| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Mood | The attitdude an author conveys towards his or her subject. |
| Morality Play | A genre of medieval drama in which allegorical figures are used to illustrate Christian moral struggles. |
| Motif | A recurring element that appears in various works of literature or throughout a single work. |
| Movement | Refers to the members and work of any group of writers or critics who share a more or less cohesive and defined attitude toward literary creation and interpretation. |
| Muse | One of the nine goddesses (daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory) responsible for the various fields of art and study. |
| Myth | An often supernatural or highly imaginative narrative in the oral tradition, used to express explanations for or collective attitudes toward human or natural events, social customs or beliefs, or the origins of life. |
| Narrator | Someone who tells a story; the imagined or understood speaker of a narrative. |
| Negative Capability | One's capability or willingness to be receptive to a complex or uncertian situation rather than ignoring ambiguity or pushing toward and artificially simple solution. |
| Neologism | A word newly invented and introduced into a language. |
| Nonce Word | A word invented by a writer for use on a single occasion. Differs from a neologism in that it generally does not become an established part of the written or spoken language. |
| Portmanteau Word | A neologism or nonce word made up of two pre-existing words fused together; also called a blend. ex. smog= smoke +fog. |
| Occasional Verse | Poetry written for or in response to a specific occasion, such as a birth, death, marriage, anniversary, or other notable event. |
| Octameter | Describes a line of metrical verse consisting of eight feet. |
| Octave | Any stanza of eight lines, whether rhymed or unrhymed. Sometimes called an octet. |
| Ode | A realitively long, formal and elaborate lyric poem marking an important event, praising a person or thing, or meditationg upon an important subject. |
| Oeuvre | French for "work," the term refers to the total body of works written by a particular author. |
| Onomatopoeia | the use of a word that imitates the sound of something, or a word with a sound suggesting its meaning. |
| Organic Form | Describes the form of a work of literature (usually a poem) that doesnot adhere to any set formal arrangement or structure. |
| Ottava Rima | A stanza of eight lines in iambic pentameter, rhymed ABABABCC. |
| Oxymoron | A word or phrase made up of two contradictory terms. |
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