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Literature Glossary

Don’t be an oxymoron. Know your literary terms.

Over 200 literary terms, Shmooped to perfection.

Exposition

Definition:

Exposition is when an author just straight up tells us a bunch of background information instead of revealing the goods through narrative nuggets. This is when we're told information, not shown it. Sometimes, authors let one of their characters act as the exposition guru to help them get all their juicy information across.