Edexcel GCSE English Literature key terms

A person who provides financial support or other help to someone else.

Kindness and a desire to help others; the creature demonstrates this by collecting fuel for the De Lacey family.

A formal commitment to marry.

A narrator whose account is shaped by personal loyalties, prejudices or interests rather than being entirely impartial.

Marrying someone while already legally married to another living person.

A novel concerned with a central character’s psychological and moral development from childhood towards adulthood.

Threatening to reveal damaging information about someone unless that person meets a demand.

Unrhymed verse written in iambic pentameter.

Language or behaviour that insults God or something regarded as sacred.

A wealthy husband in a tale who conceals the bodies of murdered wives in a forbidden room. Rochester’s hidden wife creates echoes of this figure, without making their actions identical.

A legally binding agreement. In The Merchant of Venice, Antonio’s bond sets out the repayment obligation and the penalty if it is not met.

A male child or adolescent performer; in Shakespeare’s theatre, boys and young men played female roles.

A passionate, proud and brooding literary character whose troubled past and defiance of convention make him attractive but morally troubling; associated with the writing of Lord Byron.

A pause within a line of verse, often marked by punctuation.

A Protestant Christian tradition based on John Calvin’s teachings, concerned with God’s authority, human sin and salvation.

Money or resources used to establish, operate or expand a business. Herbert needs capital to turn his commercial ambitions into an income.

An economic system in which businesses are privately owned and operated for profit.

An exaggerated representation of a person or group, often used for comic or critical effect.

The principle of seizing the present opportunity because life, youth and future happiness are uncertain.

In Toby’s description of Andrew in Act 3 Scene 4, this means receiving knighthood at court rather than earning it through service in battle.

A small chest or box. In The Merchant of Venice, the three caskets test Portia’s suitors; Jessica also carries away a casket containing valuables.

A rigid social rank or division. Jane uses the word to describe the class boundaries she fears crossing.

A condition involving bodily rigidity and reduced responsiveness. Eliot describes Silas’s episodes as cataleptic fits; other characters interpret them through their religious beliefs and superstitions.

A person or event that brings about change in others.

A song sung by several voices entering at different times, creating overlapping musical parts.

The release or cleansing of emotions, particularly pity and fear, that an audience may experience through tragedy.

Care taken to avoid danger or mistakes by considering possible consequences.