Unit 2: Parts 1 & 2 Literary Terms

Characterization is the creation and development of a character.

In direct characterization, a writer tells you what a character is like.

In indirect characterization, the writer reveals a character's personality through the character's speech, thoughts, actions, appearance, and other characters' reactions.

In poetry, the systematic arrangement of stressed ( ' ) and unstressed ( ˘ ) syllables is called meter.

The meter of a poem can affect the mood, or emotional quality, it evokes in a reader.

To check your understanding of what you have read, summarize the work or parts of the work by briefly stating the main ideas and supporting details in your own words.

Write a compare-and-contrast essay in which you describe the mood evoked by each passage and discuss the stylistic devices the poet uses to create those moods.

Write a compare-and-contrast essay in which you describe the mood evoked by each passage and discuss the stylistic devices the poet uses to create those moods.

When referring to a written work, a commission is a type of government document in which an official person or institution assigns a special task to someone.

Hawthorne called "The Minister's Black Veil" a parable, or story that teaches a moral lesson.

However, unlike religious parables such as those in the Bible, Hawthorne's parable teaches a lesson full of ambiguity, or uncertain meaning.

A symbol is an object, setting, or even a character that has meaning as itself but also stands for something greater—often an abstract idea.

To interpret the essential meaning of this story, draw inferences by noting descriptions, dialogue, and characters' actions and assessing them in view of your own understanding of human nature.

Analyzing the symbol of the whale will help you identify the novel's theme, its central message or comment on life.

Write an interpretive essay in which you explore the veil's significance.

Adjectives and adverbs can take three forms: positive, comparative, and superlative.

Adjectives and adverbs can take three forms: positive, comparative, and superlative.

Adjectives and adverbs can take three forms: positive, comparative, and superlative.

A participle is a verb form, usually ending in -ing or -ed, that can be used as an adjective.

A gerund is a verb form ending in -ing that acts as a noun.

An infinitive is a verb form that appears with the word "to" and acts as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb.

All of these verbals can be used with modifiers and complements to make a phrase, a group of words that lacks a subject or verb but adds detail to a sentence.

Poe then says that he wanted a refrain, or repeated set of phrases or lines, containing the o and r sounds, but he needed to find the right word...

Write an analytical essay in which you explore the importance of setting in these two stories.

For each vocabulary word, select the best synonym from the column on the right.