| Term | Definition |
| pastoral | a poem set in tranquil nature |
| persona | a character assumed by an author in a written work |
| personification | when an inanimate object takes on a human shape |
| plaint | a poem or speech expressing sorrow |
| limited omniscient narrator | a third person narrator who reports what one character sees and thinks |
| objective/camera eye narrator | third person narrator who only reports on what would be visible to a camera |
| first person narrator | a character who is a character in the story and tells the tale from his or her point of view |
| stream of consciousness technique | when the author places the reader inside the main character's head |
| prelude | an introductory poem to a longer work or verse |
| protagonist | the main character of a novel or play |
| pun | humorous use of a word in such a way to suggest two or more meanings |
| refrain | a line or set of lines repeated several times over the course of a poem |
| requiem | a song of prayer for the dead |
| rhapsody | an passionate verse or section of a verse, usually of love or praise |
| rhetorical question | a question that causes the listener to feel she has come up with the answer herself |
| satire | exposes common character flaws to the cold light of humor |
| soliloquy | a spoken by a character alone on stage |
| stanza | a group of lines roughly analogous in function in verse to the paragraph's function in prose |
| stock characters | standard or cliched character types |
| subjunctive mood | a hypothetical way of thinking |
| suggest | to imply, infer, indicate |
| summary | a simple retelling |
| suspension of disbelief | the demand made of a theater audience to accept the limitations of staging and supply the details with their imagination |
| symbolism | a device in literature where an object represents an idea |
| pathetic fallacy | giving natural things human characteristics |