Eduqas GCSE English Literature key terms

The ability to choose how to act, making a person responsible for their decisions.

A member of a religious order. In Romeo and Juliet, Friar Laurence is a Franciscan friar who gives spiritual advice and conducts the lovers’ marriage.

A relationship of affection, trust and mutual support between people.

Troops stationed in a place to defend it.

The socially expected roles, behaviour and qualities associated with being male or female.

A difference in attitudes and values between people of different age groups, which can create conflict.

A person who is not Jewish.

The landowning social class below the titled aristocracy, whose status was associated with property and income from estates.

The scientific explanation that microorganisms can cause infectious disease.

A district in which Jewish people were required by law to live, separating them from the surrounding population.

A narrative in which ghosts or spirits enter the human world; supernatural encounters can create fear and communicate moral ideas.

Twilight or dusk.

Refined, considerate social behaviour. In Austen’s novel, being well-bred is not the same as being wealthy or highly born.

Kindness and a wish for other people’s happiness, expressed through friendly or helpful behaviour.

A literary genre associated with fear, mystery, disturbing secrets and threats to ordinary life or identity.

A woman employed to educate children in a private household.

A traditional belief that all matter and life form a God-given hierarchy, descending from God through angels, humans, animals and plants to minerals.

A person who has responsibility for caring for a child when the child’s parents cannot do so.

Blame for wrongdoing, or the feeling of distress caused by recognising that one has done wrong. A person may be morally guilty without feeling guilty.

An easily deceived person; used as a verb, it means to trick someone.

The deception of someone into believing a false story, often by exploiting what they already want to believe.

A scene in which someone is deliberately tricked. In Much Ado About Nothing, staged conversations persuade Benedick and Beatrice that each is loved by the other.

An incomplete rhyme in which some sounds correspond but others differ, as in ‘jam-pots’ and ‘boots’.

An error of judgement or character flaw that contributes to a tragic hero's downfall.

A loom operated by a person rather than powered machinery, used to weave thread into cloth.

A flowering of Black literature, music, art and intellectual life centred on Harlem, New York, especially during the 1920s and 1930s.

Information accepted from what other people say rather than from direct knowledge.

A person entitled to receive another person’s property or wealth after their death.