English Literature key terms

A person who prepares and sells medicines; Romeo buys poison from one in Mantua.

A supernatural figure or vision that appears before someone. In Act 4, the apparitions deliver warnings and predictions to Macbeth.

A theme concerned with the difference between how a person or thing seems and what they actually are.

A person learning a trade by working for an experienced employer. The young Scrooge is Fezziwig’s apprentice.

Training in a trade under an experienced master. Pip becomes Joe’s apprentice and learns blacksmithing.

A large merchant ship carrying goods for trade.

A central interpretation that an essay develops and supports with evidence.

The highest-ranking social class, associated with inherited titles and noble families.

A marriage organised or negotiated by families or other people rather than solely by the couple. It does not necessarily exclude the couple’s consent.

Money owed that has not been paid when due, such as overdue rent.

A soldier serving with large guns. In The War of the Worlds, the artilleryman is a driver in the artillery, whose military experience initially helps him and the narrator survive.

Severe self-discipline and avoidance of comfort or pleasure, often for religious reasons.

A short speech heard by the audience but conventionally not heard by other characters on stage.

The murder of a prominent person, usually for political reasons.

A public social gathering at which people meet and dance. The Meryton assembly introduces the Bennet sisters to Bingley and Darcy.

The process of adapting to the dominant culture of a society, sometimes at the expense of existing cultural traditions.

The repetition of similar vowel sounds in nearby words.

The belief that the positions and movements of stars and planets influence human lives and events.

A list whose items are not joined by conjunctions such as ‘and’.

A list whose items are not joined by conjunctions such as ‘and’, often creating an accumulating or insistent effect.

A group of three parallel words, phrases or clauses without a joining conjunction, such as “distinct, formal, mirthless”.

The supposed return of characteristics associated with an earlier ancestral state. Hyde’s ape-like behaviour can evoke Victorian fears of such a return.

The mood or feeling created by a writer's choices of description, events and language.

Making amends for wrongdoing through actions that repair harm.

A poem or song about dawn, often presenting lovers who must separate as morning arrives.

Language that evokes sound, such as the description of bones being “audibly shattered”.

A halo or surrounding glow; in Love, the word makes the baby’s fine hair seem radiant and precious.