Hubris
 * Hudibrastic
 * Humor
 * Humours
 * Hybris
 * Hymn
 * Hymnal stanza
 * Hypallage
 * Hyperbole
 * Hypercatalectic
 * Hypermetrical
 * Hypocorism
 * Hysteron-proteron
 * Hypotactic

I

 * Iambic pentameter
 * Ideology
 * Idiom
 * Idyll
 * Imagery
 * Imagism
 * Impressionism
 * Indeterminacy
 * Inference
 * In medias res
 * Innuendo
 * Internal conflict
 * Internal rhyme
 * Interpretation
 * Intertextuality
 * Intuitive description
 * Irony

J

 * Jacobean era
 * Jeremiad
 * Journal
 * Judicial criticism
 * Juncture
 * Juggernaut
 * Juvenalian satire
 * Juxtaposition

K

 * Kabuki
 * Kafkaesque
 * Katharsis
 * Kenning
 * Kigo
 * "King's English"
 * Kireji
 * Kitsch
 * Künstlerroman

L

 * Lai
 * Lake Poets
 * Lament
 * Lampoon
 * L'art pour l'art
 * Laureate
 * Lay
 * Leaf
 * Legend
 * Legitimate theater
 * Leonine rhyme
 * Lexis
 * Letters
 * Level stress (even accent)
 * Libretto
 * Light ending
 * Light poetry
 * Light rhyme
 * Light stress
 * Light poetry
 * Limerick
 * Linguistics
 * Linked rhyme
 * Link sonnet
 * Literary ballad
 * Literary criticism
 * Literary epic
 * Literary realism
 * Literary theory
 * Literature
 * Litotes
 * Litterateur
 * Liturgical drama
 * Living Newspaper
 * Local color
 * Logaoedic
 * Logical fallacy
 * Logical stress
 * Logos
 * Long metre
 * Loose sentence
 * Lost Generation
 * Low comedy
 * Lullaby
 * Lyric

M

 * Macaronic language
 * Madrigal
 * Magic realism
 * Malapropism
 * Märchen
 * Marginalia
 * Marinism
 * Marivauge
 * Marxist literary criticism
 * Masculine ending
 * Masculine rhyme
 * Masked comedy
 * Masque
 * Maxim
 * Meaning
 * Medieval drama
 * Meiosis
 * Melic poetry
 * Melodrama
 * Memoir
 * Menippean satire
 * Mesostich
 * Metaphor
 * Metaphysical conceit
 * Metaphorical language
 * Metaphysical poets
 * Meter
 * Metonymy
 * Metre
 * Metrical accent
 * Metrical foot
 * Metrical structure
 * Middle Comedy
 * Miles gloriosus
 * Miltonic sonnet
 * Mime
 * Mimesis
 * Minnesang
 * Minstrel
 * Mystery play (miracle play)
 * Miscellanies
 * Mise en scène
 * Mixed metaphor
 * Mock-heroic (mock epic)
 * Mode
 * Modernism
 * Monodrama
 * Monody
 * Monograph
 * Monologue
 * Monometer (monopody)
 * Monostich
 * Monograph
 * Mood
 * Mora
 * Moral
 * Morality play
 * Motif
 * Motivation
 * Movement
 * Mummery
 * Muses
 * Musical comedy
 * Mystery play
 * Mythology

N

 * Narrative point of view
 * Narrator
 * Naturalism
 * Neologism
 * Non-fiction
 * Non-fiction novel
 * Novel
 * Novelette
 * Novella
 * Novelle
 * narrative poem

O

 * Objective correlative
 * Objective criticism
 * Obligatory scene
 * Octameter
 * Octave
 * Ode
 * Oedipus complex
 * Onomatopoeia
 * Open couplet
 * Oulipo
 * Orchestra
 * Ottava rima
 * Oxymoron

P

 * Palinode
 * Pantoum
 * Pantun
 * Parable
 * Paraclausithyron
 * Paradelle
 * Paradox
 * Paraphrase
 * Pararhyme
 * Paratactic
 * Partimen
 * Pastourelle
 * Pathetic fallacy
 * Pathya Vat
 * Parallelism
 * Parody
 * Pastoral
 * Pathos
 * Pentameter
 * Periodic sentence
 * Peripetia
 * Perspective
 * Persona
 * Personification
 * Phronesis
 * Pièce bien faite
 * Picaresque novel
 * Plain Style
 * Platonic
 * Plot
 * Poem
 * Poem and song
 * Poetic diction
 * Poetic transrealism
 * Poetry
 * Point of view
 * Polysyndeton
 * Post-colonialism
 * Postmodernism
 * Pound's Ideogrammic Method
 * Primal scene
 * Procatalepsis
 * Prolepsis
 * Prologue
 * Progymnasmata
 * Prose
 * Prosimetrum
 * Prosody (poetry)
 * Protagonist
 * Proverb
 * Pruning poem
 * Psychoanalytic literary criticism
 * Psychoanalytic theory
 * Pun
 * Purple prose
 * Purpose for Reading
 * Pyrrhic

Q

 * Quatrain

R

 * Reader-response criticism
 * Realism
 * Redaction
 * Red herring
 * Refrain
 * Regency novel
 * Regionalism (literature)
 * Renga
 * Renku
 * Repetition
 * Resolution
 * Reverse chronology
 * Rhapsodes
 * Rhetoric
 * Rhetorical agency
 * Rhetorical device
 * Rhetorical operations
 * Rhetorical question
 * Rhetorical tension
 * Rhyme
 * Rhymed prose
 * Rhyme royal
 * Robinsonade
 * Romance (genre)
 * Romance novel
 * Romanticism
 * Romanzo d' appendice
 * Roman à clef
 * Round character
 * Round-robin story
 * Ruritanian romance
 * Russian formalism

S

 * Satire
 * Scanning
 * Scansion
 * Scene a faire
 * Sea shanty
 * Semiotics
 * Semiotic literary criticism
 * Setting
 * Shanty
 * Sestet
 * Sequence of events
 * Shakespearean sonnet
 * Sicilian octave
 * Simile
 * Slant rhyme
 * Slice of life
 * Sobriquet
 * Soliloquy
 * Sonnet
 * Sonneteer
 * Speaker
 * Spenserian stanza
 * Sprung rhythm
 * Strambotto
 * Stanza
 * Static character
 * Stigma of print
 * Stereotype
 * Stream of consciousness
 * Structuralism
 * Subplot
 * Syllogism
 * Symbol
 * Synecdoche
 * Synaesthesia
 * Syntax

T
Tone: very vague critical term usually designating the mood or atmosphere of a work, although in some more restricted uses it refers to the author's attitude to the reader (e.g. formal, intimate, pompous) or to the subject-matter (e.g. ironic, light, solemn, satiric, sentimental). Example:

Theme: salient abstract idea that emerges from a literary work's treatment of its subject-matter; or a topic recurring in a number of literary works.

Example: While the subject of a work is described concretely in terms of its action (e.g. 'the adventures of a newcomer in the big city'), its theme or themes will be described in more abstract terms (e.g. love, war, revenge, betrayal, fate, etc.).


 * Tautology
 * Tableau
 * Tail rhyme
 * Tagelied
 * Tale
 * Techne
 * Telestich
 * Tenor
 * Tension
 * Tercet
 * Terza rima
 * Tetrameter
 * Tetrastich
 * Text
 * Textual criticism
 * Textuality
 * Texture
 * Theater of Cruelty
 * Theater of the Absurd
 * Theme
 * Thesis
 * Thesis play
 * Third person narrative
 * Threnody
 * Tirade
 * Tone
 * Tract
 * Tractarian Movement
 * Tragedy
 * Tragedy of blood
 * Tragic flaw
 * Tragic hero
 * Tragic irony
 * Tragicomedy
 * Tranche de vie
 * Transcendentalism
 * Transferred epithet
 * Transition
 * Translation
 * Travesty
 * Triad
 * Tribe of Ben
 * Tribrach
 * Trimeter
 * Triolet
 * Triple rhyme
 * Triple meter
 * Triple rhythm
 * Triplet
 * Tristich
 * Tritagonist
 * Trivium
 * Trobar clus
 * Trochee
 * Trope (literature)
 * Troubadour
 * Trouvère
 * Truncated line
 * Tumbling verse
 * Type character
 * Type scene

U

 * Ubi sunt
 * Underground culture
 * Underground press
 * Understatement
 * Unities
 * Unity
 * Universality (disambiguation)
 * University Wits
 * Unobtainium
 * Utopia
 * Utopian and dystopian fiction
 * Unreliable narrator

V

 * Variable syllable
 * Variorum
 * Varronian satire (Menippean satire)
 * Vates
 * Vaudeville
 * Vehicle
 * Verb displacement
 * Verbal irony
 * Verisimilitude
 * Verism
 * Vers de société
 * Verse
 * Verse paragraph
 * Vers libre
 * Verso
 * Victorianism
 * Viewpoint
 * Vignette
 * Villain
 * Villanelle
 * Virelay
 * Virgule
 * Voice (of the writer)
 * Voice (in phonetics)
 * Volta
 * Vorticism
 * Vulgate

W

 * Wardour Street English
 * Weak ending
 * Weak foot
 * Well-made play
 * Wellerism
 * Western fiction
 * Wimmering
 * Wit
 * Word accent
 * Wrenched accent
 * Watermark

References and further reading

 * M. H. Abrams. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Thomson-Wadsworth, 2005. ISBN 1-4130-0456-3.
 * Chris Baldick. The Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Univ. Press, 2004. ISBN 0-19-860883-7.
 * Chris Baldick. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-280118-X.
 * Edwin Barton & G. A. Hudson. Contemporary Guide To Literary Terms. Houghton-Mifflin, 2003. ISBN 0-618-34162-5.
 * Mark Bauerlein. Literary Criticism: An Autopsy. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8122-1625-3.
 * Karl Beckson & Arthur Ganz. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989. ISBN 0-374-52177-8.
 * Peter Childs. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. Routledge, 2005. ISBN 0-415-34017-9.
 * J. A. Cuddon. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Penguin Books, 2000. ISBN 0-14-051363-9.
 * Dana Gioia. The Longman Dictionary of Literary Terms: Vocabulary for the Informed Reader. Longman, 2005. ISBN 0-321-33194-X.
 * Sharon Hamilton. Essential Literary Terms: A Brief Norton Guide with Exercises. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 0-393-92837-3.
 * William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN 0-13-134442-0.
 * X. J. Kennedy, et al. Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Language, Theory. Longman, 2004. ISBN 0-321-20207-4.
 * V. B. Leitch. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. W. W. Norton, 2001. ISBN 0-393-97429-4.
 * Frank Lentricchia & Thomas McLaughlin. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN 0-226-47203-5.
 * David Mikics. A New Handbook of Literary Terms. Yale Univ. Press, 2007. ISBN 0-300-10636-X.
 * Ross Murfin & S. M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. ISBN 0-312-25910-7.
 * John Peck & Martin Coyle. Literary Terms and Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0-333-96258-3.
 * Edward Quinn. A Dictionary of Literary And Thematic Terms. Checkmark Books, 2006. ISBN 0-8160-6244-7.
 * Lewis Turco. The Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, and Scholarship. Univ. Press of New England, 1999. ISBN 0-87451-955-1.