Lit Terms List #2 Remix

1. Circumlocution: a roundabout or evasive speech or writing, in which many words are used but a few would have served

2. Classicism: art, literature, and music reflecting the principles of ancient Greece and Rome: tradition, reason, clarity, order, and balance

3. Cliché: a phrase or situation overused within society

4. Climax: the decisive point in a narrative or drama; the pint of greatest intensity or interest at which plot question is answered or resolved

5. Colloquialism: folksy speech, slang words or phrases usually used in informal conversation

6. Comedy: originally a nondramatic literary piece of work that was marked by a happy ending; now a term to describe a ludicrous, farcical, or amusing event designed provide enjoyment or produce smiles and laughter

7. Conflict: struggle or problem in a story causing tension

8. Connotation: implicit meaning, going beyond dictionary definition

9. Contrast: a rhetorical device by which one element (idea or object) is thrown into opposition to another for the sake of emphasis or clarity

10. Denotation: plain dictionary definition

11. Denouement (pronounced day-new-mahn): loose ends tied up in a story after the climax, closure, conclusion

12. Dialect: the language of a particular district, class or group of persons; the sounds, grammar, and diction employed by people distinguished from others.

13. Dialectics: formal debates usually over the nature of truth.

14. Dichotomy: split or break between two opposing things.

15. Diction: the style of speaking or writing as reflected in the choice and use of words.

16. Didactic: having to do with the transmission of information; education.

17. Dogmatic: rigid in beliefs and principles.

18. Elegy: a mournful, melancholy poem, especially a funeral song or lament for the dead, sometimes contains general reflections on death, often with a rural or pastoral setting.

19. Epic: a long narrative poem unified by a hero who reflects the customs, mores, and aspirations of his nation of race as he makes his way through legendary and historic exploits, usually over a long period of time (definition bordering on circumlocution).

20. Epigram: witty aphorism.