9th Grade Literary Terms
**Highlighted terms are of particular importance on the Midterm Exam.
**All terms will be discussed throughout the year and students are responsible for knowing
every term listed in this packet for the
Final Exam.
Suspense: a feeling of curiosity, uncertainty, or
even dread about what is going to happen in a
story
Symbol/Symbolism: any person, animal, place,
object, or event that exists on a literal level
within a work but also represents something on
a figurative level. Something that stands for
something else.
Example: the American flag symbolizes freedom
Theme: the main idea or message of a story,
poem, novel, or play often expressed as a
general statement about life.
Tone: tone expresses the author's attitude
toward his or her subject.
Tragedy: according to A. C. Bradley, a tragedy
is a type of drama, which is pre-eminently the
story of one person, the hero. "Romeo and
Juliet" and "Antony and Cleopatra" depart from
this, however, and we may view both characters
in each play as one protagonist. The story
depicts the trouble part of the hero's life in which
a total reversal of fortune comes upon a person
who formerly stood in high degree, apparently
secure, sometimes even happy.
Transitions: connecting words needed between
paragraphs in writing.
Understatement: a statement, which lessens or
minimizes the importance of what is meant.
Verbal Irony: a person says one thing and
means another (sarcasm)
Climax
Rising
Action
Falling
Action
Exposition Resolution
Plot Structure Diagram
9th Grade Literary Terms
, **Highlighted terms are of particular importance on the Midterm Exam.
**All terms will be discussed throughout the year and students are responsible for knowing
every term listed in this packet for the
Final Exam.
Parody: a humorous imitation of a literary work
that aims to point out the work’s shortcomings
Personification: a figure of speech in which
something nonhuman is given human
characteristics.
Plot: the structure of a story. The sequence in
which the author arranges events in a story.
(See diagram at end of packet.)
Point-of-View: the perspective from which the
story is told.
• First Person narrator or "I."
• Omniscient narrator knows everything,
may reveal the motivations, thoughts
and feelings of the characters, and gives
the reader information.
• Limited-omniscient narrator, the material
is presented from the point of view of a
character, in third person.
• Objective narrator presents the action
and the characters' speech, without
comment or emotion. The reader has to
interpret them and uncover their
meaning.
Protagonist: the hero or central character of a
literary work.
Pun: a play on words wherein a word is used to
convey two meanings at the same time.
Repetition: the reoccurrence of sounds, words,
phrases, lines, or stanzas in a speech or literary
work
Resolution: the part of a story or drama which
occurs after the climax and which establishes a
new norm, a new state of affairs-the way things
are going to be from then on.
Rhyme: in poetry, a pattern of repeated sounds.
Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhymed words in
a stanza or generalized throughout a poem,
expressed in alphabetic terms.
Rhythm: recurrences of stressed and
unstressed syllables at equal intervals, similar to
**Highlighted terms are of particular importance on the Midterm Exam.
**All terms will be discussed throughout the year and students are responsible for knowing
every term listed in this packet for the
Final Exam.
Suspense: a feeling of curiosity, uncertainty, or
even dread about what is going to happen in a
story
Symbol/Symbolism: any person, animal, place,
object, or event that exists on a literal level
within a work but also represents something on
a figurative level. Something that stands for
something else.
Example: the American flag symbolizes freedom
Theme: the main idea or message of a story,
poem, novel, or play often expressed as a
general statement about life.
Tone: tone expresses the author's attitude
toward his or her subject.
Tragedy: according to A. C. Bradley, a tragedy
is a type of drama, which is pre-eminently the
story of one person, the hero. "Romeo and
Juliet" and "Antony and Cleopatra" depart from
this, however, and we may view both characters
in each play as one protagonist. The story
depicts the trouble part of the hero's life in which
a total reversal of fortune comes upon a person
who formerly stood in high degree, apparently
secure, sometimes even happy.
Transitions: connecting words needed between
paragraphs in writing.
Understatement: a statement, which lessens or
minimizes the importance of what is meant.
Verbal Irony: a person says one thing and
means another (sarcasm)
Climax
Rising
Action
Falling
Action
Exposition Resolution
Plot Structure Diagram
9th Grade Literary Terms
, **Highlighted terms are of particular importance on the Midterm Exam.
**All terms will be discussed throughout the year and students are responsible for knowing
every term listed in this packet for the
Final Exam.
Parody: a humorous imitation of a literary work
that aims to point out the work’s shortcomings
Personification: a figure of speech in which
something nonhuman is given human
characteristics.
Plot: the structure of a story. The sequence in
which the author arranges events in a story.
(See diagram at end of packet.)
Point-of-View: the perspective from which the
story is told.
• First Person narrator or "I."
• Omniscient narrator knows everything,
may reveal the motivations, thoughts
and feelings of the characters, and gives
the reader information.
• Limited-omniscient narrator, the material
is presented from the point of view of a
character, in third person.
• Objective narrator presents the action
and the characters' speech, without
comment or emotion. The reader has to
interpret them and uncover their
meaning.
Protagonist: the hero or central character of a
literary work.
Pun: a play on words wherein a word is used to
convey two meanings at the same time.
Repetition: the reoccurrence of sounds, words,
phrases, lines, or stanzas in a speech or literary
work
Resolution: the part of a story or drama which
occurs after the climax and which establishes a
new norm, a new state of affairs-the way things
are going to be from then on.
Rhyme: in poetry, a pattern of repeated sounds.
Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhymed words in
a stanza or generalized throughout a poem,
expressed in alphabetic terms.
Rhythm: recurrences of stressed and
unstressed syllables at equal intervals, similar to
