Monday, February 3, 2014

Lit. Terms #5 !

parallelismThis method adds balance and rhythm to sentences giving ideas a smoother flow and thus can be persuasive because of the repetition it employs. 


parody: Parody is an imitation of a particular writer, artist or a genre exaggerating it deliberately to produce a comic effect.

pathos: Pathos is a quality of an experience in life or a work of art that stirs up emotions of pity, sympathy and sorrow.

pedantry: 

personification: Personification is a figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes. The non-human objects are portrayed in such a way that we feel they have the ability to act like human beings. 

plot: events that make up a story, particularly as they relate to one another in a pattern, in a sequence, through cause and effect, how the reader views the story, or simply by coincidence.

poignant:  Keenly distressing to the mind or feelings: poignant anxiety.

point of view: There are five viewpoints employed in literature:


postmodernism: Postmodernism is largely a reaction to the assumed certainty of scientific, or objective, efforts to explain reality.

prose:  a form of language that has no formal metrical structure. It applies a natural flow of speech, and ordinary grammatical structure rather than rhythmic structure, such as in the case of traditional poetry.

protagonist: considered to be the main character or lead figure in a novel, play, story, or poem.  It may also be referred to as the "hero" of a work. Over a period of time the meaning of the term protagonist has changed

pun: play on words in which a humorous effect is produced by using a word that suggests two or more meanings or by exploiting similar sounding words having different meanings.

purpose: In composition, a person's reason for writing, such as to inform, entertain, explain, or persuade. (See Examples and Observations, below.)

realism: is the trend, beginning with mid nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors, toward depictions of contemporary life and society as it was, or is. In the spirit of general "realism," realist authors opted for depictions of everyday and banal activities and experiences, instead of a romanticized or similarly stylized presentation. ( We studied this last year!) 

refrain: phrase, line, or group of lines repeated at intervals throughout a poem, generally at the end of the stanza.

requiem: Any chant, hymn, dirge or musical service for the dead.

resolution:  The outcome of the conflict in a play or story. The resolution concludes the falling action

restatement: A restatement is a reiteration of a former sentence. In effect, the two sentences deliver the same message using different words. They are a common fragment and many writers use them without realizing it.

rhetoric: Rhetoric is technique of using language effectively and persuasively in spoken or written form. It is an art of discourse, which studies and employs various methods to convince, influence or please an audience.

rhetorical question: A rhetorical question is asked just for the effects or to lay emphasis on some point discussed when no real answer is expected. A rhetorical question may have an obvious answer but the questioner asks rhetorical questions to lay emphasis on the point. In literature, a rhetorical question is self-evident and used for style as an impressive persuasive device.

rising action: the development of conflict and complications in a literary work

romanticism: an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. (studied this tooo!) 

satire: Satire is a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule.

scansion: The analysis of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem in order to establish its metre.


setting: the time, place, physical details, and circumstances in which a situation occurs