Lit Terms Mar 5

Narrator

The person or voice telling the story

Objective POV

the narrator reports events without revealing character’s thoughts or feelings

Octet

a stanza of eight lines, often in a sonnet

Odeius Complex

A psychological term describing a child's feelings of desire for the opposite-sex parent and jealousy toward the same-sex parent.

Olfactory Imagery

Descriptive language that appeals to the sense of smell.

Omniscent POV

A narrative perspective where the narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all characters.

Onomatopeia

The formation of a word by imitating the natural sounds associated with the object or action it refers to, such as 'buzz' or 'sizzle.'

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in conjunction.

Paradox

that appears self-contradictory but reveals a truth.

Parallelism

The use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the same or similar in their construction, sound, meaning, or meter.

Parody

A humorous or satirical imitation of a particular work, style, or genre.

Pastoral

A literary work that idealizes rural life and landscapes, often emphasizing nature and simplicity.

Pathetic Fallacy

a literary device where human emotions are attributed to nature or inanimate objects.

Peripeteia

A sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances in a literary work, often leading to the protagonist's downfall.

Personification

A literary device in which human qualities and characteristics are attributed to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract concepts.

Plagiarism

the act of using someone else's work, ideas, or intellectual property without proper acknowledgment, presenting it as one's own.

Plausibility

The quality of being reasonable or probable, often used in assessing a narrative's believability.

POV

Point of View, the perspective from which a story is told.

Premise

A statement or proposition upon which an argument is based or from which a conclusion is drawn.

Prologue

An introductory section of a literary work that sets the stage for the story and provides background information.

Prose

Written or spoken language in its ordinary form, without the structured meter of poetry.

Protagonist

The main character in a story, often facing a conflict that drives the narrative.

Quatrain

A stanza or verse containing four lines, often with alternating rhymes.

Raisonneur

A character who expresses the author's viewpoint or perspective in a play or literary work.

Rhetoric

The art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, often using figures of speech and other compositional techniques.