Thursday, February 12, 2015

Lit Terms List #5


Parallelism: the principle in sentence structure that states elements of equal function should have equal form

Parody:  an imitation of mimicking of a composition or of the style of a well-known artist

Pathos:  the ability in literature to call forth feelings of pity, compassion, and/or sadness

Pedantry: a display of learning for its own sake 


Personification: a figure of speech attributing human qualities to inanimate objects or abstract ideas

Plot: a plan or scheme to accomplish a purpose 

Poignant:  eliciting sorrow or sentiment

Point of View: the attitude unifying any oral or written argumentation; in description, the physical point from which the observer views what he is describing

Postmodernism: literature characterized by experimentation, irony, nontraditional forms, multiple meanings, playfulness and a blurred boundary between real and imaginary

Prose:  the ordinary form of spoken and written language; language that does not have a regular rhyme pattern


Protagonist: the central character in a work of fiction; opposes antagonist.


Pun:  play on words; the humorous use of a word emphasizing different meanings or applications

Purpose: the intended result wished by an author.


Realism:  writing about the ordinary aspects of life in a straightfoward manner to reflect life as it actually is

Refrain:  a phrase or verse recurring at intervals in a poem or song; chorus.
 

Requiem:  any chant, dirge, hymn, or musical service for the dead.


Resolution: point in a literary work at which the chief dramatic complication is worked out; denouement

Restatement: idea repeated for emphasis.

Rhetoric: use of language, both written and verbal in order to persuade.


Rhetorical Question: question suggesting its own answer or not requiring an answer; used in argument or persuasion

Rising Action: plot build up, caused by conflict and complications, advancement towards climax.
 
Romanticism:  movement in western culture beginning in the eighteenth and peaking in the nineteenth century as a revolt against Classicism; imagination was valued over reason and fact

Satire:  ridicules or condemns the weakness and wrong doings of individuals, groups, institutions, or humanity in general.
 

Scansion: the analysis of verse in terms of meter

Setting: the time and place in which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem occur

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