English Literature key terms

A familiar expression used so frequently that it can seem automatic or unoriginal.

An ending that leaves an important situation unresolved, creating suspense about what will happen next.

An ending that leaves an important situation unresolved, making the audience want to discover what happens next.

The point of greatest tension or decisive recognition in a narrative.

A person created as a genetic copy of another person. In Never Let Me Go, clones are raised to provide organs for other people.

Producing a living organism using genetic material copied from another organism. In Never Let Me Go, clones are raised to supply organs to other people.

Careful examination of particular words, patterns and dramatic choices to explain their meanings and effects.

The resolution of a narrative’s central conflicts, often showing what happens to its characters afterwards.

Changing between languages, dialects or ways of speaking in response to different audiences or situations.

Pressure or threats used to make someone do something against their wishes.

The idea that people share duties towards others and must consider how their actions affect the wider community.

A voice that speaks for a group, often using first-person plural pronouns such as ‘we’ and ‘our’.

The bringing together of individual farms into collective or state-controlled agricultural units; under Stalin, this was imposed through coercion.

An informal expression associated with everyday speech, such as ‘out of my league’.

Everyday, informal language associated with ordinary conversation.

Education under colonial rule, in which the ruling power can determine which languages, histories and values are taught.

Rule over another territory and its people by an outside power. British colonial rule in India supplies the setting for the theft of the Agra treasure.

The establishment of settlements and control over another territory and its inhabitants by an outside power.

A dramatic genre with a happy resolution, often involving marriage; Shakespearean comedy can include serious suffering as well as humour.

A novel or play that uses wit and social situations to expose the manners, pretensions and values of a particular society.

A humorous moment that interrupts serious or distressing action, creating a change of tone.

A dramatic ending in which conflicts are resolved and relationships restored, often through marriage and communal celebration.

An Italian theatrical tradition using recognisable character types, including comic servants, and improvised dialogue and physical humour.

Buying and selling goods or services, especially on a large scale.

A rhythm used in many hymns, alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter: lines with four and three pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables.

The shared welfare or good of a community. The narrator’s phrase “commonweal of mankind” extends this idea to humanity as a whole.

A political community organised for its people. Gonzalo uses the word when imagining how society on the island could operate.