Master Literary Terms: 121 Flashcards from Abecedarius to Metonymy

Anagnorisis, hamartia, hendiadys, catalexis. Literary vocabulary is the one part of an English course you cannot reason your way through during an exam — either the word is in your head or it isn't. The Literary Terms deck (code HO9068) on Flip It holds 121 definitions running alphabetically from Abecedarius to Metonymy, and it is built for exactly that kind of recall.

Sample cards from the deck

What the 121 cards cover

Four families of terms, mixed together alphabetically:

• Sound and metre — iamb, anapest, dactyl, caesura, catalexis, dimeter, heptameter, hexameter, iambic pentameter, cadence, euphony, consonance, alliteration, end rhyme, internal rhyme, masculine and feminine rhyme, eye rhyme, fourteener, blank verse, free verse.
• Forms and genres — ballad, elegy, eclogue, aubade, haiku, limerick, cinquain, couplet, canto, epic poem, lyric poem, dramatic monologue, fable, beast fable, fairy tale, chanson de geste, chapbook, gothic novel, domestic tragedy, farce, anthology, frame story.
• Plot and character — exposition, climax, crisis, dénouement, foreshadowing, flashback, flashforward, analepsis, archetype, antagonist, antihero, Byronic hero, foil, flat character, dynamic character, doppelgänger, characterization, dramatis personæ, catharsis, hubris, epiphany.
• Rhetoric and figures — allegory, allusion, analogy, antithesis, aphorism, apothegm, adage, aposiopesis, apostrophe, anadiplosis, asyndeton, chiasmus, conceit, extended metaphor, metaphor, hyperbole, hyperbaton, bathos, caricature, diction, denotation, imagery, irony, dramatic irony, intertextuality, ekphrasis, epigraph, epilogue, epitaph, epithet, ethos.

Two tips for this specific deck

Attach one named example to every term. The deck already does this for several cards — Iago as the antagonist of Othello, "Peter Piper picked a peck" for alliteration. Do it for the rest as you review: Jane Eyre for the Bildungsroman, the sun-chariot that carries Medea off at the end of Euripides' play for deus ex machina. A definition recalled alone fades; a definition welded to a text you have actually read survives the exam.

Sort the near-twins into pairs and drill them head to head. This deck is full of them: adage / aphorism / apothegm, analepsis / flashback, climax / crisis, flat / dynamic character, masculine / feminine rhyme, allegory / analogy. Examiners test exactly these boundaries, so review the pair in one sitting and write the one-line difference yourself rather than reading it.

Getting through it

Twenty cards a day puts the whole deck in front of you in six days; after that, let spaced repetition thin it out and spend your time on the Greek-derived terms that keep resurfacing.

Open HO9068 — Literary Terms in your library at flip-it.app. Pair it with Remember 141 Famous Authors and Their Works so the terms have books attached to them.