English 11 Literary Terms
The following is a list of literary terms/elements that you have studied in the past few years of
English class. The first list contains elements and terms that you should already know. If any are
hazy or unfamiliar, be sure to look them up. We will use these terms in class, you will see them
on quizzes, tests, and they will be required in literary analysis papers.
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Point of view: first person, second person, third person omniscient, third person
limited
Irony: verbal, situational, dramatic
Conflict: internal and external
Characters: protagonist/antagonist, stereotyped, dynamic/static, unreliable
narrator
Plot: rising action, climax, falling action, resolution
 Analogy
 Foreshadow
 Dialect
 Genre
 Oxymoron
 Personification
 Parody
 Onomatopoeia
 Theme
 Symbol
 Mood
 Setting
 Tone
 Flashback
 Metaphor
 Hyperbole
 Simile
The second list of words are terms/elements that you may or may not know. We will go
over these in class, and you should expect a quiz over these:
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Cliché
Connotation
Denotation
Ambiguous
Pun
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Euphemism
Allusion
Diction
Inference/infer
Implication/imply
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Understatement
Motif
Idiom
Aphorism