Dr. Murray and Anna C. Rockowitz Writing Center, Hunter College, City University of New York
WRITING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM
Glossary of Literary Terms
ACTION: The events in a literary work. Action should not be confused with the more
comprehensive term, plot. The action in Hamlet, for example, simply begins with the guards'
visitation by the Ghost and ends with the carrying out of the dead Hamlet.
ALLEGORY: A literary work where the setting, characters, or action make sense on a literal
level, but also convey an abstract level of meaning, which is usually religious or political in
nature. Unlike metaphors and symbols, an allegorical setting, character or action is one-
dimensional: it stands for only one thing. Parables, fables, and satires are all forms of allegory.
For example, the character Christian in John Bunyan's allegory Pilgrim's Progress stands for the
human soul; the animals in Aesop's fables stand for moral virtues and vices such as persistence
and greed; and the animals in George Orwell's satiric novel Animal Farm stand for political
ideologies.
ALLUSION: A brief reference in a literary work to a person, place, thing or passage in another
literary work, usually for the purpose of associating the tone or theme of the one work with the
other. The many allusions in T. S. Eliot's poem “The Wasteland,” for example, refer to the Bible
and Milton's Paradise Lost.
CHARACTER, CHARACTERIZATION: A character is a person—or, in the case of such
works as Aesop's fables, a non-human with a human personality—in a literary work. Character
can also refer to the particular, unique traits of a person in a literary work. Characterization is the
way in which an author presents and defines characters. A "flat character" is one who is
minimally described, stereotypical or who has only one purpose (e.g., your basic blood-sucking
Count Dracula), while a "round character" is one who is presented in greater depth and detail
(e.g., the troubled, sympathetic Brad Pitt vampire in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire); a
character who does not undergo any change is called a "static character" (e.g., Tiny Tim in
Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol"), while a character who undergoes some sort of trans-
formation is called a "dynamic character" (e.g., Scrooge in the same work).
CONFLICT: The struggle between opposing forces—for example, characters, nations, or
ideas—that provides the central action and interest in any literary plot. The struggle between the
Capulet and Montague families in Romeo and Juliet is a classic example of conflict.
CONTEXT: Anything beyond the specific words of a literary work that may be relevant to
understanding the meaning. Contexts may be economic, social, cultural, historical, literary,
biographical, etc. The political context of the rule of Elizabeth and James, the religious context
of Calvinism, the social context of homosexual relations and cross-dressing and the literary
context of Renaissance literature, for example, all have significant implications for
understanding the words of Shakespeare.
