Lit Terms #5

parallelism

•  In writing or in speech, parallelism is the use of components in a sentence that are grammatically same or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter.

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. Pathos can be expressed through words, pictures or and even with gestures of the body.

pedantry

•  excessive concern with minor details and rules.

personification

•  the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

plot

• The main events in a piece of work.

poignant

• evoking a keen sense of sadness or regret.

point of view

•  a particular attitude or way of considering a matter.

postmodernism

•  a late-20th-century style and concept in the arts, architecture, and criticism that represents a departure from modernism and has at its heart a general distrust of grand theories and ideologies as well as a problematical relationship with any notion of “art.”

prose

• written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without metrical structure.

protagonist

• the good guy in a story.

pun

•  a joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or the fact that there are words that sound alike but have different meanings.

purpose

•  the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.

realism

•  the quality or fact of representing a person, thing, or situation accurately or in a way that is true to life.

refrain

•  stop oneself from doing something.

requiem

•  a Mass for the repose of the souls of the dead

resolution

•  A firm decision to do something.

restatement

•  A revised statement.

rhetorical question

•  a statement that is formulated as a question but that is not supposed to be answered.

rising action

• the events leading to the climax.

romanticism

•  a movement in the arts and literature that originated in the late 18th century, emphasizing inspiration, subjectivity, and the primacy of the individual

satire

•  to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor.

scansion

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

setting

• Were the story takes place.