Maharashtra HSC English Literature (MSBSHSE) flashcards

32 cards. Read the term and the definition here. The deck at the top of this page is optional.

Iambic pentameter

A metrical line of five iambic feet, each foot an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, giving ten syllables with stresses on even positions.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence beyond the end of a poetic line without a pause, producing forward momentum or suspense in the reading.

Caesura

A deliberate pause or break within a line of verse, often marked by punctuation, used to slow pace or emphasise the word before it.

Metonymy

A figure in which an associated object stands for the thing meant, as when 'the crown' refers to royal authority rather than a headpiece.

Soliloquy

A speech in which a character, alone on stage, voices inner thoughts aloud, giving the audience access to unspoken motive.

Dramatic irony

A situation where the audience possesses information that a character lacks, so the character's words carry a meaning they do not intend.

Hamartia

The error, misjudgement, or flaw in a tragic protagonist that contributes causally to the reversal of fortune the play depicts.

Stage direction

An instruction in a play script, usually in brackets or italics, covering movement, gesture, lighting, sound, or setting rather than spoken dialogue.

Bildungsroman

A novel tracing the growth of a central figure from youth to maturity, organised around formative experiences and a changed understanding of self.

Unreliable narrator

A narrator whose account is distorted by ignorance, bias, or self-interest, requiring the reader to judge between narration and implied event.

Frame narrative

A structure in which an outer story encloses one or more inner stories, so that the telling itself becomes part of the novel's subject.

Motif

A recurring image, phrase, or situation in a literary work whose repetition builds symbolic weight and links separate parts of the text.

Subplot

A secondary causal sequence of events running alongside the main plot, often mirroring or complicating the central conflict.

Situational irony

A gap between expectation and outcome, where an event or ending contradicts what characters and readers were led to anticipate.

Point of view

The narrative position from which a story is told, determining what information reaches the reader and how characters are judged.

Tone versus mood

Tone is the author's or narrator's attitude towards the subject; mood is the emotional atmosphere the text creates in the reader.

Topic sentence

The opening sentence of a paragraph that announces its controlling idea, allowing the reader to predict the paragraph's direction.

Cohesive device

A word or phrase such as 'however' or 'therefore' that signals the logical relation between sentences or between parts of an argument.

Summary paraphrase rule

A summary restates the source's main points in the writer's own words, omitting examples and repetition, and stays within the word limit.

Skimming versus scanning

Skimming reads quickly for the general idea; scanning moves the eyes rapidly to locate a specific word, date, name, or figure.

Inference in comprehension

A conclusion drawn from the passage but not stated in it, valid only when a specific line or phrase supports it.

Vocabulary in context

The meaning of a word as fixed by its surrounding sentence, which can differ from the word's most frequent dictionary sense.

Topic sentence extraction

A summary technique that identifies the main sentence of each paragraph, then combines those ideas into one coherent paragraph.

Reported speech backshift

When direct speech becomes indirect, present tenses usually shift to past, and time and place words change, as 'now' becomes 'then'.

Third conditional

A sentence pattern for unreal past situations: if plus past perfect in the condition, and would have plus past participle in the result.

Subject-verb agreement rule

The verb agrees with the head noun of the subject, ignoring intervening prepositional phrases, except with correlatives where the nearer subject governs.

Collocation

A conventional word partnership such as 'depend on' or 'comply with', where substituting a synonym breaks the accepted combination.

Formal letter format

Sender's address, date, receiver's designation and address, subject line, salutation, three-paragraph body, subscription, and signature, without contractions.

Report writing structure

Title, reporter's name and designation, date, then a factual body in past tense and third person, closing with recommendations if required.

Review verdict

A one-line judgement of a work placed early in the review, then supported by two or three specific observations and a defined recommendation.

Expansion of an idea

A short composition built from a stated idea, developed through explanation, illustration, counterpoint, and a concluding restatement in the writer's own words.

Complaint letter structure

State the problem with a date or reference, describe its consequence, request a specific remedy, and set a reasonable deadline for response.