AQA GCSE English Literature key terms

An imagined ideal society. Old Major’s vision is of animals living freely and equally, without human exploitation.

An excessive concern with being admired or thought well of by other people.

A contrast between what a speaker says and what they mean, often used to mock or criticise.

Poetry organised into lines with a rhythmic pattern. Blank verse is unrhymed verse usually written in iambic pentameter.

The use of physical force to injure, damage or destroy. In the novella, violence also exposes cruelty and the fragility of civilised behaviour.

An English trading and colonising enterprise chartered by James I in 1606 to establish settlements in Virginia.

A mask or face covering. In Macbeth’s metaphor, a face becomes a ‘vizard’ that conceals the feelings and intentions of the heart.

A strong sense of being called to a particular kind of work or service, often religious.

A turn in a poem’s thought or argument, often marked by a change of tone or a word such as ‘yet’ or ‘but’.

A child placed under another person’s care or protection. Adèle is Rochester’s ward.

Money, property and other valuable possessions held by a person or group.

A system in which the government takes responsibility for citizens’ welfare through provision such as healthcare, benefits and social insurance.

A dramatic genre with a tightly constructed plot, often involving past secrets, carefully timed revelations and a climax followed by restored order.

A castrated male sheep. Antonio uses the image of a diseased wether to describe himself as the member of a flock most suited to death.

A woman employed to breastfeed and care for another woman’s baby.

Quick, inventive intelligence expressed through clever language, often involving jokes, comparisons and unexpected replies.

An institution providing accommodation and basic support for destitute people, under a restrictive regime of work and discipline. The system developed after the 1834 Poor Law aimed to make entering a workhouse undesirable.

A writer’s deliberate choice, such as dialogue, characterisation, stage directions, contrast or the ordering of events.