List of Terms for the Comprehensive Examination in English

alexandrine

lay, lai

pyrrhic

allegory

dramatic irony

leitmotif

quatrain

alliteration

dramatic monologue

litotes

queer theory

allusion

local color

reader-response criticism

ambiguity

eclogue

logocentric

realism

elegy

lyric

anachronism

elision

malapropism

resolution

end stopped

Marxist criticism

rhyme

anapest

enjambment

masculine ending

rhyme royal

anaphora

envoy, envoi

melodrama

rhythm

antagonist

epic

metafiction

rising action

anticlimax

epic simile

metaphor

roman a clef

antihero

epigram

meter

romance

epigraph

metonymy

Romanticism

apostrophe

epilogue

round character

archaism

epiphany

mimesis

satire

archetype

episodic

scansion

aside

epistolary

modernism

scheme

assonance

epithalamion

monologue

sentimentalism

ballad

essentialism

motif

sestet

bathos

motivation

sestina

beast fable

muses

setting

bildungsroman

euphony

myth

simile

binary opposition

existentialism

naturalism

slant rhyme

black humor

explication de texte

negative capability

soliloquy

blank verse

eye-rhyme

neoclassicism

sonnet

bombast

fabliau

neologism

spondee

burlesque

falling action

New Criticism

stanza

cacophony

farce

New Historicism

caesura

feminine rhyme

novel

stock character

canon

novella

stream of consciousness

canto

figure of speech

objective correlative

stress

carpe diem

flashback

occasional verse

strophe

flat character

octave

structuralism

catastrophe

ode

style

catharsis

foil

omniscient point of view

sublime

chorus

foot

onomatopoeia

classic, classical

formalism

oxymoron

classicism

frame story

paradox

climax

free verse

parallelism

surrealism

close reading

parataxis

suspension of disbelief

closet drama

parody

symbol, symbolism

comedy

genre

paronomasia

synaesthesia

conceit

gothic

pastoral

synecdoche

confessional poetry

haiku

pathetic fallacy

syntax

connotation

hamartia

pentameter

tenor and vehicle

consonance

hegemony

persona

terza rima

convention

heroic couplet

personification

text

hubris

phallocentric

thick description

couplet

hyperbole

picaresque

tone

courtly love

hypotaxis

tragedy

iamb

plot

tragic flaw

cultural studies

ideology

poetic diction

Transcendentalism

dactyl

idyll

point of view

trochee

decadence

image, imagery

postcolonialism

trope

deconstruction

imagism

postmodernism

turning point

decorum

in medias res

prologue

denotation

intentional fallacy

prose

unities

denouement

interior monologue

prose poem

deus ex machina

internal rhyme

prosody

verisimiltude

diction

irony

protagonist

villanelle

didactic

kenning

psychoanalytic criticism

wit

doggerel

lampoon

pun