English is the working language of much of world literature and literary studies: classics from Shakespeare to Woolf are read in the original, and novels from every language reach readers through English translation, reviews and criticism. This glossary collects the terms literature students and book lovers meet first, from plot, character and point of view to metaphor, meter, tragedy, Modernism and close reading, with Turkish equivalents and examples from seminars, essays, book clubs and reviews. It also flags the traps for Turkish speakers, such as novel and romance, poem and poetry, or author and writer.
100 terms
10 topics
51 core terms
200 example sentences
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Core Concepts
literature
noun
Meaning
Written works, such as novels, poems and plays, that are valued for their artistic quality and the way they use language, and the study of these works.
Where you use it
Used for the subject (study literature, a literature degree) and for a body of writing (English literature, children's literature, world literature). It is uncountable: say 'works of literature', not 'literatures', unless you mean the writing of different nations.
Examples
She is doing a master's in comparative literature, focusing on Turkish and English novels.
Our book club tries to read at least one classic of world literature every season.
Usage note
In academic English 'the literature' also means the published research on a subject, as in 'a literature review'. This sense has nothing to do with novels or poems.
Common phrases
world literature · English literature · comparative literature · children's literature · a work of literature
The time and place in which a story happens, including its social background, historical period and atmosphere.
Where you use it
Used in every kind of analysis and review. A novel is set in a place or period; critics describe a vivid, bleak or claustrophobic setting and discuss how the setting shapes the characters. 'The story is set in 1950s Istanbul' is a very common pattern.
Examples
The setting, a remote village in winter, makes the characters feel trapped.
Halfway through the novel, the setting moves from a quiet Aegean town to wartime Istanbul.
Usage note
Use the passive 'be set in' for stories: 'The novel is set in Paris', not 'The novel passes in Paris'.
Common phrases
the story is set in · historical setting · rural setting · vivid setting · time and setting
A central idea or message about life that a literary work explores, such as love, loss, freedom or identity, and what the work suggests about it.
Where you use it
Perhaps the most common word in literature classes and essays. Works explore, address, deal with or develop themes; a theme can be central, recurring or universal. Strong essays state a theme as an idea (ambition destroys trust), not just a single word (ambition).
Examples
Loneliness in the big city is a recurring theme in her stories.
In your essay, explain how the ending develops the novel's main theme.
Usage note
Turkish 'konu' is closer to 'subject' or 'topic' (what the book is about); 'theme' is the deeper idea behind it.
Common phrases
central theme · recurring theme · explore a theme · universal theme · the theme of
A category of literature defined by shared features of form, style or subject, such as poetry, drama and the novel, or crime, fantasy and romance.
Where you use it
Used by critics, bookshops and publishers. Works belong to, mix, blend or break a genre. 'Genre fiction' refers to popular categories like crime, thriller, fantasy and romance, as opposed to 'literary fiction'. Critics also talk about the conventions of a genre.
Examples
The novel mixes two genres: the detective story and the family saga.
Which genre do you usually read when you're on holiday?
Usage note
A French loanword pronounced /ˈʒɒnrə/ (ZHON-ruh), with the 'zh' sound in 'measure', not 'cenre'.
Common phrases
literary genre · genre fiction · blend genres · conventions of the genre · cross-genre
The person who wrote a particular book, poem, play or other text.
Where you use it
Used for the writer of a specific work (the author of the novel) and in publishing contexts: author events, author photo, best-selling author. Critics debate the author's intention and the 'death of the author', a famous essay title by Roland Barthes.
Examples
The author grew up in the same neighborhood where the novel takes place.
We should not assume that the author shares the narrator's opinions.
Usage note
'Writer' is the general word for someone who writes as a job; 'author' links a person to a specific work. Turkish 'yazar' covers both.
Common phrases
the author of · best-selling author · author's intention · first-time author · meet the author
The attitude that a writer or narrator shows toward the subject and the reader, expressed through word choice and style, such as ironic, serious or playful.
Where you use it
Very common in essays and reviews. Critics describe tone with adjectives: ironic, nostalgic, bitter, detached, humorous, melancholic. The tone can shift or change during a text. Tone is the writer's attitude; mood is the feeling the reader gets.
Examples
The tone of the letter is polite on the surface but full of anger underneath.
Notice how the tone shifts from playful to bitter in the last paragraph.
Usage note
'Set the tone' means to establish the general feeling from the start: 'The first sentence sets the tone for the whole novel.'
Common phrases
ironic tone · the tone shifts · set the tone · detached tone · tone and mood
The general feeling or atmosphere that a text creates in the reader, such as tension, sadness, peace or fear.
Where you use it
Used with setting, imagery and tone in analysis. Writers create, build or establish a mood; critics describe it as dark, gloomy, tense, eerie or hopeful. 'Atmosphere' is a close synonym, especially for settings.
Examples
The fog and the empty streets create a mood of menace from the first page.
How does the weather in this chapter reflect the mood of the characters?
Usage note
Students often mix up tone and mood. Tone belongs to the writer or narrator; mood is what the reader feels.
Common phrases
create a mood · dark mood · mood of suspense · tone and mood · change of mood
An image, object, idea or phrase that appears again and again in a work and helps develop its themes.
Where you use it
Used in essays to connect details across a text. A motif recurs, runs through or appears throughout a work. Blood in Macbeth and mirrors in many Gothic stories are classic examples. In folklore studies, motifs are story elements shared by many tales.
Examples
Water is a recurring motif in the novel, linked to both birth and death.
Trace the motif of the journey through the three parts of the poem.
Usage note
A motif is the repeated element; the theme is the idea it points to. Pronounced moh-TEEF, with stress on the second syllable.
Common phrases
recurring motif · central motif · the motif of · trace a motif
A long story written in prose that describes imaginary people and events, usually long enough to fill a whole book and to develop characters in detail.
Where you use it
The central form of modern fiction. You write, publish, read, finish or translate a novel; critics speak of a debut novel, a historical novel or a crime novel. Someone who writes novels is a novelist. Don Quixote is often called the first modern novel.
Examples
Her first novel was translated into fifteen languages within two years.
We spent the whole seminar discussing how the novel handles time.
Usage note
False friend: the English word 'romance' does not mean any novel. It means a love story or a medieval tale of adventure. For 'roman' in general, always say 'novel'.
Common phrases
write a novel · debut novel · historical novel · graphic novel · the novel is set in
Stories, such as novels and short stories, that describe imaginary events and people rather than real ones.
Where you use it
Used by readers, bookshops, publishers and prize committees. Common types are literary fiction, genre fiction, crime fiction, science fiction and historical fiction. It is uncountable: 'a fiction book' is informal; say 'a novel' or 'a work of fiction'.
Examples
Most of the books on the prize shortlist are literary fiction.
The film blurs the line between fiction and documentary.
Usage note
Fiction is not only science fiction. Any invented story is fiction; the adjective is fictional, as in 'a fictional town'.
Common phrases
literary fiction · science fiction · crime fiction · a work of fiction · fiction writer
Writing about real people, events and facts, such as biographies, memoirs, essays, history and travel books.
Where you use it
Used in bookshops, publishing and prizes to separate factual books from fiction. Creative nonfiction and narrative nonfiction use storytelling techniques for true stories. US spelling is nonfiction; British English often writes non-fiction.
Examples
He mostly reads nonfiction, especially history and science books.
The award has separate categories for fiction and nonfiction.
Usage note
Do not say 'a real book' or 'a fact book'. In English the established category is nonfiction.
A piece of prose fiction that can be read in one sitting, usually focusing on a few characters and a single main event or moment.
Where you use it
A key form in creative writing classes, magazines and literary prizes. Writers publish short stories in magazines and collect them in a short story collection. Chekhov, Poe and Alice Munro are often named as masters of the form; in Turkish, Sait Faik and Sabahattin Ali.
Examples
For next week, read the short story and note how the ending changes your view of the father.
Her second book is a collection of twelve short stories set in Istanbul.
Usage note
Turkish 'hikaye' is not 'history'. History is tarih; a story is hikaye or öykü.
Common phrases
short story collection · write a short story · short story writer · publish a short story
Ordinary written language in sentences and paragraphs, without the line breaks and regular rhythm of poetry; the form of most novels, stories and essays.
Where you use it
Used to contrast with poetry or verse, and to judge a writer's style: reviewers praise clear, elegant, lyrical or spare prose. A prose poem is a poem written without line breaks. Prose style is one of the most common topics in book reviews.
Examples
Her prose is so precise that every sentence feels carefully weighed.
Shakespeare's plays mix verse and prose: servants often speak in prose.
Usage note
Prose is uncountable: say 'a piece of prose' or 'a prose text', not 'a prose'.
A work of prose fiction that is longer than a short story but shorter than a novel, usually focused on one main conflict.
Where you use it
Used by critics and publishers for works such as Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. There is no exact word count, but prize rules often set one. The form goes back to the Italian novelle of Boccaccio.
Examples
You can read the novella in an afternoon, but it stays with you for weeks.
Kafka's best-known novella opens with a man waking up as an insect.
Usage note
In English, 'novelette' sometimes means a weak, sentimental story, so 'novella' is the safer neutral term.
Common phrases
a short novella · novella-length · publish a novella · novella collection
A nonfiction book in which the author writes about personal memories of a particular period, experience or theme in his or her life.
Where you use it
Very popular in publishing and book clubs: a childhood memoir, a war memoir, a food memoir. Memoir focuses on selected experiences and emotional truth, while autobiography tries to cover a whole life. 'Memoirs' (plural) often refers to the recollections of public figures.
Examples
Her memoir describes growing up between two languages in a small Anatolian town.
Is the book a memoir or an autobiographical novel?
Usage note
Pronunciation trap: MEM-wahr, from French. The final 'r' is silent in British English.
Common phrases
write a memoir · childhood memoir · war memoir · publish a memoir · memoir writing
An account of a person's whole life, or most of it, written by that person, usually in the first person and in chronological order.
Where you use it
Used in publishing, history and literary studies. Augustine's Confessions is often called the first Western autobiography. Critics also discuss the autobiographical novel, where a writer turns his or her own life into fiction. Compare biography (someone else's life) and memoir.
Examples
In his autobiography, the poet describes his childhood in a village near Konya.
The novel is strongly autobiographical, but the author insists it is fiction.
Usage note
An autobiography is written by its subject; a biography is written by someone else. Do not say 'my own autobiography': 'auto' already means 'self'.
Common phrases
write an autobiography · autobiographical novel · autobiographical elements · spiritual autobiography
A long narrative poem about the heroic deeds of legendary figures, often involving gods, wars and journeys and telling the story of a people.
Where you use it
Classic examples are the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, Virgil's Aeneid and Milton's Paradise Lost. Critics talk about the epic hero, epic conventions and the mock epic, which uses epic style for trivial subjects. In Turkish culture, destan covers works like the Oğuz Kağan and Manas epics.
Examples
The Odyssey is an epic that follows one man's ten-year journey home.
Like every classical epic, the poem opens with a call to the Muse.
Usage note
As an adjective in everyday speech, 'epic' means very large or impressive (an epic fail, an epic film). In literature it names a specific genre.
Writing that uses humor, irony and exaggeration to criticize or mock the foolishness or wrongdoing of people, institutions or society.
Where you use it
Both a genre and a mode that can appear in any form. Swift's Gulliver's Travels and Orwell's Animal Farm are classic satires; in Turkish, Aziz Nesin's stories and Nef'i's hiciv poems are well known. Critics speak of biting, sharp, gentle or political satire. Adjective: satirical.
Examples
The novel is a sharp satire of office life and corporate language.
Some readers take the satire literally and miss the joke completely.
Usage note
Do not confuse satire with satyr (a half-goat creature in Greek myth). Both are pronounced differently: SAT-ire vs. SAY-ter.
Common phrases
political satire · biting satire · social satire · a satire on · satirical novel
The series of connected events in a story and the way the writer arranges them, especially how one event causes another.
Where you use it
One of the first terms in any analysis. Readers summarize the plot, critics call it simple, complex, gripping or predictable, and reviewers warn about spoilers before revealing it. E. M. Forster famously separated story (events in time order) from plot (events linked by cause).
Examples
The plot is quite simple, but the characters are drawn with great depth.
Please don't summarize the whole plot in your essay; focus on two key scenes.
Usage note
A 'plot twist' is a sudden, surprising change in the direction of the story. 'Plot' is also a verb meaning to plan a secret crime or a story's events.
Common phrases
summarize the plot · plot twist · complex plot · the plot revolves around · main plot
The struggle between opposing forces in a story, such as two characters, a character and society, or a character and their own desires, which drives the plot.
Where you use it
A core term in analysis and creative writing. Teachers distinguish external conflict (character vs. character, nature or society) from internal conflict (character vs. self). Conflict builds, rises, comes to a head and is finally resolved.
Examples
The central conflict is between the son's ambitions and his duty to his father.
Her internal conflict is more interesting than any of the external events.
Usage note
Stress changes with the part of speech: the noun is CONflict, the verb is conFLICT (to clash).
Common phrases
central conflict · internal conflict · external conflict · resolve a conflict · conflict between
The most intense and important moment of a story, when the main conflict reaches its turning point and the outcome is decided.
Where you use it
Part of the classic plot structure: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. Critics say a story builds to, reaches or leads up to a climax, and may call it dramatic, powerful or disappointing. The adjective is climactic.
Examples
The climax comes when she finally confronts her brother in the burning house.
The whole second half of the play builds slowly toward its climax.
Usage note
Do not confuse 'climactic' (of a climax) with 'climatic' (of the climate).
Common phrases
reach a climax · build to a climax · dramatic climax · the climax of the novel
One of the main numbered or titled parts into which a book, especially a novel, is divided.
Where you use it
Used by readers, book clubs and teachers: read the first three chapters, the opening chapter, the final chapter. Essays refer to passages by chapter (in Chapter 4). Figuratively, a 'new chapter' is a new period in someone's life.
Examples
For Thursday, please read chapters five to eight.
The final chapter jumps forward twenty years.
Usage note
Turkish 'bölüm' has many English equivalents: a chapter in a book, an episode of a series, an act or scene in a play, and a department at a university.
Common phrases
opening chapter · final chapter · read a chapter · chapter one · short chapters
A technique in which the writer gives early hints or warnings about events that will happen later in the story.
Where you use it
Common in essays on plot and suspense. Critics point out subtle or heavy foreshadowing; the verb is foreshadow (the storm foreshadows the murder). Chekhov's well-known principle says a gun shown early in a play should be fired later.
Examples
The broken mirror in chapter one is a clear piece of foreshadowing.
Good foreshadowing feels obvious only when you read the book a second time.
Usage note
Do not confuse foreshadowing (a hint about the future) with flashback (a scene from the past).
Common phrases
subtle foreshadowing · heavy foreshadowing · an example of foreshadowing · foreshadow events
A scene that interrupts the main story to show events that happened earlier, often to explain a character's past or motives.
Where you use it
Used for novels, plays and films. A story is told in or through flashbacks; critics say a flashback reveals, explains or interrupts. The opposite, a scene from the future, is a flash-forward. In narrative theory the technical term is analepsis.
Examples
A long flashback in the middle of the book shows the brothers as children.
The story of the war is told entirely in flashbacks.
Usage note
In psychology, 'flashback' also means a sudden, vivid memory of a traumatic event.
Common phrases
in a flashback · told in flashbacks · flashback scene · flash-forward
The opening part of a story or play that introduces the characters, setting and background information the reader needs to follow the plot.
Where you use it
The first stage of Freytag's pyramid, followed by rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. Writing teachers warn against heavy exposition or 'info-dumping', where too much background is given at once.
Examples
The exposition is very short: by page three the family is already in crisis.
Two servants gossiping on stage is a classic way to deliver exposition.
Usage note
Outside literature, 'exposition' also means a detailed explanation or a large public exhibition.
Common phrases
heavy exposition · deliver exposition · the exposition introduces · exposition and rising action
The final part of a story, after the climax, where the main conflict is settled and loose ends are tied up.
Where you use it
The last stage of the classic plot structure. Critics describe a resolution as satisfying, neat, rushed or open. Many modern stories avoid a full resolution and leave an open ending. The French term dénouement means the same thing.
Examples
The resolution feels rushed: everything is solved in the final two pages.
There is no clear resolution, so readers must decide whether she returns home.
Usage note
'Resolution' also means a decision (a New Year's resolution) or the sharpness of an image. In plot analysis it means the ending.
Common phrases
satisfying resolution · open resolution · reach a resolution · conflict and resolution
A secondary story that runs alongside the main plot, often involving minor characters, and that supports or contrasts with the main story.
Where you use it
Common in reviews of long novels, plays and series. A subplot can mirror, echo or comment on the main plot; critics may call it distracting or underdeveloped. In King Lear, the Gloucester subplot mirrors Lear's story of a father deceived by his children.
Examples
The romantic subplot gives the reader a break from the darker main story.
Some reviewers felt the political subplot was never fully developed.
Usage note
Written as one word: subplot, not 'sub plot'.
Common phrases
romantic subplot · a minor subplot · the subplot mirrors · main plot and subplot
The part of a plot after the exposition in which complications and tension build up step by step toward the climax.
Where you use it
Used in Freytag's pyramid and in school plot diagrams. Teachers ask students to list the key events of the rising action. It is often the longest part of a novel or play, full of obstacles, decisions and reversals.
Examples
During the rising action, each lie the hero tells makes his situation worse.
Mark three events in the rising action that lead directly to the climax.
Usage note
Rising action, climax and falling action come from Gustav Freytag's analysis of five-act drama (1863).
Common phrases
events in the rising action · the rising action builds · rising action and climax
The part of a plot after the climax, in which the tension decreases and the results of the main conflict become clear before the resolution.
Where you use it
Mostly used in school plot diagrams and essays on structure. In tragedy, the falling action often shows the hero's downfall; in modern novels it may be very short or missing.
Examples
The falling action shows how the village reacts to the trial.
In this story the falling action lasts only a single paragraph.
Usage note
Falling action and resolution are sometimes treated as one stage, especially in short stories.
Common phrases
the falling action shows · climax and falling action · events in the falling action
An ending of a chapter, episode or book that leaves the story at an exciting, unresolved moment so that readers want to know what happens next.
Where you use it
Common in serialized fiction, thrillers and TV series. Chapters or seasons end on a cliffhanger. Dickens used cliffhangers in his serialized novels, and Scheherazade's stories in One Thousand and One Nights are built on the same idea. The term is often traced to Thomas Hardy's A Pair of Blue Eyes, where a character hangs from a cliff.
Examples
Every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, so I read the whole book in one night.
The first volume closes on a cliffhanger: the brother's letter is never opened.
Usage note
Also written cliff-hanger. In journalism and politics a 'cliffhanger' is a very close contest, such as an election whose result is uncertain until the end.
Common phrases
end on a cliffhanger · leave readers on a cliffhanger · a real cliffhanger · cliffhanger ending
A Latin phrase meaning 'into the middle of things', used for a story that begins in the middle of the action and explains earlier events later.
Where you use it
Used as an adverb in analysis: the novel begins in medias res. The phrase comes from Horace's Ars Poetica, and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are the classic examples. Earlier events are usually filled in through flashbacks.
Examples
The story opens in medias res, with the narrator already running from the police.
Starting in medias res grabs the reader's attention from the first line.
Usage note
Usually written in italics because it is a foreign phrase. Do not add an article: say 'in medias res', not 'in the medias res'.
Common phrases
begin in medias res · open in medias res · start in medias res
A person, or sometimes an animal or creature, who takes part in the events of a story, play or poem.
Where you use it
Used constantly in reviews, essays and book club talks: the main character, a minor character, a likable or complex character. Readers identify with or relate to characters; writers create, develop and portray them.
Examples
Which character did you find most convincing, and why?
The minor characters in the novel are almost more memorable than the hero.
Usage note
The 'ch' is pronounced /k/: KA-rak-ter. 'Character' can also mean a person's nature (a man of strong character).
Common phrases
main character · minor character · develop a character · character arc · relate to a character
The main character of a story, whose goals, problems and choices drive the plot and whom the reader follows most closely.
Where you use it
A standard analysis term, more formal than 'main character'. Essays discuss the protagonist's motives, journey and development. The protagonist does not have to be good or likable; many modern novels have morally doubtful protagonists.
Examples
The protagonist spends most of the novel trying to escape her family's expectations.
Is Raskolnikov a protagonist we are supposed to sympathize with?
Usage note
Turkish 'kahraman' suggests a hero, but a protagonist is simply the central character, good or bad.
Common phrases
the protagonist's journey · female protagonist · young protagonist · unlikable protagonist
The character or force that opposes the main character and creates the central conflict of a story.
Where you use it
Used with protagonist in essays and creative writing classes. The antagonist is often a villain, but it can also be society, nature or a part of the protagonist's own mind. Critics praise a well-drawn antagonist with understandable motives.
Examples
In this novel the real antagonist is not a person but the small town itself.
A good antagonist believes he is doing the right thing.
Usage note
'Villain' means a clearly evil character; 'antagonist' is the more neutral, technical word.
Common phrases
main antagonist · the antagonist's motives · protagonist and antagonist · a compelling antagonist
The ways a writer creates and reveals a character's personality, through description, actions, speech, thoughts and other characters' reactions.
Where you use it
A key term in reviews and essays. Critics distinguish direct characterization (the narrator tells us what a person is like) and indirect characterization (we infer it from actions and speech). Characterization can be rich, subtle, thin or one-dimensional.
Examples
The plot is thin, but the characterization is outstanding.
Most of the characterization comes through dialogue rather than description.
Usage note
British English often spells it characterisation. Writing teachers sum up indirect characterization as 'show, don't tell'.
A complex, many-sided character with mixed qualities and believable motives, who can surprise the reader in a convincing way.
Where you use it
Term introduced by E. M. Forster in Aspects of the Novel (1927), together with flat character. Reviewers praise fully rounded characters and criticize stories where the characters are not rounded enough.
Examples
The mother is the only round character in the book; everyone else feels like a type.
Forster said a round character must be able to surprise us convincingly.
Usage note
Round (complex) is about depth; dynamic (changing) is about development. A character can be round but not change much.
Common phrases
a round character · fully rounded character · round and flat characters
A simple character built around one main quality or idea, who can be summed up in a sentence and does not change or surprise the reader.
Where you use it
Forster's term, paired with round character. Flat characters are not always a weakness: they are useful in comedy, satire and minor roles. Forster himself used Mrs Micawber from Dickens's David Copperfield as an example.
Examples
The greedy landlord is a flat character, but he is very funny.
Critics complained that the female characters were flat and lifeless.
Usage note
In reviews, 'flat' alone is negative (the dialogue felt flat). In Forster's sense it is a neutral description.
Common phrases
a flat character · flat and one-dimensional · round and flat characters
A character who goes through an important inner change during the story, for example in personality, beliefs or understanding.
Where you use it
Contrasted with a static character, who stays the same. Essays often trace how and why a dynamic character changes; the path of that change is called a character arc. Scrooge in Dickens's A Christmas Carol is a classic example.
Examples
Scrooge is a dynamic character: by the end he is generous and kind.
Is the narrator's sister a dynamic character, or does she only seem to change?
Usage note
In everyday English 'dynamic' means energetic. In character analysis it means 'changing', not 'active'.
Common phrases
dynamic and static characters · a dynamic character · character arc
A main character who lacks traditional heroic qualities such as courage, honesty or nobility, but whom readers still follow and may sympathize with.
Where you use it
Common in criticism of modern fiction, film and TV. The narrator of Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground and Holden Caulfield in Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye are often called antiheroes. Critics speak of a classic, flawed or tragic antihero.
Examples
The antihero of the novel is lazy, bitter and dishonest, yet strangely likable.
Modern crime fiction is full of antiheroes who break the rules to get results.
Usage note
Also spelled anti-hero. An antihero is not the antagonist: he or she is still the central character.
Common phrases
classic antihero · tragic antihero · a flawed antihero · the rise of the antihero
A character whose qualities contrast with those of another character, usually the protagonist, so that the other character's traits stand out more clearly.
Where you use it
Used in essays with 'act as' or 'serve as': X serves as a foil to Y. Laertes, who quickly acts to avenge his father, is a foil to the hesitating Hamlet; Dr Watson is a foil to Sherlock Holmes.
Examples
The calm older brother acts as a foil to the impulsive hero.
Explain how Laertes serves as a foil to Hamlet in Act 4.
Usage note
The word comes from the thin metal foil once placed under a jewel to make it shine. A foil is not necessarily an enemy, unlike an antagonist.
Common phrases
a foil to · serve as a foil · act as a foil · perfect foil
A weakness or error of judgment in a tragic hero, such as pride, ambition or jealousy, that leads to his or her downfall.
Where you use it
Based on Aristotle's term hamartia in the Poetics. Students discuss Macbeth's ambition, Othello's jealousy or Oedipus's pride (hubris) as tragic flaws. Many scholars point out that hamartia means 'error' rather than a fixed character flaw.
Examples
Is ambition really Macbeth's tragic flaw, or is it his wife's influence?
Her tragic flaw is pride: she cannot admit that she was wrong.
Usage note
'Fatal flaw' is a common synonym in everyday English and journalism.
The voice that tells the story to the reader. It may be a character in the story or an outside voice, and it is not the same as the author.
Where you use it
A key term in analysis. Critics ask who the narrator is, how much the narrator knows and whether the narrator can be trusted. In audiobooks, 'narrator' also means the person who reads the book aloud. The verb is narrate.
Examples
The narrator is a ten-year-old girl, so we only see what she understands.
Don't confuse the narrator with the author; they often hold very different views.
Usage note
In essays, write 'the narrator says' rather than 'the author says' when you describe what the voice of the story claims.
Common phrases
first-person narrator · unreliable narrator · omniscient narrator · the narrator tells us · audiobook narrator
The position from which a story is told, which decides whose eyes we see events through and how much we learn, for example first-person or third-person.
Where you use it
Often shortened to POV by writers and editors. Common types are first-person, second-person, third-person limited and third-person omniscient. You tell a story from someone's point of view, or shift and switch point of view between chapters.
Examples
The story is told from the point of view of the family dog.
Each chapter switches point of view between the two sisters.
Usage note
In everyday English 'point of view' also means opinion (from my point of view). In literary analysis it refers to narration, not the author's opinion.
Common phrases
first-person point of view · third-person point of view · shift point of view · from the point of view of
A story or account of connected events, and the way it is told; also used as an adjective for anything that tells a story.
Where you use it
More technical than 'story'. Critics discuss narrative structure, narrative voice and narrative techniques, and say a novel has a fragmented or linear narrative. As an adjective: a narrative poem tells a story. In politics and media, 'narrative' also means a way of presenting events.
Examples
The narrative jumps back and forth between 1980 and the present day.
Woolf breaks with the traditional linear narrative of the Victorian novel.
Usage note
Stress is on the first syllable: NAR-ra-tive. 'Narration' is the act of telling; 'narrator' is the one who tells.
A narrator who is a character in the story and tells it using 'I', so readers see events only through that character's eyes.
Where you use it
Common in analysis and in writing workshops. A first-person narrator gives intimacy but limited knowledge: the reader learns only what the narrator sees, knows or chooses to tell. Critics ask whether this voice is honest, naive or self-deceiving.
Examples
Because the novel has a first-person narrator, we never learn what the wife really thinks.
Writing with a first-person narrator helped me find the character's voice.
Usage note
Use a hyphen before a noun (a first-person narrator) and no hyphen after a preposition (the story is told in the first person).
Common phrases
first-person narration · a first-person narrator · told in the first person · first-person account
A third-person narrator who knows everything about the story, including the thoughts and feelings of all the characters and events in different places and times.
Where you use it
Typical of the nineteenth-century novel (Tolstoy, George Eliot, Balzac). Critics contrast it with a limited third-person narrator, who follows only one character's mind. An omniscient narrator can comment, judge and move freely between characters.
Examples
The omniscient narrator tells us what each guest at the dinner secretly thinks.
Modern novelists rarely use a fully omniscient narrator.
Usage note
Pronunciation: om-NISH-ent or om-NIS-ee-ent; the 'sc' is not pronounced as 'sk'.
Common phrases
third-person omniscient · an omniscient narrator · omniscient point of view · intrusive narrator
A narrator whose account cannot be fully trusted because he or she lies, misunderstands events, is mentally unstable or is too young or biased to see clearly.
Where you use it
Term coined by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction (1961). Classic examples are Stevens in Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day, Humbert Humbert in Nabokov's Lolita and the narrator of Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart. Popular in psychological thrillers.
Examples
Halfway through the book, you realize you are dealing with an unreliable narrator.
What clues in the text show that the narrator is unreliable?
Usage note
An unreliable narrator is a deliberate technique by the author, not a mistake in the writing.
Common phrases
an unreliable narrator · classic unreliable narrator · narrated by an unreliable narrator
A narrative technique that presents a character's thoughts, feelings and memories as a continuous, often unpunctuated flow, the way they pass through the mind.
Where you use it
Associated with Modernist writers such as Virginia Woolf (Mrs Dalloway), James Joyce (Ulysses) and William Faulkner. The phrase was first used by psychologist William James in 1890. In Turkish literature, Oğuz Atay's Tutunamayanlar is a well-known example.
Examples
The last chapter is written entirely in stream of consciousness, with almost no punctuation.
Woolf uses stream of consciousness to move between the minds of different characters.
Usage note
Hyphenate it before a noun: a stream-of-consciousness passage.
Common phrases
stream-of-consciousness technique · stream-of-consciousness novel · written in stream of consciousness · interior monologue
A figure of speech that describes one thing as if it were something else, without using 'like' or 'as', to show a hidden similarity.
Where you use it
The most discussed figure of speech in analysis. Writers use, employ or extend metaphors; critics speak of a striking, extended or central metaphor and say a line is metaphorical. Everyday language is also full of metaphors (time is money).
Examples
The city is a cage: the whole poem is built on this one metaphor.
Can you find another metaphor for time in the second stanza?
Usage note
English 'metaphor' is broader than Turkish 'istiare': a direct comparison without 'like' (Juliet is the sun), which Turkish school books call teşbih-i beliğ, is also a metaphor in English.
Common phrases
extended metaphor · central metaphor · use a metaphor · mixed metaphor · a metaphor for
A figure of speech that compares two different things directly, usually with the words 'like' or 'as', for example 'as cold as ice'.
Where you use it
Usually taught together with metaphor. Critics point out a vivid, striking or surprising simile and explain what the comparison adds. Many everyday phrases are fixed similes: as busy as a bee, sleep like a log.
Examples
The writer uses a simile to compare the old man's hands to dry leaves.
Is 'her voice was like broken glass' a simile or a metaphor?
Usage note
Pronounced with three syllables, SIM-i-lee, not like 'smile'.
Common phrases
use a simile · vivid simile · extended simile · simile and metaphor
An object, person, place or event in a text that stands for a larger idea beyond its literal meaning, such as a journey that represents life.
Where you use it
Common in essays and seminars: something is a symbol of, symbolizes or stands for an idea. The use of symbols in a work is called symbolism. A good essay explains why the symbol fits, rather than just naming it.
Examples
The green light across the bay in The Great Gatsby is often read as a symbol of hope.
In this story the locked door is a symbol of the family's secrets.
Usage note
Symbolism with a capital S is also the name of a late 19th-century literary and artistic movement (Baudelaire, Mallarmé).
Common phrases
a symbol of · powerful symbol · central symbol · religious symbol · use of symbols
Descriptive language that appeals to the senses, such as sight, sound, smell, taste and touch, so that readers can picture or feel what is described.
Where you use it
A favorite term in poetry analysis and reviews. Critics describe imagery as vivid, rich, dark or sensory, and name its type: visual, auditory, natural or religious imagery. It is uncountable; a single picture created by words is 'an image'.
Examples
The poem's imagery of rain and rust creates a feeling of decay.
Notice how much of the imagery in the first chapter is about light and darkness.
Usage note
Imagery is not the same as imagination (hayal gücü). Turkish 'imgelem' usually means imagination, so avoid it as a translation.
Common phrases
vivid imagery · visual imagery · use of imagery · religious imagery · nature imagery
A contrast between what is said and what is meant, or between what is expected and what actually happens, often used for humor or criticism.
Where you use it
Critics distinguish three main types: verbal irony (saying the opposite of what you mean), situational irony (events turn out the opposite of what is expected) and dramatic irony (the audience knows more than the characters). Adjective: ironic; adverb: ironically.
Examples
The irony is that the doctor who saves the whole town cannot save his own son.
Many readers miss the irony in the narrator's praise of the factory owner.
Usage note
In everyday English 'ironic' is often used loosely for bad luck or coincidence. In analysis, use it only when there is a real contrast between expectation and outcome.
Common phrases
dramatic irony · verbal irony · situational irony · a touch of irony · the irony is that
A figure of speech that gives human qualities, feelings or actions to animals, objects, places or ideas, as in 'the wind whispered'.
Where you use it
Taught early in poetry analysis. Writers personify nature, cities, death or time; critics say a line uses personification to make something feel alive, threatening or friendly. The verb is personify.
Examples
Through personification, the old house seems to watch the family with suspicion.
Find two examples of personification in the description of the sea.
Usage note
'Personification' can also mean a person who perfectly represents a quality: 'She is the personification of patience.'
Common phrases
use personification · an example of personification · personification of death · personify nature
A use of words in a non-literal or unusual way to create a special effect or meaning, such as a metaphor, simile, hyperbole or personification.
Where you use it
The umbrella term for devices taught in poetry and rhetoric. Plural: figures of speech. Critics also use 'figurative language' for the same idea, as opposed to literal language. In everyday English, 'it's just a figure of speech' means 'don't take it literally'.
Examples
Hyperbole is a figure of speech that exaggerates for effect.
The exam asks you to identify three figures of speech in the poem and explain their effect.
Usage note
Turkish 'edebi sanatlar' lists (teşbih, istiare, mecaz-ı mürsel, tezat...) do not map one-to-one onto English figures of speech, so check each term separately.
Common phrases
figures of speech · a common figure of speech · figurative language · identify a figure of speech
A figure of speech that uses deliberate, obvious exaggeration for emphasis or humor, as in 'I've told you a million times'.
Where you use it
Common in poetry, comedy, satire and advertising. Critics say a writer uses hyperbole or that a line is hyperbolic. Love poetry is full of hyperbole, with lovers promising eternal devotion or claiming they cannot live without each other.
Examples
The comic effect comes from hyperbole: the aunt's suitcase is 'as big as a house'.
Is the poet's grief real, or is it just conventional hyperbole?
Usage note
Pronunciation trap: hy-PER-bo-lee, four syllables. It is not pronounced like 'hyper bowl'.
Common phrases
use hyperbole · comic hyperbole · an example of hyperbole · hyperbolic language
The repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of nearby words, as in 'big bad bear', used for rhythm, emphasis or musical effect.
Where you use it
A favorite sound device in poetry analysis, also common in headlines, brand names and tongue twisters. Old English poetry such as Beowulf is built on alliteration. The repetition of vowel sounds is called assonance.
Examples
The alliteration of hard 'k' sounds makes the storm feel violent.
Find the alliteration in the first two lines and describe its effect.
Usage note
Alliteration depends on sound, not spelling: 'cat' and 'kite' alliterate, but 'cat' and 'city' do not.
Common phrases
use alliteration · alliteration and assonance · an example of alliteration · heavy alliteration
A brief, indirect reference to a well-known person, place, event or text, such as the Bible, Greek myth or Shakespeare, that the writer expects readers to recognize.
Where you use it
Common in essays on poetry and modern literature. A text makes or contains an allusion to something; the verb is allude to. T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land is famous for its dense allusions. Everyday phrases like 'Achilles' heel' began as allusions.
Examples
The title is an allusion to the story of Noah's flood.
Readers who miss the allusions to Greek myth will lose half the meaning.
Usage note
Do not confuse allusion (a reference) with illusion (a false impression). They sound similar.
Common phrases
an allusion to · biblical allusion · classical allusion · make an allusion · literary allusion
A story, poem or picture in which characters and events stand for abstract ideas or real situations, so that it has a second, hidden meaning, often moral or political.
Where you use it
Orwell's Animal Farm is a political allegory of the Russian Revolution; Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress is a religious allegory. In Turkish, Şeyh Galip's Hüsn ü Aşk is a famous allegorical mesnevi. Adjective: allegorical.
Examples
Animal Farm can be read as an allegory of power and corruption.
Each traveler in the allegory represents a different human weakness.
Usage note
A symbol is one element that carries extra meaning; in an allegory the whole story works on two levels.
Common phrases
political allegory · religious allegory · an allegory of · allegorical reading
A figure of speech that puts two contradictory words side by side, such as 'deafening silence' or 'bittersweet', to create a striking effect.
Where you use it
Common in poetry, especially love poetry, and in everyday language (a small crowd, an open secret). Critics say an oxymoron captures mixed feelings or a paradoxical situation. Plural: oxymorons or, more formally, oxymora.
Examples
The poem's title, 'Cheerful Funeral', is a deliberate oxymoron.
Find the oxymoron in the opening line and explain what feeling it expresses.
Usage note
The word itself is an oxymoron: in Greek, oxys means 'sharp' and moros means 'dull' or 'foolish'.
Common phrases
a striking oxymoron · use an oxymoron · a classic oxymoron
A statement or situation that seems self-contradictory or absurd but turns out to express a deeper truth, as in 'less is more'.
Where you use it
Used in poetry analysis, drama and philosophy. Critics point out a paradox at the heart of a character or a story, and call a situation paradoxical. Metaphysical poets such as John Donne are famous for their use of paradox.
Examples
The central paradox of the novel is that the hero must lose everything to become free.
Donne ends the poem with a paradox about death dying.
Usage note
An oxymoron joins two opposite words in a short phrase; a paradox is a whole statement or situation that seems impossible.
Common phrases
central paradox · a paradox at the heart of · apparent paradox · paradoxical situation
A situation in which the audience or reader knows something important that a character does not, so the character's words or actions take on an extra meaning.
Where you use it
A classic tool of tragedy and suspense. In Sophocles' Oedipus Rex the audience knows that Oedipus is the killer he is searching for; in Romeo and Juliet we know Juliet is only drugged when Romeo finds her. Critics say dramatic irony builds tension or creates pity.
Examples
The dramatic irony is painful: we know the letter will never reach him.
Horror films use dramatic irony when we see the killer but the victim does not.
Usage note
Dramatic irony is not limited to plays; it appears in novels and films too.
Common phrases
a moment of dramatic irony · create dramatic irony · use dramatic irony
Literary writing arranged in lines that uses rhythm, sound, imagery and often rhyme to express feelings and ideas in a concentrated way.
Where you use it
Used for the art form and for poems as a group: read poetry, write poetry, modern Turkish poetry, a poetry collection. It is uncountable. A single piece is 'a poem', and a writer of poetry is a poet.
Examples
Nazım Hikmet's poetry has been translated into dozens of languages.
This term we will compare Romantic poetry with the free verse of the twentieth century.
Usage note
Common mistake: 'I wrote a poetry' is wrong. Say 'I wrote a poem' or 'I write poetry'.
Common phrases
write poetry · modern poetry · poetry collection · poetry reading · love poetry
A single piece of writing in lines, often with a regular rhythm or rhyme, that expresses an experience, feeling or idea through carefully chosen language.
Where you use it
Countable: you write, read, recite, memorize, publish or analyze a poem. Critics speak of a long poem, a love poem or a narrative poem, and quote lines from it. Titles of poems are put in quotation marks in English essays.
Examples
Choose one poem from the anthology and analyze its imagery.
My grandmother can still recite the poems she learned at school.
Usage note
Pronounced with two syllables, /ˈpəʊɪm/ (POH-im), not 'pom' or 'poym'.
Common phrases
write a poem · recite a poem · love poem · narrative poem · the poem opens with
A group of lines in a poem, separated from other groups by a space, that works like a paragraph in prose.
Where you use it
Used to refer to parts of a poem in analysis: in the first stanza, the final stanza, a four-line stanza. Stanzas of fixed length have names: a couplet has two lines, a tercet three, a quatrain four.
Examples
The tone of the poem changes completely in the third stanza.
Each stanza ends with the same line, like a refrain.
Usage note
In songs and everyday speech people often call a stanza a 'verse'. In poetry analysis, 'stanza' is the precise term.
Common phrases
first stanza · final stanza · four-line stanza · opening stanza
The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the ends of words, especially at the ends of lines in a poem, as in 'night' and 'light'.
Where you use it
Used as a noun (the poem has no rhyme) and a verb (night rhymes with light). Critics talk about end rhyme, internal rhyme and half rhyme, and about poems that are rhymed or unrhymed. Nursery rhymes are traditional poems for children.
Examples
The poet uses rhyme only in the last two lines, which gives the ending extra force.
In English, 'love' rhymes with 'dove' but not with 'move'.
Usage note
Spelling trap: rhyme, not 'ryme' or 'rime'. Rhyme is about sound, not spelling, so 'though' and 'tough' do not rhyme.
Common phrases
end rhyme · internal rhyme · half rhyme · rhyme scheme · rhymes with
Writing arranged in lines with a rhythm, as opposed to prose; also a single line of a poem or a group of lines in a song.
Where you use it
In criticism it usually names the form: written in verse, verse drama, a verse novel. Kinds of verse include blank verse (unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter) and free verse. In songs and hymns, 'verse' means a stanza, as opposed to the chorus.
Examples
Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in verse, but not all of them.
The novel ends with a few lines of verse that the dying father wrote.
Usage note
In poetry analysis use 'line' for a single line and 'stanza' for a group of lines; 'verse' is mainly for the form as a whole.
Common phrases
written in verse · blank verse · free verse · verse drama · lines of verse
The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables, pauses and speed in a line of poetry or prose, which gives it a sense of movement.
Where you use it
Used for poems, prose and speeches. Critics say a line has a fast, slow, regular or broken rhythm, and that the rhythm speeds up, slows down or mirrors the meaning. Meter is a regular, measurable kind of rhythm.
Examples
The short words and heavy stresses give the line the rhythm of marching feet.
Read the poem aloud and listen to how the rhythm changes in the last stanza.
Usage note
Spelling trap: rhythm has no vowel after 'th'. The adjective is rhythmic.
Common phrases
regular rhythm · the rhythm of a line · rhythm and rhyme · break the rhythm
A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry, measured in units called feet, such as the iamb (da-DUM) or the trochee (DUM-da).
Where you use it
Used in poetry analysis and prosody. Poems are written in a meter, such as iambic pentameter; critics talk about strict or loose meter and lines that break the meter. The adjective is metrical; scanning a line to find its meter is called scansion.
Examples
The poem is written in a strict meter, but the last line breaks it.
Identify the meter of the first line and mark the stressed syllables.
Usage note
British spelling is metre. English meter is based on stress, while Turkish hece ölçüsü counts syllables and aruz counts long and short syllables.
Common phrases
iambic meter · strict meter · regular meter · break the meter
A poem of fourteen lines with a fixed rhyme scheme, usually in iambic pentameter in English, often about love or a single strong feeling.
Where you use it
Two main types: the Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet, with an octave and a sestet, and the Shakespearean (English) sonnet, with three quatrains and a final couplet. Shakespeare's 154 sonnets were published in 1609. The turn in thought is called the volta.
Examples
Write a short analysis of one sonnet and explain what happens in the final couplet.
Many of Shakespeare's sonnets are addressed to a young man, not a woman.
Usage note
The word comes from Italian sonetto, 'little song'. Do not confuse it with 'sonata', a piece of music.
Poetry that does not follow a regular meter or rhyme scheme, relying instead on natural speech rhythms, line breaks and imagery.
Where you use it
The most common form of modern poetry. Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass (1855) is an early landmark in English; in Turkish, Nazım Hikmet and the Garip poets (Orhan Veli, Oktay Rifat, Melih Cevdet Anday) made it central. Poems are written in free verse.
Examples
Most of the poems in the collection are in free verse, with very short lines.
Free verse is not prose: line breaks still matter a great deal.
Usage note
Do not call it 'free poetry'. The English term is always free verse (from French vers libre).
Common phrases
written in free verse · free verse poem · modern free verse
A pair of consecutive lines of poetry, usually of the same length and rhyming with each other, that form a unit of meaning.
Where you use it
Shakespearean sonnets end with a rhyming couplet that often sums up or twists the poem's argument. The heroic couplet, in rhymed iambic pentameter, was used by Dryden and Pope. In Turkish, the beyit is the basic unit of divan poetry.
Examples
The final couplet changes the meaning of the whole sonnet.
The poem is written entirely in rhyming couplets.
Usage note
Pronounced KUP-lit. Do not confuse it with 'couple' used for people.
The pattern of rhymes at the ends of lines in a poem or stanza, shown with letters, for example ABAB, where lines with the same letter rhyme.
Where you use it
A standard step in poetry analysis: identify, mark or describe the rhyme scheme. A Shakespearean sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Critics notice when a poem follows a strict rhyme scheme or breaks it for effect.
Examples
The rhyme scheme is ABAB in every stanza except the last one.
Mark the rhyme scheme with letters in the margin before you start your analysis.
Usage note
Use capital or small letters consistently (ABAB or abab), and use a new letter for each new rhyme sound.
Common phrases
identify the rhyme scheme · regular rhyme scheme · strict rhyme scheme · the rhyme scheme is ABAB
A line of poetry made of five iambs, each an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, giving ten syllables: da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM da-DUM.
Where you use it
The most important meter in English poetry, used by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton and Wordsworth. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse; rhymed pairs are heroic couplets. It is said to be close to the natural rhythm of English speech.
Examples
Most of the lines in Hamlet are written in iambic pentameter.
Clap the stresses to check whether the line is really iambic pentameter.
Usage note
Penta- means five in Greek. Stress: eye-AM-bic pen-TAM-e-ter.
Common phrases
written in iambic pentameter · unrhymed iambic pentameter · blank verse · a line of iambic pentameter
Literature written to be performed by actors on a stage, telling a story through dialogue and action; also a single serious play.
Where you use it
One of the three main genres, with poetry and prose fiction. Universities offer courses in modern drama or Elizabethan drama; critics speak of Greek drama or a historical drama. 'Dramatic' describes anything related to drama or anything sudden and striking.
Examples
This module covers European drama from the Greeks to Ibsen and Chekhov.
Unlike a novel, a drama has no narrator to explain what the characters think.
Usage note
In English 'drama' is the whole genre of plays. Turkish 'dram' often means a specific serious play that is neither tragedy nor comedy, so 'tiyatro' is usually the better translation.
Common phrases
modern drama · Greek drama · historical drama · drama school · study drama
A piece of writing for the theatre, made up of dialogue and stage directions, that actors perform in front of an audience.
Where you use it
Playwrights write plays; theatres stage, put on or produce them; actors perform in them; audiences see or watch them. Plays are divided into acts and scenes, and the written version is called the script or text.
Examples
The school is putting on a play by Haldun Taner this spring.
Reading a play is very different from watching it in the theatre.
Usage note
Turkish speakers sometimes say 'a theatre' for a play. 'Theatre' is the building or the art form; the work itself is 'a play'.
Common phrases
write a play · stage a play · put on a play · one-act play · see a play
A person who writes plays for the theatre, and sometimes for radio or television, creating the dialogue and stage directions that actors perform.
Where you use it
The standard word in criticism, theatre programs and reviews: a young playwright, a leading playwright, the playwright's intention. 'Dramatist' is a more formal synonym. Shakespeare, Chekhov and Ibsen are among the most performed playwrights in the world.
Examples
Haldun Taner is one of the best-known Turkish playwrights of the twentieth century.
After the premiere, the playwright joined the actors on stage.
Usage note
Spelling trap: it ends in -wright (an old word for a maker, as in shipwright), not -write.
Common phrases
leading playwright · young playwright · award-winning playwright · playwright and director
A serious play or story in which the main character suffers and is usually destroyed, often because of a personal flaw or a fatal mistake.
Where you use it
A central term since Aristotle's Poetics. Critics discuss Greek tragedy (Sophocles' Oedipus Rex) and Shakespearean tragedy (Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear), the tragic hero, and catharsis, the release of pity and fear the audience feels. Adjective: tragic.
Examples
Macbeth is the shortest of Shakespeare's great tragedies.
In Greek tragedy the hero often learns the truth too late.
Usage note
In everyday English 'tragedy' means any terrible event, but in literary analysis it is a specific genre with its own rules.
Common phrases
Greek tragedy · Shakespearean tragedy · tragic hero · revenge tragedy · a tragedy in five acts
A play or story meant to amuse, usually built on misunderstandings and humor and ending happily, often with reunions or marriages.
Where you use it
Paired with tragedy since ancient Greece. Critics distinguish romantic comedy, comedy of manners, satire and farce. Shakespeare's comedies include A Midsummer Night's Dream and Twelfth Night. Adjective: comic (comic relief, comic character); 'comical' means funny in a silly way.
Examples
The comedy depends on two pairs of twins who keep being mistaken for each other.
Even the darkest tragedies of Shakespeare contain moments of comedy.
Usage note
Dante's Divine Comedy is not funny; it is called a comedy in the old sense because it moves from suffering to a happy ending.
Common phrases
romantic comedy · comedy of manners · black comedy · comic relief · a comedy of errors
The words that characters speak to each other in a story, play or film; in prose it is usually shown in quotation marks.
Where you use it
Plays are built almost entirely of dialogue; in novels it alternates with narration and description. Reviewers call dialogue sharp, witty, natural, stilted or wooden. Writing teachers say good dialogue reveals character and moves the plot forward.
Examples
The dialogue in this play is so natural that it sounds improvised.
Cut the long descriptions and let the dialogue carry the scene.
Usage note
British spelling is dialogue; American English also uses dialog, especially in computing (a dialog box).
A long speech by one character, either spoken to other characters who listen or to the audience, in a play, film or story.
Where you use it
Actors prepare monologues for auditions; critics praise a powerful or moving monologue. In poetry, a dramatic monologue is a poem spoken by one character to a silent listener, as in Robert Browning's My Last Duchess. 'Interior monologue' presents a character's thoughts.
Examples
The father's monologue at the dinner table is the emotional center of the play.
For the audition, please prepare a two-minute monologue from a modern play.
Usage note
A soliloquy is a special kind of monologue: the character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud.
A speech in a play in which a character, alone on stage, speaks his or her thoughts aloud so that the audience learns what the character really feels.
Where you use it
A key convention of Elizabethan drama. Hamlet's soliloquies, especially the famous one in Act 3, Scene 1, are among the most studied speeches in English. Essays ask what a soliloquy reveals about a character's inner conflict.
Examples
In his soliloquy, Macbeth admits that he has no real reason to kill the king except ambition.
Compare Hamlet's first and last soliloquies: how has he changed?
Usage note
Pronunciation trap: so-LIL-o-kwee, four syllables, stress on the second. Plural: soliloquies.
Common phrases
Hamlet's soliloquy · deliver a soliloquy · famous soliloquy · in his soliloquy
One of the main parts into which a play is divided, usually made up of several scenes and often separated by an interval.
Where you use it
Used to locate passages in a play: Act 2, Scene 3, or in essays III.ii. Shakespeare's plays are usually printed in five acts; Chekhov's major plays have four; many modern plays have two or are one-act plays. Screenwriters speak of three-act structure.
Examples
The murder happens offstage at the end of Act 2.
Our drama club is staging three short one-act plays.
Usage note
Write 'Act' and 'Scene' with capital letters before numbers. Turkish 'perde' is 'act', not 'curtain' in this sense, although both words exist.
Common phrases
Act 1, Scene 2 · one-act play · five-act play · three-act structure · the final act
Instructions in the text of a play, usually in italics or brackets, that describe the setting, the actors' movements, tone of voice or lighting.
Where you use it
Read closely in drama courses because they show the playwright's intentions. Common words include enter, exit, exeunt (they leave) and aside (spoken to the audience). Shakespeare's 'Exit, pursued by a bear' in The Winter's Tale is the most famous example.
Examples
Beckett's stage directions are very precise about silence and pauses.
The director ignored several stage directions and moved the play to a modern office.
Usage note
Usually plural. Directions about where actors stand use the actor's point of view: stage left is the actor's left, not the audience's.
A group of writers in a particular period who share similar ideas, styles and aims, such as Romanticism, Realism or Modernism.
Where you use it
Used in survey courses and literary history. Writers belong to, lead, join or react against a movement; critics trace how one movement grows out of or rejects another. Many movement names end in -ism and are capitalized in English.
Examples
Which literary movement do you think this poem belongs to, and why?
The Garip poets started a literary movement that rejected ornate language.
Usage note
In English, movement names like Romanticism and Modernism are usually capitalized when they refer to the historical movement.
Common phrases
literary movement · belong to a movement · react against a movement · the leading figure of the movement
A movement in literature and art from the late eighteenth to the mid-nineteenth century that valued emotion, imagination, nature and the individual over reason and rules.
Where you use it
Key names include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley and Keats in England, Goethe in Germany and Victor Hugo in France. Wordsworth and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads (1798) is often seen as its English starting point. In Turkish literature, Tanzimat writers such as Namık Kemal were influenced by it.
Examples
Romanticism turned nature into a source of spiritual truth.
The essay compares English Romanticism with its influence on Tanzimat literature.
Usage note
Romantic with a capital R refers to this movement, not to love stories. A Romantic poem may have nothing to do with romance.
Common phrases
English Romanticism · German Romanticism · the Romantic poets · the Romantic period
A nineteenth-century literary movement that aimed to show ordinary life and ordinary people accurately, without idealizing them, often with attention to social detail.
Where you use it
Major realists include Balzac and Flaubert in France, George Eliot in England and Tolstoy in Russia. Realism reacted against Romanticism and led to Naturalism. In Turkish literature, Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil's Aşk-ı Memnu is a key realist novel.
Examples
Flaubert's Madame Bovary is often taught as a model of Realism.
The realist novel pays close attention to money, class and marriage.
Usage note
With a small r, 'realism' simply means being realistic or lifelike: 'the dialogue has great realism'.
Common phrases
literary realism · social realism · the realist novel · nineteenth-century realism
A late nineteenth-century development of Realism that showed human behavior as shaped by heredity, environment and social conditions, often in a harsh, scientific way.
Where you use it
Émile Zola is its leading figure; his novels, such as Germinal, study characters almost like scientific cases. In the US, Stephen Crane, Frank Norris and Theodore Dreiser are called naturalist writers. Critics describe naturalist fiction as bleak, deterministic and detailed.
Examples
Zola saw Naturalism as a kind of scientific experiment in fiction.
The naturalist novel shows a family destroyed by poverty and alcohol.
Usage note
In philosophy and science 'naturalism' has other meanings, and in art it can simply mean a lifelike style.
Common phrases
literary Naturalism · French Naturalism · American Naturalism · a naturalist novel
An early twentieth-century movement that broke with traditional forms and experimented with new ways of writing, such as fragmentation, multiple viewpoints and stream of consciousness.
Where you use it
Usually dated roughly 1900 to 1940. Key figures are James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Franz Kafka and Marcel Proust; 1922, the year of Ulysses and The Waste Land, is often called its peak. In Turkish, Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar and Yusuf Atılgan are often read as modernists.
Examples
Modernism rejected the neat, chronological plots of the Victorian novel.
Huzur is often discussed as a modernist novel about time and memory.
Usage note
Modernism is a historical movement, not just 'modern' writing. A novel published today is modern but not necessarily modernist.
A movement in literature after the Second World War that plays with form and questions truth, often through irony, parody, mixing genres and fiction that comments on itself.
Where you use it
Associated with writers such as Italo Calvino, Thomas Pynchon, John Barth and, as a forerunner, Jorge Luis Borges. Key ideas include metafiction, pastiche and intertextuality. In Turkish literature, Orhan Pamuk's The Black Book is a frequently cited postmodernist novel.
Examples
Calvino's novel about a reader trying to finish a book is a classic of Postmodernism.
The postmodernist narrator keeps reminding us that we are reading a story.
Usage note
'Postmodern' is the general adjective; 'postmodernist' refers more strictly to the movement and its writers.
A style of fiction in which magical or impossible events happen in an otherwise realistic, everyday world and are described as if they were completely normal.
Where you use it
Strongly linked with Latin American writers, especially Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude, but also used for Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children and many others. In Turkish literature, Latife Tekin's Sevgili Arsız Ölüm is often described this way.
Examples
In this example of magical realism, nobody is surprised when the grandmother starts to fly.
Unlike fantasy, magical realism does not build a separate imaginary world.
Usage note
You will also see 'magic realism', the older form of the term, first used for painting in the 1920s.
Common phrases
Latin American magical realism · a work of magical realism · elements of magical realism
A type of fiction that combines horror, mystery and romance, usually with gloomy settings such as old castles, secret passages, ghosts and family curses.
Where you use it
Usually traced to Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto (1764); later classics include Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Critics speak of Gothic elements, the Gothic novel and Southern Gothic in American literature.
Examples
Frankenstein mixes Gothic fiction with early science fiction.
The crumbling mansion and the locked room are typical features of Gothic fiction.
Usage note
Gothic is capitalized in this sense. It has nothing to do with the Goths as a people, except for the historical origin of the word.
The study, interpretation and evaluation of literary works, including discussion of their meaning, form, context and value.
Where you use it
The name of an academic field and of the writing it produces. Literary criticism includes reviews, essays and scholarly books, and is shaped by schools such as formalism, feminism and postcolonialism. A person who writes it is a critic or scholar.
Examples
This course introduces the major approaches in twentieth-century literary criticism.
Literary criticism has long ignored many women writers of that period.
Usage note
False friend: in literary studies 'criticism' is not necessarily negative. It means careful analysis and judgment, which can be full of praise.
Common phrases
works of literary criticism · feminist literary criticism · modern literary criticism · a school of literary criticism
An explanation of what a text or a part of it means, supported by evidence from the text; also the act of explaining it.
Where you use it
Central to seminars and essays. Readers offer, propose, support or challenge an interpretation; a text can be open to interpretation. Critics also say 'reading' in the same sense: a feminist reading, a psychoanalytic reading. The verb is interpret.
Examples
The ending is open to interpretation: did he die or simply leave?
Your interpretation is interesting, but you need quotations to support it.
Usage note
'Interpretation' is also the job of an interpreter (oral translation). In literary studies it always means explaining meaning.
Common phrases
open to interpretation · offer an interpretation · a close interpretation · a different interpretation · interpretation of the text
A close examination of how a literary text works, looking at elements such as theme, character, structure and language to explain its meaning and effects.
Where you use it
The standard task in literature courses and exams: a literary analysis essay. It needs a clear thesis, evidence (short quotations) and explanation of effects. Unlike a summary, it explains how and why a text works, not just what happens.
Examples
Your literary analysis should focus on one theme and support it with at least four quotations.
Too much of this literary analysis is plot summary; explain the techniques instead.
Usage note
Avoid 'In this essay I will tell the story of...'. Analysis essays usually begin with a thesis about meaning, not with a plot summary.
Common phrases
literary analysis essay · write a literary analysis · in-depth literary analysis · literary analysis of a poem
A careful, detailed reading of a short passage that pays attention to individual words, sounds, images and structure to show how they create meaning.
Where you use it
A core method in English departments, linked to the New Criticism of the mid-twentieth century and critics such as I. A. Richards. Exams often ask for a close reading of a passage or poem; students do or perform a close reading.
Examples
For the exam, you will do a close reading of an unseen passage.
A close reading of the first sentence reveals the whole novel's fear of change.
Usage note
'Close' here means 'careful and detailed', as in 'pay close attention', not 'near'. Pronounce it with /s/: clohss.
Common phrases
do a close reading · a close reading of · close reading skills · close reading exercise
The group of works generally accepted as the most important and influential in a literature, which are widely taught, studied and reprinted.
Where you use it
Common in debates about what to teach and read. Works enter, join or are excluded from the canon; critics call for expanding or challenging it to include more women, minority and non-Western writers. Harold Bloom's The Western Canon (1994) is a well-known defense of it.
Examples
Should contemporary Turkish novels be part of the literary canon taught in schools?
Many women writers were left out of the canon for over a century.
Usage note
Spelling trap: canon (one n in the middle) is a list of works; cannon (double n) is a large gun. Fans also use 'canon' for the official story of a series.
Common phrases
the literary canon · the Western canon · enter the canon · challenge the canon · canonical text
The study of the ideas and methods used to read and interpret literature, such as structuralism, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism and postcolonial theory.
Where you use it
A standard course in English departments, often just called 'theory'. Students apply a theory to a text, use a theoretical framework or approach a novel from a Marxist or postcolonial perspective. Theory asks what literature is and how meaning is made.
Examples
Our literary theory course moves from Russian Formalism to deconstruction.
You don't need to name a literary theory in every essay, but it helps to know them.
Usage note
Literary criticism interprets specific works; literary theory examines the methods and assumptions behind interpretation. In practice the two overlap.
Common phrases
literary theory course · critical theory · apply a theory · theoretical framework · postcolonial theory
The way texts shape and depend on other texts, through quotation, allusion, parody, imitation or rewriting, so that meaning comes partly from these connections.
Where you use it
Term introduced by Julia Kristeva in the late 1960s. Classic examples are Joyce's Ulysses, which reworks Homer's Odyssey, and Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, which retells the story of the first wife in Jane Eyre. Adjective: intertextual.
Examples
The novel's intertextuality with One Thousand and One Nights is clear from the first chapter.
Intertextuality is a key feature of postmodern fiction.
Usage note
An allusion is a single reference; intertextuality is the broader idea that every text is connected to many others.
Common phrases
intertextual references · intertextual reading · a high degree of intertextuality
An approach to literature that examines how texts represent women and gender, how power works between the sexes, and why women writers have been ignored.
Where you use it
Important texts include Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own (1929), Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex (1949) and Gilbert and Gubar's The Madwoman in the Attic (1979). Students offer a feminist reading of a novel or apply feminist criticism to a character.
Examples
Feminist criticism has changed how we read the 'madwoman' in Jane Eyre.
Apply feminist criticism to the two sisters in the novel: who has power, and why?
Usage note
In seminars people often say 'a feminist reading of' a text rather than 'feminist criticism of' it.
Ten questions from this glossary. Pick the right meaning for each term and see your score.
How to learn literature vocabulary
Read real texts in English every week: a short story, a few poems, a book review or an encyclopedia entry on a writer. Underline the analytical words reviewers and critics use, not only the unknown words in the story.
Learn the terms through works you already know. Describe a Turkish novel you love in English: its setting, protagonist, point of view, conflict and themes.
Learn terms in pairs and groups that critics contrast: simile and metaphor, theme and motif, round and flat characters, memoir and autobiography, soliloquy and monologue.
When you analyze a passage, use the pattern 'device + example + effect': name the technique, quote a few words, then explain what it does to the reader.
Say poetry terms aloud and tap the beats. Stress and rhythm are easier to understand when you hear them, and words like hyperbole, genre and soliloquy are often mispronounced.
Frequently asked questions
How can I learn literature vocabulary in English effectively?
Study by topic rather than alphabetically: first the elements of a story (plot, character, setting, theme, point of view), then figures of speech, poetry terms, drama and movements. Learn each term with an example from a book you know, and read real texts regularly, such as short stories, poems, book reviews and introductions to classic editions. Then write a short paragraph about a book in English using five or six of the new terms.
Which terms do I need first to write a literary analysis essay in English?
Start with the words that describe how a text works: plot, conflict, character, protagonist, narrator, point of view, setting, theme, tone and symbol. Then add the common devices (metaphor, simile, imagery, irony) and the verbs of analysis: suggest, convey, highlight, contrast, foreshadow. The first tier of this glossary covers exactly these.
Why do Turkish literary terms often have two names, like benzetme and teşbih?
Turkish literary vocabulary comes from different periods. Classical rhetoric gave Arabic and Persian terms (teşbih, istiare, mübalağa, kafiye), the language reform of the 20th century created Turkish ones (benzetme, eğretileme, abartma, uyak), and modern criticism borrowed European words (metafor, ironi, alegori). School books, translators and universities choose differently, so learn both Turkish names and match them to the single English term.
Is it better to read classics in the original English or in Turkish translation?
Both are useful. Reading a work you already know in Turkish is an easy way to start in English, because you can follow the plot and notice the language. Begin with modern prose, short stories or novellas, and leave Shakespeare and older poetry for later or read them in annotated student editions. For works originally written in other languages, an English translation is fine for learning the vocabulary of literary discussion.
