Glossary of literary terms

See also: Glossary of poetry terms, Literary criticism, Literary theory, and Index of literature articles

The following is a list of literary terms; that is, those words used in discussion, classification, criticism, and analysis of poetry, novels, and picture books.

Term	Description	Citation	Category	Notes
Abecedarius
Acatalectic
Accent	Noun used to describe the stress put on a certain syllable while speaking a word. Ex.- In Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan,” there has been much controversy over the pronunciation of “Abora” in line 41. According to Herbert Tucker of the website For Better For Verse, the accent is on the first and last syllable of the word, making its pronunciation: AborA.
Accentual verse
Acrostic	An acrostic is a poem or other form of writing in which the first letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message.
Act
Adjective	a word or phrase which modifies a noun or pronoun, grammatically added to describe, identify, or quantify the related noun or pronoun.
Adverb	A describing word used to modify a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Typically ending in -ly, adverbs answer the questions when, how, and how many times.
Aisling
Allegory	A specific type of writing in which the settings, characters, and events stand for other specific people, events, or ideas.
Alliteration	Repetition of the initial sounds of words, as in “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”
Allusion	A figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication.
Anachronism	Erroneous use of an object, event, idea, or word that does not belong to that time period.
Anacrusis
Anadiplosis
Anagnorisis	The point in a plot where a character recognizes the true state of affairs
Analects
Analepsis	An interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached
Analogue
Analogy	Comparison between two things that are otherwise unlike. Ex. The dress is as white as snow.
Anapest	a version of the foot in poetry in which the first two syllables of a line are unstressed, followed by a stressed syllable. Ex. Intercept (the syllables in and ter are unstressed followed by cept which is stressed)
Anaphora
Anastrophe
Anecdote
Annal
Annotation
Antagonist
Antanaclasis
Antecedent	A word or phrase referred to by any relative pronoun.
Antepenult
Anthology
Anticlimax
Anti-hero
Anti-masque
Anti-romance
Antimetabole
Antinovel
Antistrophe
Antithesis
Antithetical couplet
Antonym
Aphorism
Apocope
Apocrypha
Apollonian and Dionysian
Apologue
Apology
Apothegm
Aposiopesis
Apostrophe	A figure of speech in which the speaker addresses an object, concept, or person (usually absent) that is unable to respond.
Apron stage
Arcadia
Archaism
Archetype
Aristeia
Argument
Arsis
Art for art's sake
Asemic writing
Aside
Assonance
Astrophic	stanzas having no particular pattern.
Asyndeton	The omission of conjunctions between clauses. An example is when John F. Kennedy said on January the 20th 1961 "...that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
Atmosphere
Attitude
Aube
Aubade
Audience
Autobiography
Autotelic
Avant-garde
Ballad 'A short narrative folk song that fixes in the most dramatic story, moving to its conclusion by the means of dialogue and a series of incidences.
Ballade
Ballad stanza
Bard
Baroque
Bathos
Beast fable (beast epic)
Beast poetry
Beat Generation
Beginning rhyme
Belles-lettres
Bestiary
Beta reader
Bibliography
Bildungsroman	A piece describing one's development - such as a 'Coming-of-Age novel'
Biography
Black comedy
Blank verse	Verse written in iambic pentameter without rhyme.
Bloomsbury Group
Body
Bombast (fustian)
Boulevard theatre
Bourgeois drama
Bouts-Rimés
Bowdlerize
Breviloquence
Broadside
Burlesque
Burletta
Burns stanza
Buskin
Byronic hero
Cadence
Caesura	When poetry is broken up by punctuation in the middle of lines
Calligram
Canon
Canso
Canticum
Canto
Canzone
Capa y espada
Captivity narrative
Caricature
Carmen figuratum
Carpe diem
Catachresis
Catalectic
Catalexis
Catastrophe
Catharsis
Caudate sonnet
Cavalier drama
Cavalier poetry
Celtic Renaissance
Celtic Revival
Celtic Twilight
Caesura
Chain of Being
Chain verse
Chanson de geste
Chansonnier
Chant royal
Chantey
Chanty
Chapbook
Character
Characterization
Charactonym
Chaucerian stanza
Chiasmus
Chivalric romance
Choriamb
Choriambus
Chorus
Chronicle
Chronicle play
Cinquain
Classicism
Classification (literature)
Classification of rhymes (Peter Dale)
Clerihew
Cliché
Climax
Cloak-and-sword play
Close reading
Closed heroic couplet
Closet drama
Collaborative poetry
Colloquialism
Comédie larmoyante
Comedy
Comedy of errors
Comedy of humors
Comedy of intrigue
Comedy of manners
Comedic relief
Commedia dell'arte
Comic relief
Commedia erudita
Common measure
Commonplace book
Common rhyme
Comparative linguistics
Compensation
Complaint
Conceit
Concordance
Concrete universal
Confessional literature
Confidant/confidante
Conflict
Connotation
Consistency
Consonance
Contradiction
Context
Contrast
Convention
Copyright
Counterplot
Coup de théâtre
Couplet	Two lines with rhyming ends. Shakespeare often used a couplet to end a sonnet.
Courtesy book
Courtly love
Cowleyan ode
Cradle books
Craft cycle
Crisis
Criticism
Cross acrostic
Crown of sonnets
Curtain raiser
Curtal sonnet
Dactyl
Dada
Dale's classification of rhymes
Dandyism
Danrin school	School of haikai poetry founded by Nishiyama Sōin in 17th century Japan
Débat
Death poem
Death of the novel
Debut novel
Decadence
Decasyllabic verse
Decorum
Denotation
Dénouement
Dependent Clause	A group of words containing a subject and a verb, but does not equate to a complete thought.
Description
Descriptive linguistics
Detective story
Deus ex machina
Deuteragonist
Dialect
Dialogic	A work primarily featuring dialogue; a piece of, relating to, or written in dialogue.
Dialogue
Dibrach
Diction	Also known as "lexis" and "word choice," the term refers to the words selected for use in any oral, written, or literary expression. Diction often centers on opening a great array of lexical possibilities with the connotation of words by maintaining first the denotation of words.
Didactic	Intended to teach, instruct, or have a moral lesson for the reader.
Digest
Digression
Dime novel
Diameter
Dimeter	A line of verse made up of two feet (two stresses).
Dipody
Dirge
Discourse
Dissociation of sensibility
Dissonance
Distich
Distributed Stress
Dithyramb
Diverbium
Divine afflatus
Doggerel
Dolce stil nuove
Domestic tragedy
Donnée
Doppelgänger
Double
Double rhyme
Drama
Drama of sensibility	Using ones senses as a medium for writing to relay emotion and the perception of sensations of oneself or of others and play upon those sensations to create a relatability stemming from the human condition.
Dramatic character
Dramatic irony	When the audience is aware of the plot or sections of the plot when the characters are not - such as in Romeo and Juliet when the audience is aware of Juliet's faking of her death and Romeo is unaware.
Dramatic lyric
Dramatic monologue
Dramatic proverb
Dramatis personae
Dramaturgy
Dream allegory
Dream vision
Droll
Dumb show
Duodecimo
Duologue
Duple meter/duple rhythm
Dystopia
Dynamic Character
Echo verse
Eclogue
Edition
Ekphrasis	A vivid, graphic, or dramatic written commentary or description of another visual form of art.
Elegiac couplet
Elegiac meter
Elegy
Elision
Emblem
Emblem book
Emendation
Emotive language
Encomiastic verse
End rhyme
End-stopped line	A line in poetry that ends in a pause—indicated by a specific punctuation, such as a period or a semicolon.
English sonnet
Enjambment	The continuing of a syntactic unit over the end of a line. Enjambment occurs when the sense of the line overflows the meter and line break.
Entr'acte
Envoy/envoi
Epanalepsis
Épater la bourgeoisie
Epic poetry	A long poem that narrates the victories and adventures of a hero. It can be identified by lofty or elegant diction.
Epic simile
Epic Theater
Epigraph
Epilogue
Epiphany
Episode
Episteme
Epistle
Epistolary novel	A novel told through letters.
Epistrophe
Epitaph
Epithalamion
Epithet
Epizeuxis
Epode
Eponymous author
Equivalence
Erotica
Erziehungsroman
Essay
Ethos
Eulogy
Euphony
Euphuism
Evidence
Exaggeration
Exegesis
Exemplum
Existentialism
Exordium
Experimental novel
Explication de texte
Exposition (literary technique)
Exposition (dramatic structure)
Expressionism
Extended metaphor
Extension
Extrametrical verse
Extravaganza
Eye rhyme
Fable
Fabliau
Falling action
Falling rhythm
Fancy and imagination
Fantasy
Farce
Feeling
Feminine ending
Feminine rhyme	A rhyme with two syllables. One is stressed, one is unstressed. Examples: “Merry”, “Coffee”.
Fiction
Figurative language
Figure of speech
Fin de siècle
Flashback	An interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached
Flashforward	An interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media
Flat character
Fleshly school
Foil
Folio
Folk drama
Folklore
Folk tale
Foot
Foreshadowing
Form
Four levels of meaning
Four meanings of a poem
Fourteener
Frame story
Free indirect discourse
Free verse
French forms
Freytag's pyramid
Fugitives and Agrarians
Fustian
Future	Expresses a condition happening in the future by using shall, will, am, is, are and going to with a verb. Adverbs are also used with the present tense of the verb to show future tense.
Futurism
Gallows humor
Gamebooks
Gathering (literature)
Gay literature
Genetic fallacy
Genius and talent
Genre
Georgian poetry
Georgics
Gesta
Ghazal
Gloss
Gnomic verse
Golden line
Goliardic verse
Gongorism
Gonzo journalism
Gothic novel
Grand Guignol
Graveyard poetry
Graveyard school
Greek tragedy
Grub Street
Grundyism
Guignol
Gushi
Hagiography
Hagiology
Haibun	Prose written in a terse, haikai style, accompanied by haiku
Haikai	Broad genre comprising the related forms haiku haikai-renga and haibun
Haiku	Modern term for standalone hokku
Half rhyme
Hamartia
Handwaving
Headless line
Head rhyme
Hemistich
Hendecasyllable
Hendecasyllabic verse
Heptameter
Heptastich
Heresy of paraphrase
Heroic couplets
Heroic drama
Heroic quatrain
Heroic stanza
Hexameter	A line from a poem hat has six feet in its meter. Another name for hexameter is "The Alexandrine."
Hexastich
Hiatus
High comedy
Higher criticism
Historical linguistics
Historical novel
Historic present
History play
Hokku	In Japanese poetry, the opening stanza of a renga or renku (haikai no renga)
Holograph
Homeric epithet
Homily
Horatian ode
Horatian satire
Hornbook
Hovering accent
Hubris
Hudibrastic
Humor
Humours
Hybris
Hymn
Hymnal stanza
Hypallage
Hyperbole
Hypercatalectic
Hypermetrical
Hypocorism
Hysteron-proteron
Hypotactic	A term where different subordinate clauses are used in a sentence to qualify a single verb, or modify it.
Iambic pentameter
Ideology
Idiom
Idyll
Imagery
Imagism
Impressionism
Incipit
Indeterminacy
Inference
In medias res
Innuendo
Interjection	A word that’s tacked onto a sentence in order to add strong emotion. It’s grammatically unrelated to the rest of the sentence. They are usually followed by an exclamation point.
Internal conflict
Internal rhyme
Interpretation
Intertextuality	Refers to the way in which different works of literature interact with and relate to one another in order to construct meaning.
Intuitive description
Irony
Jacobean era
Jeremiad
Ji-amari	The use of one or more extra syllabic units (on) above the 5/7 standard in Japanese poetic forms such as waka and haiku.
Jintishi
Jitarazu	The use of fewer syllabic units (on) than the 5/7 standard in Japanese poetic forms such as waka and haiku.
Journal
Judicial criticism
Jueju
Juggernaut
Juncture (literature)
Juvenalian satire
Juxtaposition
Kabuki
Kafkaesque
Katharsis
Kenning
Kigo	In Japanese poetry, a seasonal word or phrase required in haiku and renku
King's English
Kireji	In Japanese poetry, a "cutting word" required in haiku and hokku
Kitsch
Künstlerroman
Lai
Lake Poets
Lament
Lampoon
L'art pour l'art
Laureate
Lay
Leaf
Legend
Legitimate theater
Leonine rhyme
Lexis
Letters
Level stress (even accent)
Libretto
Light ending
Light poetry
Light rhyme
Light stress
Light poetry
Limerick
Linguistics
Linked rhyme
Link sonnet
Literary ballad
Literary criticism
Literary epic
Literary fauvism
Literary realism
Literary theory
Literature
Litotes
Litterateur
Liturgical drama
Living Newspaper
Local color
Logaoedic
Logical fallacy
Logical stress
Logos
Long metre
Long poem
Loose sentence
Lost Generation
Low comedy
Lullaby
Lune
Lushi
Lyric	A short poem with a song-like quality, or designed to be set to music; often conveying feelings, emotions, or personal thoughts.
Macaronic language
Madrigal (poetry)
Magic realism
Malapropism
Maqama
Märchen
Marginalia
Marinism
Marivauge
Marxist literary criticism
Masculine ending
Masculine rhyme
Masked comedy
Masque
Maxim
Meaning
Medieval drama
Meiosis
Melic poetry
Melodrama	A work that is characterized by extravagant theatricality and by the predominance of plot and physical action over characterization
Memoir
Menippean satire
Mesostic
Metaphor	Making a comparison between two unlike things without using the words like, as, or than.
Metaphysical conceit
Metaphorical language
Metaphysical poets
Meter
Metonymy
Metre
Metrical accent
Metrical foot
Metrical structure
Microcosm
Middle Comedy
Miles gloriosus
Miltonic sonnet
Mime
Mimesis
Minnesang
Minstrel
Mystery play (miracle play)
Miscellanies
Mise en scène
Mixed metaphor
Mock-heroic (mock epic)
Mode
Modernism
Monodrama
Monody
Monogatari
Monograph
Monologue
Monometer (monopody)
Monostich
Monograph
Mood
Mora
Moral
Morality play
Motif
Motivation
Movement
Mummery
Muses
Musical comedy
Muwashshah	A multi-lined strophic verse form which flourished in Islamic Spain in the 11th century, written in Arabic or Hebrew
Mystery play
Mythology
Narrative point of view
Narrator
Naturalism	A theory or practice in literature emphasizing scientific observation of life without idealization and often including elements of determinism
Neologism	The creation of new words, some arising from acronyms, word combinations, direct translations, and the addition of prefixes or suffixes.
Non-fiction
Non-fiction novel
Novel	A genre of fiction that relies on narrative and possesses a considerable length, an expected complexity, and a sequential organization of action into story and plot distinctively. This genre is flexible in form, although prose is the standard, focuses around one or more characters, and is continuously reshaped and reformed by a speaker.
Novelette
Novella
Novelle
Narrative poem
Objective correlative
Objective criticism
Obligatory scene
Octameter
Octave
Octet	An eight line stanza of poetry.
Ode	A lyrical poem, sometimes sung, that focuses on the glorification of a single subject and its meaning. Often has an irregular stanza structure.
Oedipus complex
Onomatopoeia
Open couplet
Oulipo
Orchestra
Ottava rima	A verse form in which a stanza has eight iambic pentameter lines following the rhyme scheme abababcc. An ottava rima was often used for long narratives, especially epics and mock heroic poems.
Oxymoron
Palinode
Pantoum
Pantun
Parable
Paraclausithyron
Paradelle
Paradox
Paraphrase
Pararhyme
Paratactic	Combining of various syntactic units, usually prepositions, without the use of conjunctions to form short and simple phrases.
Partimen
Pastourelle
Past Perfect	a verb tense that expresses an idea that something [in the past] occurred before another action [also in the past]. This tense [requires] the helping, or auxiliary word "had". For example, "you had studied French before you went to Paris."
Past Tense	the grammatical form of a verb used to indicate that the time of the action occurred before the moment of writing.
Pathetic fallacy
Pathya Vat
Parallelism
Parody
Pastoral	A work depicting an idealized vision of the rural life of shepherds.
Pathos
Pentameter	In poetry, a line of verse containing five metric feet or accents.
Phrase	A sequence of two or more words, forming a unit.In the poem “Kubla Khan” by Samuel Coleridge, the words “pleasure-dome” is a phrase read not only in this poem, but also in Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” when she uses also uses the phrase.
Periodical literature
Peripetia
Perspective
Persona
Personification
Phronesis
Pièce bien faite
Picaresque novel
Plain Style
Platonic
Plot
Poem
Poem and song
Poetic diction
Poetic transrealism
Poetry
Point of view
Polysyndeton
Post-colonialism
Postmodernism
Pound's Ideogrammic Method
Present Perfect	A verb tense that describes actions just finished or continuing from the past into the present. This can also imply that past actions have present effects.
Primal scene
Procatalepsis
Prolepsis	An interjected scene that takes the narrative forward in time from the current point of the story in literature, film, television and other media
Prologue
Progymnasmata
Pronoun	Can be used in place of a noun or, in some cases, another pronoun.
Prose
Prosimetrum
Prosody (poetry)
Protagonist
Proverb
Pruning poem
Psalm
Psychoanalytic literary criticism
Psychoanalytic theory
Pun
Purple prose
Purpose for Reading
Pyrrhic
Quatrain	A stanza of four lines.
Quintain	A stanza of five lines.
Reader-response criticism
Realism
Redaction
Red herring
Refrain
Regency novel
Regionalism (literature)
Renga	A genre of Japanese collaborative poetry
Renku	In Japanese poetry, a form of popular collaborative linked verse formerly known as haikai no renga, or haikai
Renshi	A form of collaborative poetry pioneered by Makoto Ooka in Japan in the 1980s
Repetition
Resolution
Reverse chronology
Rhapsodes
Rhetoric
Rhetorical agency
Rhetorical device
Rhetorical operations
Rhetorical question
Rhetorical tension
Rhyme
Rhymed prose
Rhyme royal
Rhythm	A measured pattern of words and phrases arranged by sound, time, or events. These patterns are [created] in verse or prose by use of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Rising action
Robinsonade
Romance (heroic literature)
Romance novel
Romanticism
Romanzo d' appendice
Roman à clef
Round character
Round-robin story
Ruritanian romance
Russian formalism
Saj'
Satire
Scanning
Scansion
Scene
Scènes à faire
Sea shanty
Semiotic literary criticism
Semiotics
Senry.
Serial
Sestet
Setting
Shadorma
Shakespearean sonnet	A form of poem comprising of three quatrains ending with a rhyming couplet.
Shanty
Sicilian octave
Simile	A comparison of two different things that utilizes “like” or “as”.
Slant rhyme
Slice of life
Skaz
Sobriquet
Soliloquy
Sonnet	A 14 line poem written in iambic pentameter. There are two types of sonnets: Shakespearean and Italian. The Shakespearean sonnet is written with 3 quatrain and a couplet in abab, cdcd, efef, gg rhythmic pattern. An Italian sonnet is written in 2 stanzas with an octave followed by a septet in abba, abba, cdecde or cdcdcd rhythmic pattern.
Sonneteer
Speaker
Spondee	A foot consisting of two syllables of approximately equal stress.
Spenserian stanza
Sprung rhythm
Stanza	Group of lines offset by a space and then continuing with the next group of lines with a set pattern or number of lines.
Static character
Stigma of print
Stereotype
Stichic	Adjective describing poetry with lines of the same meter and length throughout, but not organized into regular stanzas. Example: Form of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight"
Strambotto
Stream of consciousness
Structuralism
Subjunctive	Subjunctive forms of verbs are typically used to express various states of unreality such as wish, emotion, possibility, judgment, opinion, necessity, or action that has not yet occurred. Subjunctive verbs are often found in "that" clauses. The verb requires "that" to follow it e.g. 'He insisted that was the wrong way'.
Sublime	Adjective meaning an immeasurable experience, unable to be rationalized.
Subplot
Syllogism
Symbolism
Synecdoche	A term where an entire idea is expressed by something smaller, such as a phrase or a single word; one part of the idea expresses the whole. This concept can also be reversed.
Synaesthesia
Syntax	The study of how words are arranged in a sentence. Ex.- Line 68 of Coleridge’s “Dejection: An Ode,” is difficult to determine its syntax because of the way the words are arranged: “Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower.” The word “wedding” could be seen as a verb or a noun.
Tautology
Tableau
Tail rhyme
Tagelied
Tale
Tanka	In Japanese poetry, a short poem in the form 5,7,5,7,7 syllabic units
Tan-renga	In Japanese poetry, a tanka where the upper part is composed by one poet, and the lower part by another
Techne
Telestich	A telestich is a poem or other form of writing in which the last letter, syllable or word of each line, paragraph or other recurring feature in the text spells out a word or a message.
Tenor
Tension
Tercet
Terza rima
Tetrameter
Tetrastich
Text
Textual criticism
Textuality
Texture
Theater of Cruelty
Theater of the Absurd
Theme
Thesis
Thesis play
Third person narrative
Threnody
Tirade
Tone
Tornada	In Occitan lyric poetry, a final, shorter stanza (cobla), addressed to a patron, lady, or friend
Tract
Tractarian Movement
Tragedy
Tragedy of blood
Tragic flaw
Tragic hero
Tragic irony
Tragicomedy
Tranche de vie
Transcendentalism
Transferred epithet
Transition
Translation
Travesty
Tribe of Ben
Tribrach
Trimeter
Triolet
Triple rhyme
Triple meter
Triple rhythm
Triplet
Tristich
Tritagonist
Trivium
Trobar clus
Trochee
Trochee	A two syllable foot with the accent syllable on the first foot.
Trope (literature)
Troubadour
Trouvère
Tuckerization
Truncated line
Tumbling verse
Type character
Type scene
Ubi sunt
Underground culture
Underground press
Understatement
Unities
Unity
Universality (disambiguation)
University Wits
Unobtainium
Uta monogatari
Utopia
Utopian and dystopian fiction
Unreliable narrator
Variable syllable
Variorum
Varronian satire (Menippean satire)
Vates
Vaudeville
Vehicle
Verb displacement
Verbal irony
Verisimilitude
Verism
Vers de société
Vers libre
Verse
Verse paragraph
Versiprose
Verso
Victorianism
Viewpoint
Vignette
Villain
Villanelle
Virelay
Virgule
Voice (of the writer)
Voice (in phonetics)
Volta	A turn or switch that emphasizes a change in ideas or emotions. It can be marked by the words “but” or “yet.” In a sonnet, this change separates the octave from the sestet.
Vorticism
Vulgate	The use of informal, common speech, particularly of uneducated people. Similar to the use of vernacular.
Waka
Wardour Street English
Weak ending
Weak foot
Well-made play
Wellerism
Western fiction
Wit
Word accent
Wrenched accent
Watermark
Za	The site of a renga session; also, the sense of dialogue and community present in such a session
Zappai

Further reading

• M. H. Abrams. A Glossary of Literary Terms. Thomson-Wadsworth, 2005. ISBN 1-4130-0456-3.
• Chris Baldick. The Concise Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Univ. Press, 2004. ISBN 0-19-860883-7.
• Chris Baldick. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. ISBN 0-19-280118-X.
• Edwin Barton & G. A. Hudson. Contemporary Guide To Literary Terms. Houghton-Mifflin, 2003. ISBN 0-618-34162-5.
• Mark Bauerlein. Literary Criticism: An Autopsy. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8122-1625-3.
• Karl Beckson & Arthur Ganz. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1989. ISBN 0-374-52177-8.
• Peter Childs. The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms. Routledge, 2005. ISBN 0-415-34017-9.
• J. A. Cuddon. The Penguin Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory. Penguin Books, 2000. ISBN 0-14-051363-9 .
• Dana Gioia. The Longman Dictionary of Literary Terms: Vocabulary for the Informed Reader. Longman, 2005. ISBN 0-321-33194-X.
• Sharon Hamilton. Essential Literary Terms: A Brief Norton Guide with Exercises. W. W. Norton, 2006. ISBN 0-393-92837-3.
• William Harmon. A Handbook to Literature. Prentice Hall, 2005. ISBN 0-13-134442-0.
• X. J. Kennedy, et al. Handbook of Literary Terms: Literature, Language, Theory. Longman, 2004. ISBN 0-321-20207-4.
• V. B. Leitch. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. W. W. Norton, 2001. ISBN 0-393-97429-4.
• Frank Lentricchia & Thomas McLaughlin. Critical Terms for Literary Study. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1995. ISBN 0-226-47203-5.
• David Mikics. A New Handbook of Literary Terms. Yale Univ. Press, 2007. ISBN 0-300-10636-X.
• Ross Murfin & S. M. Ray. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006. ISBN 0-312-25910-7.
• John Peck & Martin Coyle. Literary Terms and Criticism. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0-333-96258-3.
• Edward Quinn. A Dictionary of Literary And Thematic Terms. Checkmark Books, 2006. ISBN 0-8160-6244-7.
• Lewis Turco. The Book of Literary Terms: The Genres of Fiction, Drama, Nonfiction, Literary Criticism, and Scholarship. Univ. Press of New England, 1999. ISBN 0-87451-955-1.