English
300, Section 001
Fall, 2005
Dr. Susan Stewart
Hall of Languages 221
903-468-8624
e-mail: susan_stewart@tamu-commerce.edu
website: http://faculty.tamu-commerce.edu/slstewart/
Office Hours: M/T 3:00-4:00;
W 10:00-noon or by appointment
Elements and Devices
of Fiction and Poetry
Most of these terms
appear in A Short Guide to Writing About Literature. For those not listed, visit
Norton's site, http://www.wwnorton.com/introlit/glossary_a.htm,
or http://www.galegroup.com/free_resources/glossary/index.htm
for definitions
Elements of Fiction:
Theme
Plot
- Conflict (more below on conflict
as a major literary element)
- Development or complication
- Turning point or climax
- Resolution or denoument
- Surprise/suspense
- Exposition
- Rising action
- Falling action
Character/Characterization
- Protagonist
- Antagonist
- Focalizer
- Secondary characters
- Round characters
- Flat characters
- Stereotypical characters
- Static characters
- Hero
- Villain
- Antihero
Conflict
- External conflicts
- Internal conflicts
Narrator and point of view
- First Person/Subjective Point
of View
- Second-Person/Objective Point
of View
- Third Person/Objective point
of View
- Omniscient
- Limited Omniscient
- Dramatic-Objective
- Selective omniscient
- Effaced narrator (dramatic
point of view, objective point of view)
- Innocent eye
- Unreliable narrator
Setting and Atmosphere
Language
- Sentence Structure
- Loose Sentence
- Balanced Sentence
- Word Choice
- Imagery
- Literal imagery
- Figurative imagery
- Symbolism
- Irony
- Verbal irony
- Dramatic irony
- Situational irony
Tone
Other helpful terms and devices
Foreshadowing
Flashback
Figurative language (see poetry)
Simile
Metaphor
Allegory
Myth
Archetype
Allusions
Poetry Terms
When you write your essay on poetry,
you'll want to avoid writing about meter and other elements/terms associated
only with poetry, for you'll be extremely limited on what you can write about.
Consider point of view (1st, 2nd,
3rd); speaker or narrator; character, figurative language (used in both poetry
and prose); diction and tone (word choice not genre specific), setting.
Theme
Tone
Subject or topic
Speaker
Character
Stanza
Situation
Setting (spatial, temporal)
Occasional poem/referential
Allusion
Ambiguity
Dramatic irony
Denote/denotation
Connote/connotation
Word order
Syntax
Figures of speech/figurative language
Metaphor (extended metaphors, controlling metaphors)
Simile
Personification
Analogies
Symbol
Traditional symbols
Symbolic poem
Narrative structure
Dramatic structure
Discursive structure
Descriptive structure
Imitative structure
Reflective/meditative structure
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Onomatopoeia
Meter
Anapestic meter/rhythm
Datcylic meter/rhythm
Trochaic meter/rhythm
Iambic meter/rhythm
Scanning/scansion
Lyric poem
Terza rima
Memory device/mnemonic device
Blank verse
Alliteration
Assonance
Spenserian stanza
Ballad stanza
Sonnet (English/Shakespearean; Italian/Petrarchan)
Sestina
Villanelle
Heroic Couplet
Free Verse
Technopaegnia/concrete poetry/shaped verse
Tetrameter couplet
Limerick
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