Literary Terms

Quiet as snow

One thing is said to be another

The wind whispered

Used for emphasis

Can be verbal, situational or dramatic

Usually brief and indirect

Appears impossible but may be meaningful

Created through setting, imagery and tone

‘Time is a thief’ gives time the qualities of a thief without using ‘like’ or ‘as.’

A simile invites readers to notice a shared quality between two unlike things.

A storm can ‘argue’ or a city can ‘wake up’ in personified language.

Imagery may involve sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, movement, or bodily feeling.

A symbol gains force from context; a single object can mean different things in different works.

It creates suspense because the audience can see danger or misunderstanding approaching.

Builds anticipation

Not a plot summary

May be a person, force or system

Tells their own viewpoint

An all-knowing viewpoint

Provides history or context

The contrast highlights traits

An outer narrative contains another

The narrator may be a character, an observer, or a voice outside the action.

First person can feel intimate but may also limit what the reader knows.

The gap between what the narrator says and what the reader notices can create tension or irony.

Good foreshadowing feels meaningful in hindsight without revealing the whole outcome.

Flashbacks can reveal motives, memory, or information withheld from the present action.

The term comes from serial stories that literally left a character in peril.

A satisfying twist usually feels surprising at first and inevitable afterward.

A protagonist need not be morally good; they are the figure whose journey anchors the narrative.

An antagonist can be a person, institution, environment, inner conflict, or idea.

Wild winds whistle

Buzz and hiss

The Odyssey is an example

Includes Shakespearean and Petrarchan forms

Often marked by punctuation

Iambic pentameter is one form

‘Wild winds’ is a simple example, though the effect depends on sound rather than spelling alone.

Assonance can create a subtle echo without using the same starting consonant.

It differs from alliteration because the shared sound need not begin the word.

A motif can build a pattern across a novel, poem, film, or play.

Stanzas can function like paragraphs, creating pauses, turns, or patterns.

English and Italian sonnets use different rhyme schemes and turns of thought.

Free verse can still use rhythm, repetition, line breaks, and deliberate form.

In English, syllable counts are often used as an approximation, but they are not identical to Japanese on.

Supports themes

Often features animals

Conveyed by word choice and style

A theme is usually broader than a one-word topic such as ‘love’ or ‘war.’

Unlike a full autobiography, a memoir often centers on a period, relationship, or experience.

A biography selects and interprets evidence, so authorship and sources matter.

Aesop’s fables are a well-known tradition, but fables appear across many cultures.

In everyday speech ‘myth’ can mean falsehood, but in literature and anthropology it has a more specific meaning.

‘Break the ice’ means ease a social beginning, not literally fracture ice.

The terms are tools for attention, not a substitute for the experience of reading.