Lit Terms List 3

1. exposition: beginning of a story that sets forth facts, ideas, and/or characters, in a detailed explanation
2. expressionism: movement in art, literature, and music consisting of unrealistic representation of an inner idea or feeling
3. fable: a short, simple story, usually with animals as characters, designed to teach a moral truth
4. fallacy: from the Latin word "to deceive", a false or misleading notion, belief, or argument; any kind of erroneous reasoning that makes arguments unsound
5. falling action: part of the narrative or drama after the climax
6. farce: boisterous comedy with ludicrous comedy and dialogue
7. figurative language: imaginative language characterized by figures of speech (such as a simile or metaphor)
8. flashback: narrative device that flashes back to prior events
9. foil: person or thing that, by contrast, makes another seem better or more prominent
10. folk tale: story passed on by word of mouth
11. foreshadowing: in fiction and drama, a device to prepare the reader for the outcome of the action; "planning" to make the outcome convincing though not to give it away
12. free verse: verse without a conventional metrical pattern, with irregular pattern or no rhyme
13. genre: category or class of artistic endeavor having a particular form, technique, content
14. Gothic tale: style in literature characterized by gloomy settings, violet or grotesque action, and a mood of decay, degeneration, decadence
15. hyperbole: exaggerated statement often used as a figure of speech or to prove a point
16. imagery: figures of or vivid description, conveying images through any use of the senses
17. implication: meaning or understanding that is to be arrived at by the reader but that is not fully and explicitly stated by the author
18. incongruity: deliberate joining of opposites or of elements that aren't appropriate to each other
19. inference: judgement or conclusion based on evidence presented; the forming of  an opinion which possesses some degree of probability according to the facts already available
20. irony: contrast or incongruity between what is said and what is meant, or what is thought to happen and what actually happens.