| Term | Definition |
|---|
| motif | a phrase, idea, or event that through repetition serves to unify or convey a theme in an essay or other discourse |
| muse | one of the ancient Greek goddesses presiding over the arts: the imaginary source of inspiration for an artist or writer |
| myth | an imaginary story that has become an accepted part of the cutural or religious tradition of a group or society |
| narrative | a form of verse or prose that tells a story |
| naturalism | a term often used as a synonym for realism: also a view of experience that is generally characterized as bleak and pessimistic |
| non sequitur | a statement or idea that fails to follow logically from the one before |
| objective | of or relating to facts and reality, as opposed to private and personal feelings and attitudes |
| ode | a lyric poem usually marked by serious, respectful, and exalted feelings toward the subject |
| Old English | the Anglo-Saxon language spoken from approximately 450 to1150 A.D. in what is now Great Britain |
| omniscient narrator | a narrator with unlimited awareness, understanding, and insight of characters, setting, background, and all other elements of the story |
| onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sounds suggest their meaning |
| oxymoron | a term consisting of contradictory elements juxtaposed to create a paradoxical effect |
| parable | a story consisting of events from which a moral or spiritual truth may be derived |
| paradox | a statement that seems self-contradictory but is nevertheless true |
| parallel structure | the structure required for expressing two or more grammatical elements of equal rank |
| parody | an imitation of a work meant to ridicule ots style and subject |
| paraphrase | a version of a text put into simpler, everyday words or summarized for brevity |
| pastoral | a work of literature dealing with rural life |
| pathetic fallacy | faulty reasoning that inappropriately ascribes human feelings to nature or nonhuman objects |
| pathos | that element in literature that stimulates pity or sorrow |
| pedantic | narrowly academic instead of broad and humane;excessively petty and meticulous |
| periodic sentence | a sentence that departs from the usual word order of English sentences by expressing its main thought only at the end |
| persona | the role of facade that a character assumes or depicts to a reader or other audience |
| personification | a figure of speech on which objects and animals are given human characteristics |
| plot | the interrelationship among the events on a story |
| point of view | the relation in which a narrator or speaker stands to a subject of discourse |
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