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Haiku –
a form of Japanese verse with three lines which are not rhymed and which have five, seven, and five syllables usually involving some aspect of nature.
Harlem Renaissance –
a movement during the 1920s starting in Harlem which focused on Black culture
Heroic couplet –
two lines of rhymed verse in iambic pentameter; generally used in epic poems
Hip-hop –
musical verse which uses rhyme, repetition of sounds and phases
Historical setting –
the moment in history where the action occurs
History –
the actual events
Horror fiction –
a type of fiction that includes an event or events that are very frightening and which may include fantasy or science fiction
Hubris –
arrogance; an attribute where a character (or a person) has an exaggerated sense of him or herself or his or her importance
Hyperbole –
saying more than what is meant; exaggeration
Iambic pentameter –
a common type of pattern of sounds and rhythm used in poetry created by pairing ten syllables for each line into five pairs. Commonly used by Shakespeare in his sonnets
Imagery –
the creation of sensory images through words
Imaginative literature –
literature created by an author’s imagination to convey some personal feeling or observation or message
Imagism –
a poetic movement beginning in the early 1900s where poets began experimenting with open verse and focused on the poet’s response to a situation or object stressing concrete imagery
Imperfect rhyme –
close but not exact rhyme; near rhyme; approximate rhyme
In medias res –
Latin expression meaning “in the middle of things”; an arrangement of events where the story starts somewhere in the middle of the action and then goes forward giving information about what happened before through narration, dialogue, or flashbacks.
Informal diction –
the use words with slang, colloquialisms, and non-Standard English
Initiation theme –
a theme about being initiated into something new
Interpretative literature –
literature intended to say more than just the story on a larger issue and to be interpreted; literature that can have more than one meaning
Inverted sequence –
an order of words that is not conventional
Ironic title –
a title which contains irony often helping to reveal theme
Irony –
created when there is a discrepancy between an expectation and an actuality
