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A glossary of literary terms with a definition. You can click on the term for a full explanation and quiz.
Since 2019, the Oregon State Guide to English Literary Terms has served as a free, online, creative commons (CC BY) resource for literature and creative writing teachers and students within and beyond the United States.
Sep 19, 2018 · What is free indirect style (free indirect speech/free indirect discourse)? Put simply, free indirect style is when the voice of a third-person narrator takes on the style and ‘voice’ of one of the characters within the story or novel.
mixed with fiction. Myth: A traditional story intended to explain some mystery of nature, religious doctrine, or cultural belief. The gods and goddesses of mythology have supernatural powers, but the human characters usually do not. Novel: A book-length, fictional prose story. Because of its length, a novel’s characters and
- Allegory. A literary work in which nearly all of the characters, events, settings, and other literal elements of the story have a second, symbolic meaning.
- Alliteration. The repetition of an initial consonant sound in words that are close together, such as within a single sentence or line of poetry. The third stanza of Emily Dickinson’s “A narrow Fellow in the Grass” uses alliteration in both the second and third lines
- Allusion. An indirect reference to something outside the text, usually a person, place, thing, or idea that is generally familiar to the intended audience.
- Anachronism. An historically inaccurate detail in a literary work, included by the author either unintentionally or deliberately. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the characters refer to a clock striking three.
Literature, Explained Better. Our guides use color and the interactivity of the web to make it easier to learn and teach literature. Far beyond just the classics, LitCharts covers over 2000 texts read and studied worldwide, from Judy Blume to Nietzsche.
Definition. Mixed metaphors are figures of speech that combine inconsistent or contradictory metaphors within the same expression, often leading to humorous or nonsensical results.
