M-O Flashcards
those characters whom we see and learn about the most.
major (main) characters
a contemplation of some physical object as a way of reflecting upon some larger truth, often (but not necessarily) a spiritual one.
meditation
also called mnemonic devices; these devices—including rhyme, repetitive phrasing, and meter—when part of the structure of a longer work, make that work easier to memorize.
memory devices
(1) one thing pictured as if it were something else, suggesting a likeness or analogy between them; (2) an implicit comparison or identification of one thing with another unlike itself without the use of a verbal signal. Sometimes used as a general term for figure of speech.
metaphor
the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. This is determined by the kind of “foot” (iambic and dactylic, for example) and by the number of feet per line (five feet = pentameter, six feet = hexameter, for example).
meter
those figures who fill out the story but who do not figure prominently in it.
minor characters
style, manner, way of proceeding, as in “tragic mode”; often used synonymously with genre, kind, and subgenre.
mode
a speech of more than a few sentences, usually in a play but also in other genres, spoken by one person and uninterrupted by the speech of anyone else. See soliloquy.
monologue
a recurrent device, formula, or situation that deliberately connects a poem with common patterns of existing thought.
motif
like allegory, it is usually is symbolic and extensive, including an entire work or story. Though it no longer is necessarily specific to or pervasive in a single culture—individual authors may now be said to create myths— myth still seems communal or cultural, while the symbolic can often involve private or personal myths. Thus stories more or less universally Thus stories more or less universally shared within a culture to explain its history and traditions are frequently called myths.
myth
a textual organization based on sequences of connected events usually presented in a straightforward chronological framework.
narrative structure
the character who “tells” the story.
narrator
as it refers to a person—”it is his (or her) nature”—a rather old term suggesting something inborn, inherent, fixed, and thus predictable. See character, personality.
nature
a poem written about or for a specific occasion, public or private.
occasional poem
a line of poetry with eight feet: “Once u | pon a | midnight | dreary | while I | pondered, | weak and | weary” (Poe, “The Raven”).
octameter
the first eight lines of the Italian,or Petrarchan, sonnet. See also sestet.
octave
a lyric poem characterized by a serious topic and formal tone but no prescribed formal pattern. See Keats’s odes and Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind.”
ode
the sum total of works verifiably written by an author. See canon.
oeuvre
also called unlimited point of view; a perspective that can be seen from one character’s view, then another’s, then another’s, or can be moved in or out of any character’s mind at any time. Organization in which the reader has access to the perceptions and thoughts of all the characters in the story.
omniscient point of view
a word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes; buzz is a good example.
onomatopoeia
in classical Greek theater, a semicircular area used mostly for dancing by the chorus.
orchestra
a main plot in fiction or drama
overplot
exaggerated language; also called hyperbole.
overstatement
a figure of speech that combines two apparently contradictory elements, as in wise fool (sophomore).
oxymoron
