AQA GCSE English Literature: Love and Relationships Poetry Anthology Glossary

address
To address a person or group of people is to talk to them directly.

ambiguity
Ambiguity occurs when a word, phrase, or text has more than one meaning, creating uncertainty or complexity.

archetype
An archetype is a typical or familiar character.

argument
An argument is a reason, or a structured set of reasons, to justify a particular viewpoint.

aural imagery
Aural imagery appeals to the sense of hearing, describing sounds to make a scene more vivid for the reader.

bathos
Bathos is a sudden shift in mood from serious to comic.

climax
The climax of a narrative is the point of greatest excitement.

conversational
Conversational language is the type of informal English you might hear in everyday speech.

dialect
A dialect is a form of language, based on grammar and vocabulary, spoken in a particular region.

dramatic monologue
A dramatic monologue is a speech by one person, revealing their thoughts and feelings to the audience/reader.

extended metaphor
An extended metaphor is when a writer describes something as if it were something else, and does so making several different points of comparison, often over more than one sentence.

figurative language
Figurative language is the use of words to convey meaning in a non-literal way, for example in metaphors and similes.

first-person viewpoint
A first-person narrative is told from the perspective of the narrator using pronouns such as ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘me’, and ‘us’.

foreshadow
Foreshadowing is the fiction technique of making the reader anticipate events that will happen later, as in, ‘If I had known then, I might not have done what I did next’.

imagery
Imagery is the collective term referring to metaphors and similes.

imperative
An imperative is a sentence ordering or instructing the reader to do something, as in, ‘See for yourself’.

irony
Irony occurs when there is a contrast between what is expected and what happens, or when words mean the opposite of what they say.

method
A method is a way of doing something.

narrative
A narrative (noun) is a story. The word can also be used as an adjective to describe a text that tells a story.

pathos
Pathos is creating or suggesting a feeling of pity.

pastoral
Pastoral is a term given to a type of literature that focuses on feelings about the countryside and a happier past.

pathetic fallacy
Pathetic fallacy is the literary technique of giving human feelings to inanimate things, such as the weather.

personal pronoun
A personal pronoun is a word used in place of a name, for example, ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘you’.

place setting
A place setting is the location where an event occurs.

Punglish
Punglish is a blend of English and Punjabi speech.

quatrain
A quatrain is a four-line stanza.

revelation
A revelation is a point in a story where something important is revealed.

rhetorical question
A rhetorical question is one asked for dramatic effect, without expecting an answer.

second person
A second-person viewpoint (or ‘perspective’) is when a writer addresses the reader using ‘you’ and ‘your’.

sestet
A sestet is a group of six lines, usually the final six lines in a sonnet.

sonnet
A sonnet is a 14-line poem with a specific structure and rhyme scheme, often exploring the theme of love.

speaker
The speaker is the person narrating the poem.

stanza
A stanza is a set of grouped lines in a poem.

structure
The structure of a text is how its parts relate to each other to make a whole.

symbol
A symbol is an object that represents an idea.

third person
A third-person viewpoint (or ‘perspective’) is the narrative viewpoint in which an author assumes knowledge of all characters and writes about them using the pronouns ‘he’, ‘she’, or ‘they’.

time setting
A time setting is the point in time where events occur.

turning point
The turning point in a story is an event that changes the direction of the story.

voice
Voice in writing is the expression of the author’s personality or attitude, or that of a first-person character, through their choice of language.