Tuesday, February 17, 2015

LITERARY TERMS # 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 straightforward 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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