Lit 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.