MATSEC SEC English Literature flashcards

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

Free indirect discourse

Third-person narration that adopts a character's vocabulary, syntax and judgements without quotation marks, blending narrator and character voice so the reader hears both perspectives at once.

Peripeteia

A reversal of fortune in tragedy, where the protagonist's situation turns sharply from prosperity to disaster, often triggered by the same trait that earlier seemed a strength.

Anagnorisis

The moment of recognition in tragedy when a character moves from ignorance to knowledge about their own identity, situation or error, frequently coinciding with the reversal of fortune.

Dramatic irony

A gap between what a character understands and what the audience knows, creating tension or pathos; common in soliloquy and in scenes where one character is deceived.

Soliloquy versus aside

A soliloquy is a speech delivered alone on stage revealing private thought; an aside is a brief remark spoken to the audience while other characters remain present and cannot hear it.

Unreliable narrator

A narrator whose account the reader has reason to distrust because of limited knowledge, self-interest, contradiction or distorted judgement, forcing active reinterpretation of events.

Subplot mirroring

A secondary storyline that echoes the main plot's concerns with different characters, clarifying or complicating the central theme by parallel or contrast.

Iambic pentameter

A line of five metrical feet, each an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, giving ten syllables; the standard metre of Shakespearean blank verse and much English poetry.

Blank verse

Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter; its regularity gives dignity and its freedom from rhyme allows natural speech rhythm, making it common in verse drama.

Petrarchan sonnet structure

Fourteen lines divided into an octave rhyming abbaabba and a sestet with variable rhyme; the volta or turn typically falls between line eight and line nine.

Shakespearean sonnet structure

Fourteen lines in three quatrains rhyming abab cdcd efef plus a rhyming couplet gg; the argument develops across quatrains and the couplet usually delivers a turn or summary.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence beyond the end of a line or stanza without punctuation, creating momentum and unsettling the reader's expectation of pause.

Caesura

A pause or break within a line of verse, marked by punctuation or syntax, which can slow pace, create emphasis or mimic speech hesitation.

Sibilance

Repetition of s, sh or z sounds in close proximity, producing a hissing or whispering texture that can suggest secrecy, menace, softness or movement.

Metonymy versus synecdoche

Metonymy substitutes an associated thing for the thing meant (crown for monarchy); synecdoche substitutes a part for a whole or a whole for a part (hands for workers).

Dramatic monologue

A poem spoken by a single character to an implied listener at a critical moment, revealing personality and circumstance indirectly through what the speaker chooses to say.

Volta

The turn in a poem's argument, mood or perspective; in a Petrarchan sonnet it usually arrives at line nine, in a Shakespearean sonnet often at the final couplet.

Feminine rhyme

A rhyme in which the final syllable is unstressed, as in bending and lending, producing a softer or lighter close than a stressed masculine rhyme.

Semantic field

A group of words in a text sharing a related area of meaning, such as words of illness or of finance; tracking the field reveals a passage's underlying preoccupations.

Periodic sentence

A sentence that withholds its main clause until the end, building suspense and forcing the reader to hold earlier material in mind before meaning resolves.

Situational irony

An outcome that reverses expectation, as when precautions produce the very disaster they were meant to prevent; distinct from verbal irony, which lies in what is said.

Imagery cluster

A recurring set of related images across a text, such as light and darkness or heat and cold, whose development or contradiction carries thematic weight.

Register

The level of formality and social positioning of language, ranging from colloquial to elevated; shifts in register often signal shifts in power, intimacy or self-control.

Annotating an unseen passage

Marking who speaks, to whom, the situation, then flagging two or three striking choices of diction, syntax or imagery with a note on their effect before writing.

Feature-spotting

Naming a literary device without explaining its effect in context; examiners treat this as description rather than analysis and it earns little credit.

Arguable thesis

A specific claim about a text that a reasonable reader could contest, supported by evidence; unlike a fact or plot summary it requires proof and shapes the whole essay.

Claim, evidence, analysis, link

A paragraph pattern: state a point, quote briefly, examine the wording's effect, then connect back to the essay's thesis; analysis should outweigh quotation.

Contextual integration

Using historical or social information only where it explains a specific textual choice, rather than displaying background knowledge separately from the analysis.

Adjudicating interpretations

Presenting a second reading of a text, then weighing it against the evidence and stating which is more persuasive and why, showing independent critical judgement.

Signposting in argument

Connective words such as moreover, conversely, nevertheless and this undercuts that make the logic of an essay visible to the reader between and within paragraphs.

Quotation embedding

Fitting a short quotation into your own sentence grammar rather than isolating it, so the analysis flows directly from the quoted words.

Evaluative conclusion

A closing paragraph that states what the analysis revealed about the text's overall design or values and acknowledges a limit to the reading, rather than restating the introduction.