AQA GCSE English Literature key terms

The misuse of authority for personal advantage, often involving the betrayal of stated principles.

Private advice, plans or secrets; to ‘keep counsel’ means to keep such information confidential.

A person who advises a ruler. Gonzalo is an elderly counsellor serving Alonso, King of Naples.

An office where a business keeps its accounts and conducts financial work.

Two consecutive lines of poetry, sometimes forming a separate stanza; they do not have to rhyme.

The process of developing a relationship with a possible marriage partner, shaped in Austen’s novel by social visits, dances and expectations about appropriate behaviour.

The historical legal principle under which a married woman’s separate legal identity was largely absorbed into her husband’s. It normally gave husbands control over wives’ money and property, although legal arrangements could protect some assets.

Greedily eager to possess money or other things.

Trust in someone’s ability to repay borrowed money. Antonio uses his reputation and expected trading income to secure a loan.

A person or organisation to whom money is owed.

Too ready to believe what someone says, without questioning it.

A language with its own established vocabulary and grammar, developed through contact between languages. Agard uses features of Guyanese Creole to give his speaker a culturally specific voice.

A comparison that examines both similarities and differences and explains how writers’ choices shape meaning.

A man whose wife is sexually unfaithful. Horns conventionally symbolised a cuckold and the public humiliation associated with betrayal.

An organised campaign of praise that presents a leader as exceptionally wise, powerful or benevolent.

A repeating pattern in which retaliation for one injury produces another injury and a further desire to retaliate.

An arrangement in which the ending returns to an image, situation or idea from the beginning.

An attitude of distrust towards people’s motives or promises, often expecting selfishness or disappointment.

A metrical unit consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, creating a falling, three-syllable rhythm.

A conventional character who is endangered and needs rescuing. Mary partly occupies this role, although her courage and practical judgement complicate it.

A person who dresses with unusually elaborate attention to fashion and appearance.

A character who can be read as expressing another character’s hidden or suppressed feelings. Bertha can be interpreted as a dark double of Jane.

Punishment by execution. It is also called capital punishment.

An obligation to someone who has provided help; in literature, debt can be financial, emotional or both.

Deliberately making someone believe something false, through words, appearances or staged events.

Behaviour considered socially proper or respectable, including expectations about manners, appearance and relations between women and men.

Reasoning from evidence to a conclusion. Holmes uses the term for his method of explaining clues and eliminating possibilities.