English Literature key terms

A work of fiction that draws partly on its author’s life while reshaping experiences and inventing material.

Writing partly based on the author’s life but shaped through invented characters, events or details.

Sensitivity to feelings, including the capacity to recognise and respond to another person’s suffering.

Language that evokes sight, sound, touch, taste or smell.

Language that appeals to the senses, such as sight, taste, touch or hearing.

An appeal to tender emotions, especially through innocence, family affection, suffering or loss.

An approach that appeals strongly to tender feelings, often through innocence, family love or suffering.

Writing that appeals strongly to feelings such as affection, pity or grief.

A harem: women associated with a powerful male ruler’s household. Jane rejects Rochester’s comparison because she refuses to be treated as a possession.

Publication of a story in successive instalments rather than all at once.

Publication of a work in successive instalments rather than all at once.

Excessively submissive behaviour towards someone powerful, usually to gain approval or favour.

A condition of being required to serve another person, with limited or no freedom.

The final six lines of a sonnet.

The place and time in which a story takes place. A setting can shape events and suggest ideas about society.

A legal arrangement specifying money or property provided for someone, often made in connection with marriage.

Prejudice or discrimination based on a person’s sex or gender.

An unequal judgement of similar sexual behaviour, such as excusing a man’s affair while condemning the woman involved.

Language with an indirect sexual meaning, often used for comedy.

Love or attraction involving physical desire and sexual intimacy.

A dramatic form often involving courtship, disguise, misunderstandings and a movement towards marriage or reconciliation; it need not be funny throughout.

A fourteen-line poem. A Shakespearean sonnet usually uses iambic pentameter and the rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG.

A painful feeling of humiliation or of being judged as inferior by others.

A line of verse divided between two or more speakers. Its rhythm can encourage a quick handover, suggesting connection, interruption or urgency.

A protective case for the blade of a sword or dagger. Juliet metaphorically calls her own body the dagger's sheath.

A historical term used for psychological distress associated with soldiers’ experiences of war.

A cheap, sensational publication sold for one shilling, designed to grip readers through suspense and shocking events.