Browse by Topics

• Abecedarius - Academic drama
• Acatalectic - Accent - Accentual verse - Acrostic - Allegory - Alliteration - Allusion - Anachronism - Anacrusis
• Anagnorisis - Analects - Analogue - Analogy - Anapest - Anaphora - Anastrophe - Anecdote - Annal
• Annotation - Antagonist - Antepenult - Anthology - Anticlimax - Anti-hero - Anti-masque - Anti-romance - Antinovel
• Antistrophe - Antithesis - Antonym - Aphorism - Apocope - Apocrypha - Apollonian and Dionysian - Apologue - Apology
• Apothegm - Aposiopesis - Apostrophe - Apron stage - Arcadia - Archaism - Archetype - Aristeia - Argument
• Arsis - Art for art's sake - Asemic writing - Aside - Assonance - Atmosphere - Attitude - Aube - Aubade
• Audience - Autobiography - Autotelic - Avant-garde

B

• Ballad - Ballade - Ballad stanza - Bard
• Baroque - Bathos - Beast fable (beast epic)Beast poetry - Beat Generation - Beginning rhyme - Belles-lettres - Bestiary
• Beta reader - Bibliography - Bildungsroman - Biography - Black comedy - Blank verse - Bloomsbury Group - Body - Bombast (fustian)
• Boulevard theatre - Bourgeosis drama - Bouts-Rimés - Bowdlerize - Breviloquence - Broadside - Burlesque - Burletta - Burns stanza
• Buskin - Byronic hero

C

• Caca - Cadence - Caesura
• Calligram - Canon - canso - Canticum - Canto - CanzoneCapa y espadaCaptivity narrative - Caricature
• Carmen figuratumCarpe diemCatachresis - Catalectic - Catalexis - Catastrophe - Catharsis - Caudate sonnet - Cavalier drama
• Cavalier poetry - Celtic Renaissance - Celtic Twilight - Cesura - Chain of Being - Chain verseChanson de gesteChansonnier - Chant royal
• Chantey - Chanty - Chapbook - Character - Characterization - Charactonym - Chaucerian stanza - Chiasmus - Chivalric romance
• Choriamb - Choriambus - Chorus - Chronicle - Chronical play - Cinquain - Classicism - Classification (literature) - Classification of rhymes (Peter Dale)
• Clerihew - Cliché - Climax - Cloak-and-sword play - Closed heroic couplet - Closet dramaComédie larmoyanteColloquialism - Comedy
• Comedy of errors - Comedy of humors - Comedy of intrigue - Comedy of manners - Comedic reliefCommedia dell'arteComic relief - Common measure - Commonplace book
• Common rhymeComoedia erudateComparative linguistics - Compensation - Complaint - Conceit - Concordance - Concrete universal - Confessional literature
• Confidant/confidante - Conflict - Connotation - Consistency - Consonance - Contradiction - Context - Contrast
• Convention - Copyright - CounterplotCoup de théâtreCouplet - Courtesy book - Courtly love - Cowleyan ode - Cradle books
• Craft cycle - Crisis - Criticism - Cross acrostic - Crown of sonnets - Curtain raiser - Curtal sonnet

D

• Dactyl - Dada - Dale's classification of rhymes - DandyismDébatDecadence - Decasyllabic verse - Decorum
• Denotation - Dénouement - Description - Descriptive lingustics - Detective storyDeus ex machinaDeuteragonist - Dialect - Dialogue
• Dibrach - Diction - Didactic - Digest - Digression - Dime novel - Diameter - Dipody - Dirge
• Discourse - Dissociation of sensibility - Dissonance - Distich - Distributed Stress - Dithyramb - Diverbium - Divine afflatus - Doggerel
• Dolce stil nuoveDomestic tragedyDonnéeDoppelgängerDouble - Double rhyme - Drama - Drama of sensibility - Dramatic character
• Dramatic irony - Dramatic lyric - Dramatic monologue - Dramatic proverbDramatis personaeDramaturgy - Dream allegory - Dream vision - Droll
• Dumb show - Duodecimo - Duologue - Duple meter/duple rhythm - Dystopia

E

• Echo verse - Eclogue - Edition - Ekphrasis - Elegiac couplet - Elegiac meter - Elegy - Elision
• Emblem - Emblem book - Emendation - Emotive language - Encomiastic verse - End rhyme - End-stopped line - English sonnet - Enjambment
• Entr'acte - Envoy/envoiÈpater le bourgeoisEpic poetry - Epic simile - Epic Theater - Epigraph - Epilogue
• Epiphany - Episode - Episteme - Epistle - Epistolary novel - Epistrophe - Epitaph - Epithalamion - Epithet
• Epizeuxis - Epode - Eponymous author - EquivalenceErziehungsromanEssay - Ethos - Eulogy - Euphony
• Euphuism - Evidence - Exegesis - Exemplum - Existentialism - Exordium - Experimental novelExplication de texteExposition
• Expressionism - Extended metaphor - Extension - Extrametrical verse - Extravaganza - Eye rhyme

F

• Fable - Fabliau - Falling action - Falling rhythm - Fancy and imagination - Fantasy - Farce - Feeling
• Feminine ending - Feminine rhyme - Fiction - Figurative language - Figure of speechFin de siècleFlashback - Flashforward - Flat character
• Fleshly school - Foil - Folio - Folk drama - Folklore - Folk tale - Foot - Foreshadowing - Form
• Four levels of meaning - Four meanings of a poem - Fourteener - Frame story - Free verse - French forms - Freytag's pyramid - Fugitives and Agrarians
• Fustian - Futurism

G

• Gallows humor - Gamebooks - Gathering - Genetic fallacy - Genius and talent - Genre - Georgian poetry
• Georgics - Gesta - Gloss - Gnomic verse - Golden line - Goliardic verse - Gongorism - Gonzo journalism - Gothic novel
• Grand Guignol - Graveyard poetry - Graveyard school - Greek tragedy - Grub Street - Grundyism - Guignol

H

• Hagiography - Hagiology - Haikai - Haikai no renga - Haiku - Half rhyme - Hamartia - Handwaving
• Headless line - Head rhyme - Hebraism-Hellenism"The Hedgehog and the Fox"Hemistich - Hendecasyllable - Hendecasyllabic verse
• Heptameter - Heptastrich - Heresy of paraphrase - Hero - Heroic couplets - Heroic drama - Heroic quatrain - Heroic stanza - Hexameter
• Hexastich - Hiatus - High comedy - Higher criticism - Historical linguistics - Historical novel - Historic present - History play - Hokku
• Holograph - Homeric epithet - Homeric simile - Homily - Horatian ode - Horatian satire - Hornbook - Hovering accent - Hubris
• Hudibrastic verse - Humor - Humours - Hybris - Hymn - Hymnal stanza - Hyperbole - Hypercatalectic - Hypermetrical
• Hypocorism - Hysteron-proteron - Hypotactic

I

• Iambic pentameter - Ideology
• Idiom - Idyll - Imagery - Imagism - Impressionism - Indeterminacy - InferenceIn medias resInnuendo
• Internal rhyme - Interpretation - Intertextuality - Irony

J

• Jacobean era
• Jeremiad - Journal - Judicial criticismJunctureJuggernaut - Juvenalian satire - Juxtaposition

K

• Kabuki - Kafkaesque - Katharsis - Kenning - Kigo"King's English"Kireji
• KitschKünstlerroman

L

• Lai - Lake Poets - Lament
• LampoonL'art pour l'artLaureate - Lay - Leaf - Legend - Legitimate theater - Leonine rhyme - Lexis
• Letters - Level stress (even accent)Libretto - Light ending - Light poetry - Light rhyme - Light stress
• Light poetry - Limerick - Linguistics - Linked rhyme - Link sonnet - Literary ballad - Literary criticism - Literary epic - Literary realism
• Literary theory - Literature - Litotes - Litterateur - Liturgical drama - Living Newspaper - Local color - Logaoedic - Logical fallacy
• Logical stress - Logos - Long metre - Loose sentence - Lost Generation - Low comedy - Lullaby - Lyric

M

• Macaronic language - Madrigal - Magic realism - MalapropismMärchen
• Marginalia - Marinism - Marivauge - Marxist literary criticism - Masculine ending - Masculine rhyme - Masked comedy - Masque - Maxim
• Meaning - Medieval drama - Meiosis - Melic poetry - Melodrama - Memoir - Menippean satire - Mesostich - Metaphor
• Metaphysical conceit - Metaphysical poets - Meter - Metonymy - Metre - Metrical accent - Metrical foot - Metrical structure - Middle Comedy
• Miles gloriosusMiltonic sonnet - Mime - Mimesis - Minnesang - Minstrel - Mystery play (miracle play)Miscellanies
• Mise en scèneMixed metaphor - Mock-heroic (mock epic)Mode - Modernism - Monodrama - Monody - Monograph
• Monologue - Monometer (monopody)Monostich - Monograph - Mood - Mora - Moral - Morality play
• Motif - Motivation - Movement - Mummery - Muses - Musical comedy - Mystery play - Mythology

N

• Narrative point of view - Narrator - Naturalism - Neologism - Non-fiction
• Non-fiction novel - Novel - Novelette - Novella - Novelle - narrative poem

O

• Objective correlative - Objective criticism - Obligatory scene - Octameter - Octave - Ode - Oedipus complex - Onomatopoeia
• Open couplet - Oulipo - Orchestra (literary term) - Oxymoron

P

• Palinode
• Pantoum - Pantun - Parable - Paraclausithyron - Paradelle - Paradox - Paraphrase - Pararhyme - Paratactic
• Partimen - Pastourelle - Pathetic fallacy - Pathya Vat - Parallelism - Parody - Pastoral - Pathos - Pentameter
• Periodic sentence - Peripetia - Perspective - Persona - Personification - PhronesisPièce bien faitePicaresque novel - Plain Style
• Platonic - Plot - Poem - Poem and song - Poetic diction - Poetic transrealism - Poetry - Point of view - Polysyndeton
• Post-colonialism - Postmodernism - Pound's Ideogrammic Method - Prolepsis - Prologue - Progymnasmata - Prose - Prosimetrum - Prosody (poetry)
• Protagonist - Proverb - Pruning poem - Psychoanalytic literary criticism - Psychoanalytic theory - Pun - Purple patch - Purpose for Reading - Pyrrhic

Q

• Quatrain

R

• Reader-response criticism - Realism - Refrain - Renga - Renku - Repetition - Resolution - Rhapsodes
• Rhetoric - Rhyme - Rhyme Royal - Rhythm - Roman a clef - Romance novel - Romanticism - Russian formalism

S

• Satire - Scanning - ScansionScene a faireSea shanty
• Semiotics - Semiotic literary criticism - Setting - Shanty - Sestet - Sequence of events - Shakespearean sonnet - Simile - Slice of life
• Sobriquet - Soliloquy - Sonnet - Sonneteer - Speaker - Sprung rhythm - Stanza - Static character - Stereotype
• Stream of consciousness - Structuralism - Subplot - Syllogism - Symbol - Synecdoche - Synaesthesia - Syntax

T

• Tautology - Tableau - Tail rhyme - Tagelied - Tale
• Techne - Telestich - Tenor - Tension - TercetTerza rimaTetrameter - Tetrastich - Text
• Textual criticism - Texture - Theater of Cruelty - Theater of the Absurd - Theme - Thesis - Thesis play - Third person narrative - Threnody
• Tirade - Tone - Tract - Tractarian Movement - Tragedy - Tragedy of blood - Tragic flaw - Tragic Hero - Tragic irony
• Tragicomedy - Tranche de vie - Transcendentalism - Transferred epithet - Transition - Translation - TravestyTriadTribe of Ben
• Tribrach - Trimeter - Triolet - Triple rhyme - Triple meter - Triple rhythm - Triplet - Tristich - Tritagonist
• TriviumTrobar clusTrochee - Trope (literature) - Troubadour - Trouvère - Truncated line - Tumbling verse - Type character
• Type scene

U

• Ubi suntUnderground culture - Underground press - Understatement
• Unities - Unity - Universality (disambiguation) - University Wits - Unobtainium - Utopia - Utopian and dystopian fiction - Unreliable narrator

V

• Variable syllable - Variorum - Varronian satire (Menippean satire)Vates
• Vaudeville - Vehicle - Verbal irony - Verisimilitude - VerismVers de sociétéVerse - Verse paragraphVers libre
• Verso - Victorianism - Viewpoint - Vignette - Villain - Villanelle - Virelay - Virgule - Voice (of the writer)
• Voice (in phonetics)Volta - Vorticism - Vulgate

W

• Wardour Street English - Weak ending - Weak foot - Well-made play - Wellerism - Western fiction - Wimmering - Wit
• Word accent - Wrenched accent - Watermark