P List Literary Devices

Question 1

a tale told explicitly to illustrate a moral lesson or conclusion

Answer 1

parable

Question 2

a statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements

Answer 2

paradox

Question 3

the repeated use of similar grammatical structures for the purpose of emphasis; compare w/ anaphora, a type of parallel structure concerned only with the repetitions of an initial word or words

Answer 3

parallel structure

Question 4

a restatement of the content of a poem designed to make its prose meaning as clear as possible

Answer 4

paraphrase

Question 5

a humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work, sometimes sarcastic, but often playful and even respectful in its playful imitation

Answer 5

parody

Question 6

a quality of a play’s action that stimulates the audience to feel pity for a character

Answer 6

pathos

Question 7

a metrical line containing five feet

Answer 7

pentameter

Question 8

the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities

Answer 8

personification

Question 9

use of several conjunctions in close succession, esp. were some would be omitted

Answer 9

polysyndeton

Question 10

a word whose sound, by an obscure process, to some degree suggests its meaning; as differentiated from onomatopoeia, the meanings of these do not refer explicitly to sounds

Answer 10

phonetic intensive

Question 11

details the adventures of a picaro (loveable rascal or rogue); often satirical, this novel depicts in realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low social class who lives by hos or her wits in a corrupt society

Answer 11

picaresque novel

Question 12

the unified structure of incidents in a literary work

Answer 12

plot

Question 13

a situation in which an author gives the plot a twist or turn unjustified by preceding action or by the characters involved

Answer 13

plot manipulation

Question 14

similar to syntax in prose, also includes the arrangement of words into lines–were they break or do not break, the use of enjambment or caesura, and line length/patterns

Answer 14

poetic syntax

Question 15

writing that uses immoderately heightened or distended language to sway the reader’s feelings

Answer 15

poeticizing

Question 16

the angle of vision from which a story is narrated; can be first person (narrator is a character or an observer), objective (narrator knows no more than the reader), omniscient (narrator knows everything about the characters), and limited omniscient (narrator knows some things about the characters but not everything)

Answer 16

point of view

Question 17

refers to a loose grouping of writers in the post-WWII era who carry on the agenda of their predecessors, inasmuch as they reject traditional literary conventions, embrace experimentation, and see contemporary life as bleak and fragmented; writers tend to eschew attempts to treat art as a corrective to modern malaises, and their writing celebrates or plays with the fragmentation of life instead of seeking to fix it; writers attack the distinction between “high” and “low” art maintained by their predecessors, and their writing engages with popular art forms like cartoons and television

Answer 17

Postmodernism

Question 18

work that aims to influence an audience about a debatable position or affiliation, not through rational or supported appeals but through one or more of the following: emotional manipulation, the selective use (and omission) of facts, spin, or any number of fallacious techniques

Answer 18

propaganda

Question 19

nonmetrical language; opposite of verse

Answer 19

prose

Question 20

a blending of prose and poetry, usually resembling prose in its use of sentences without line breaks, and poetry in its use of quintessentially poetic devices such as figurative language

Answer 20

prose poem

Question 21

the main character of a literary work, posed with a problem to solve or a quest to complete

Answer 21

protagonist

Question 22

a play on words that derives its humor from the replacement of one word with another that has a similar pronunciation or spelling but a different meaning

Answer 22

pun

Question 23

a metrical foot with two unstressed syllables (ex.: of the)

Answer 23

pyrrhic