Lit Terms 83-108

• Omniscient Point of View:  knowing all things, usually the third person.

 

• Onomatopoeia: use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its meaning. 

 

• Oxymoron: a figure of speech in which two contradicting words or phrases are combined to produce a rhetorical effect by means of a concise paradox.

 

• Pacing:  rate of movement; tempo.

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• Parable:  a story designed to convey some religious principle, moral lesson, or general truth.

 

• Paradox:  a statement apparently self-contradictory or absurd but really containing a possible truth; an opinion contrary to generally accepted ideas.

 

• 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.