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83 Cards in this Set
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analogy
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a comparison of two unlike things; in argumentation, it is frequently used to justify contentions
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antithesis
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a figure of speech in which one term/phrase/idea is balanced against another for emphasis; the balancing/opposition is usually signaled by similar grammatical structure
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anecdote
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a short narrative detailing the particulars of an episode
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either/or fallacy
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assuming there are only two options available for discussion in an argument
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ad hominem
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attacking a person's personal attributes/qualities/flaws rather than addressing the points of his/her argument
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slippery slope
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arguing that because one premise is valid that the other premises follow until an almost worst case conclusion is reached
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allusion
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indirect reference to literary works or historic figures, settings, events
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rhetorical question
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asking a question that seems to answer itself or asking a question that has an obvious answer
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anaphora
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an initial word or phrase is repeated in a structure or a series of structures
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parallel structure
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the repeating of phrases or sentence structures that are similar/parallel in meaing and structure
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synechdoche
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the substituting of a person, place or thing with some part of it
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dramatic irony
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the reader or the audience sees a character's mistakes or misunderstandings, but the character himself does not
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Metonymy
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the substituting of one word for another that is closely related to it
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verbal irony
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the writer says one thing and means another: "The best substitute for experience is being sixteen"
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Situational irony
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there is a great difference between the purpose of a particular action and the result
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Periodic Sentence
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A structure in which an independent clause is preceded by a series of two or more dependent clauses; in other words a structure that postpones the crucial or most significant idea until the end of the structure
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E.g.: "Following my mother's repeated threats of being grounded for life, I decided it was time to propose a compromise"
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Cumulative Sentence
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A sentence that places the general idea in the main clause and gives it greater precision with modifying words, phrases, or clauses placed before it, after it, or in the middle of it.
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E.g. "Eyes squinting, puffy, always on alert, he showed the effects of a week in the forest."
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Balanced Sentence
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A sentence constructed so that it emphasizes a similarity or contrast between two or more main parts
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E.g. "Joe's unusual security system invited burglars and scared off friends."
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Loose Sentence
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A sentence which expressed the main thought near the beginning and adds explanatory material as needed
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E.g. "We bashed the pinata for 15 minutes without denting it, although we at least avoided denting one another's craniums and, with masks raised, finally pried the candy out with screwdrivers.
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Compound Sentence
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Consists of two independent clauses which must be joined by a coordinating conjunction, by punctuation, or by both.
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E.g. "Energy is part of youth, but both are quickly spent."
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Complex Sentence
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Contains one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.
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E.g. "People often say wise things, such as age is a state of mind."
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Compound-complex Sentence
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Contains two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.
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E.g. "My body is rather old, and age is not a state of mind, unless my bald head is an illusion.
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Ambiguity
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Syntactic ambiguity arises when a sentence can be phrased in more than one way.
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“He ate the cookies on the couch”
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Antihero
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a protagonist or notable figure who is conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities
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Anadiplosis
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The repetition of the last word (or phrase) from the previous line, clause, or sentence at the beginning of the next. Often combined with climax
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The love of wicked men converts to fear,
That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both To worthy danger and deserved death. |
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Antecedent
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a substantive word, phrase, or clause whose denotation is referred to by a pronoun
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as John in "Mary saw John and called to him"
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Anticlimax
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1 : the usually sudden transition in discourse from a significant idea to a trivial or ludicrous idea; also : an instance of this transition
2 : an event, period, or outcome that is strikingly less important or dramatic than expected |
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Antimetabole/Chiasmus
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Repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order.
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When the going gets tough, the tough get going
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Antithesis
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In rhetoric, it is a figure of speech involving the bringing out of a contrast in the ideas by an obvious contrast in the words, clauses, or sentences, within a parallel grammatical structure
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"When there is need of silence, you speak, and when there is need of speech, you are dumb..."
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Apostrophe
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Turning one's speech from one audience to another. Most often, apostrophe occurs when one addresses oneself to an abstraction, to an inanimate object, or to the absent.
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O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth,
That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! Thou art the ruins of the noblest man That ever lived in the tide of times. |
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Antiphrasis
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Irony of one word, often derisively through patent contradiction. Also, a synonym for paralipsis
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"Now there's a midget for you"
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Deism
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a movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe
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Deus Ex Machina
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a person or thing (as in fiction or drama) that appears or is introduced suddenly and unexpectedly and provides a contrived solution to an apparently insoluble difficulty
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Dystopia
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an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives
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Anti-utopia
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Ellipsis
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Omission of a word or short phrase easily understood in context.
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"The average person thinks he isn't." –Father Larry Lorenzoni
The term "average" is omitted but understood after "isn't." |
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Epistrophe
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Ending a series of lines, phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word or words.
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What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us." —Emerson
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Epistolary
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written in the form of a series of letters
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Epigraph
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a quotation set at the beginning of a literary work or one of its divisions to suggest its theme
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Epitaph
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1 : an inscription on or at a tomb or a grave in memory of the one buried there
2 : a brief statement commemorating or epitomizing a deceased person or something past |
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Euphony
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a harmonious succession of words having a pleasing sound
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Existentialism
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a chiefly 20th century philosophical movement embracing diverse doctrines but centering on analysis of individual existence in an unfathomable universe and the plight of the individual who must assume ultimate responsibility for acts of free will without any certain knowledge of what is right or wrong or good or bad
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Expletive
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a syllable, word, or phrase inserted to fill a vacancy (as in a sentence or a metrical line) without adding to the sense
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it in "make it clear which you prefer"
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Fallacy: Bandwagon
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Another way to avoid using logic in an argument is to appeal to everyone's sense of wanting to belong or be accepted. By suggesting that everyone is doing this or wearing that or going there, you can avoid the real question--"is this idea or claim a good one or not?"
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Everyone on the team wears high-tops. It's the only way to go.
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Fallacy: Circular reasoning or thinking
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This fallacy consists of assuming, in a definition or an argument, the very point you are trying to prove.
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I hate Mr. Baldwin's class because I'm never happy there.
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Fallacy: False analogy
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An analogy is an extended comparison. It can be valuable in clarifying a difficult point or dramatizing an abstract idea. But no matter how many suggestive similarities there may be, they can never be more than suggestive since there must also be a difference.
Some analogies assume that a few similarities mean that the two actions are alike in all other respects. The writer attempts to prove that because one action is justified, the other must be justified too. All differences are ignored. |
The chairman has been unjustly criticized in this country for executing his political opponents in order to create a better soicety. surely one of the oldest truths is that you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
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Fallacy: Hasty generalization
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takes in everything and everyone at once, allowing no exceptions. For example, a braod generalization about voters might be, "all voters spend too little time reading about about a candidate and too much time being swayed by 30-second sound bites." but it is unfair to suggest that this is true of all voters.
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All teenagers spend too much time watching TV
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Fallacy: Red Herring
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In argumentation, a red herring means that the writer has brought in a point that has little or nothing to do with the issue being discussed.
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Brian should not enroll in State College because it doesn't offer a major in environmental studies.
Anyway, State college places too much emphasis on sports. |
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Fallacy: Slanted language
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By choosing words that carry strong positive or negative feelings, a person can distract the audience, leading them away from the valid arguments being made.
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No one in his right mind would do something that dumb.
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Figurative language
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Figurative language uses "figures of speech" - a way of saying something other than the literal meaning of the words
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"All the world's a stage."
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Flashback/analepsis
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an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached
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Foil
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A foil character is either one who is opposite to the main character or nearly the same as the main character. The purpose of the foil character is to emphasize the traits of the main character by contrast, and perhaps by setting up situations in which the protagonist can show his or her character traits. A foil is a secondary character who contrasts with a major character but, in so doing, highlights various facets of the main character's personality.
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Watson to Sherlock Holmes
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Formal vs. Informal
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The ways of speech and writing. We speak informally, but generally should write formally.
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Dad vs. Father
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Appeal to Ignorance
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One commits this logical fallacy by claiming that since no one has ever proved a claim, it must therefore be false. Appeals to ignorance unfairly shift teh burden of proof onto someone else
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Show me one study that proves seatbelts save lives
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Appeal to Pity
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This fallacy may be heard in the courts of law when an attorney begs for leniency because his clients mother is ill, his brother is out of work, etc. This is a strong tug on the heartstrings.
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Imagine what it must have been like. If anyone deserves a break, he does.
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Half-Truths
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Arguments that contain parts of the truth, but not the whole truth. They are especially misleading because they leave out the "rest of the story."
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The new recycling law is bad because it will cost more money than it saves.
(Maybe so, but it will also save the environment.) |
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Oversimplification
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Phrases like "it all boils down to...," etc. Almost no dispute among reasonably intelligent people is a "simple question of..."
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Capital punishment is a simple question of protecting society
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Testimonial
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If the statement comes from a recognized authority in teh field, great. If it comes from a person famous in another field it can be misleading.
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Sports hero:"I've tried every cold medicine on the market, and--believe me--nothing works like Comptrol."
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Litotes
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Deliberate understatement, especially when expressing a thought by denying its opposite.
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It isn't very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain. —J.D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
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Parallelism
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Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses.
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parallelism of words:
She tried to make her pastry fluffy, sweet, and delicate. parallelism of phrases: Singing a song or writing a poem is joyous. parallelism of clauses: Perch are inexpensive; cod are cheap; trout are abundant; but salmon are best. |
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Inference
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A judgement based on reasoning rather than on direct or explicit statement. A conclusion based on facts or circumstances.
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advised not to travel alone in temperatures exceeding fifty degrees below zero, the man in Jack London's "To Build a Fire" sets out anyway. One may infer arrogance from such an action.
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Mood
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The atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work, partly by a description of the objects or by the style of the descriptions. A work may contain a mood of horror, mystery, holiness, or childlike simplicity, to name a few, depending on the author's treatment of the work.
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Satire
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A piece of literature designed to ridicule the subject of the work. While satire can be funny, its aim is not to amuse, but to arouse contempt.
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Jonathan swift's "Gulliver's Travels" satirizes the English people, making them seem dwarfish in their ability to deal with large thoughts, issues, or deeds.
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Hubris
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hubris denotes overconfident pride and arrogance; it is often associated with a lack of knowledge, interest in, and exploration of history, combined with a lack of humility.
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Juxtaposition
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A placing or being placed in nearness or contiguity, or side by side, often done in order to compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences
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Stream of Consciousness
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a literary device that seeks to describe the continuous flow of thoughts that makes up an individual's conscious experience by means of a long, unstructured soliloquy
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Syllogism
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Every syllogism is a sequence of three propositions such that the first two imply the third, the conclusion
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Puritanism
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Puritan of 16th and 17th century England was any person seeking "purity" of worship and doctrine, especially the parties that rejected the Laudian reform of the Church of England.
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Romanticism
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Romanticism is an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in 18th century Western Europe during the industrial revolution. In part a revolt against aristocratic, social, and political norms of the Enlightenment period and a reaction against the rationalization of nature, in art and literature. It stressed strong emotion as a source of aesthetic experience, placing new emphasis on such emotions as trepidation, horror, and the awe experienced in confronting the sublimity of nature.
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Victorian
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The Victorian era of the United Kingdom marked the height of the British industrial revolution and the apex of the British Empire. Although commonly used to refer to the period of Queen Victoria's rule between 1837 and 1901, scholars debate whether the Victorian period—as defined by a variety of sensibilities and political concerns that have come to be associated with the Victorians
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Realism
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a theory of writing in which the ordinary, familiar, or mundane aspects of life are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner that is presumed to reflect life as it actually is.
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Syntax
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the study of the patterns of formation of sentences and phrases from words.
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transcendentalism
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Also called transcendental philosophy. any philosophy based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought, or a philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical
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verisimilitude
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the appearance or semblance of truth; likelihood; probability
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vignette
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a decorative design or small illustration used on the title page of a book or at the beginning or end of a chapter.
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Asyndenton
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repetition of the same word/group of words at the beginning of succeeding clauses
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caesura
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pause in a line of verse dictated by sense or natural speech rhythm rather than by metrics
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zeugma/syllepsis
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a yoking of opposites
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wage war and peace
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chiasma
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parallelism; a crossover effect
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Bathos
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Writing is bathetic when it strives to be serious but only achieves a comical effect because it is anti-climactic
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Bildungsroman
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a novel about the moral and psychological growth of the main character
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Cacophony
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harsh sound; opposite of euphony
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Colloquialism
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speaking in the local or regional dialect, generally inappropriately informal
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Conceit
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An extended metaphor.
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