Literary Style Terms (P-2)

Here is a brief explanation of some literary terms:

Ode

A type of poem that is usually lengthy and has an elaborate stanza structure, formal tone, and lofty sentiments. Public odes are formal, while private odes are personal.

Onomatopoeia

The use of words that imitate sounds.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines contradictory words and meanings for a special effect.

Paradox

A statement that appears to contradict itself, but reveals a deeper truth.

Parallelism

A common device in poetry where similar phrases or sentences are placed side by side to balance each other.

Pathos

Pathos refers to the quality of art that evokes feelings of tenderness, pity, or sorrow.

Persona

Persona, derived from the Latin word "mask," refers to the speaker in a poem, novel, or other form of literature.

Personification

Personification involves attributing human qualities to inanimate objects, embodying some quality or abstraction. It is commonly used in poetry.

Pun

A pun is a figure of speech that involves a play upon words, often used as a form of humor.

Quatrain

A quatrain is a stanza of four lines that can be either rhymed or unrhymed and can be varied in meter and rhyme.

Refrain

This is a phrase or line that is repeated at intervals during a poem, particularly at the end of a stanza.

Rhyme

This is a technique that echoes sounds and provides aesthetic satisfaction. In addition to its pleasing effect, rhyme also helps to structure verse.

Rhythm

This is the movement or sense of movement conveyed by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables, as well as the duration of the syllables in verse or prose. In verse, the rhythm is determined by the metrical pattern.

Sestet

This refers to the final six lines of an Italian sonnet, following the octave.

Simile

This is a figure of speech that compares one thing to another to clarify and enhance an image. It is an explicit comparison that is recognized by the use of the words "like" or "as".

Soliloquy

It is a speech given by a character alone on stage, expressing their thoughts and feelings. It is a convention in drama that reveals a character's intentions, motives, and emotions.

Sonnet

It is a poem consisting of 14 lines. It usually follows a specific rhyme scheme and is typically written in iambic pentameter.

Stanza

It is a group of lines in a poem that is considered a unit of structure.

Stress

It is a metrical term that is interchangeable with accent. In a metrical foot, one syllable is stressed, and one or more syllables are unstressed.

Style

It refers to the way a writer expresses themselves in writing, including their choice of words, figures of speech, rhetorical devices, sentence and paragraph structure, and other elements.

Symbol

A symbol is an entity, living or lifeless, that signifies or represents something else. Furthermore, actions and gestures can also convey symbolic meaning. In literature, a symbol fuses an image with a concept and can have either a broad or a narrow meaning.

Synaesthesia

Synaesthesia, derived from the Greek term "perceiving together," refers to the blending of senses. It takes place when multiple senses are stimulated simultaneously or when one stimulus elicits responses from multiple senses.

Synecdoche

Synecdoche, originating from the Greek word "taking up together," is a rhetorical device in which a part is used to represent the whole. By mentioning only a fragment of something, something else is inferred within the context.

Synonym

A synonym is a word that shares a similar meaning with another.

Tercet

A stanza of three lines that are connected by rhyme. It can also be one of a pair of triplets that make up the sestet of a sonnet.

Theme

The central idea of a work can be conveyed directly or indirectly. It is different from the subject of the work.

Triad

A group of three lyric stanzas in Classical Greek poetry. The three stanzas are strophe, antistrophe, and epode.

Verisimilitude

Verisimilitude is the appearance of something, even when it is fantastic, being true or real because of its similarity to the truth. The reader considers the outcome an acceptable representation of reality when the writer executes this technique properly (Like in fiction).

Verse

Verse has three different definitions:

• A metrical line
• A stanza
• Poetry as a whole.

Viewpoint

The narrator’s position with respect to his or her account; also, the vantage point from which the events are told. The omniscient viewpoint allows the author to freely switch between characters, settings, and episodes, as well as freely access the thoughts and emotions of his characters and provide details whenever he pleases.