P-R

Question 1

(or prosopopeia) treating an abstraction as if it were a person by endowing it with humanlike qualities.

Answer 1

personification

Question 2

also called Italian sonnet; a sonnet form that divides the poem into one section of eight lines (octave) and a second section of six lines (sestet), usually following the abbaabba cdecde rhyme scheme or, more loosely, an abbacddc pattern.

Answer 2

petrarchan sonnet

Question 3

the arrangement of the action.

Answer 3

plot

Question 4

a description of the arrangement of the action in the order in which it actually appears in a story. The term is popularly used to mean the description of the history, or chronological order, of the action as it would have appeared in reality. It is important to indicate exactly in which sense you are using the term.

Answer 4

plot summary

Question 5

the temporal setting in which the action takes place in a story or play.

Answer 5

plot time

Question 6

also called focus; the point from which people, events, and other details in a story are viewed. This term is sometimes used to include both focus and voice.

Answer 6

point of view

Question 7

exactness, accuracy of language or description

Answer 7

precision

Question 8

the second step in the creation of a character for the written text and the performed play; the representation of the character by the playwright in the words and actions specified in the text.

Answer 8

presentation

Question 9

articles and objects used on the stage.

Answer 9

props

Question 10

an arch over the front of a stage; the proscenium serves as a “frame” for the action on stage.

Answer 10

proscenium arch

Question 11

the main character in a work, who may be male or female, heroic or not heroic. See antagonist, antihero, and hero/ heroine. Protagonist is the most neutral term.

Answer 11

protagonist

Question 12

a poetic attack, usually quite direct, on allegedly unjust institutions or social injustices.

Answer 12

protest poem

Question 13

a modification of the concept of realism, or telling it like it is, which recognizes that what is real to the individual is that which he or she perceives. It is the ground for the use of the centered consciousness, or the first-person narrator, since both of these present reality only as something perceived by the focal character.

Answer 13

psychological realism

Question 14

the actual time it takes a reader to read a work.

Answer 14

reader time

Question 15

the practice in literature of attempting to describe nature and life without idealization and with attention to detail.

Answer 15

realism

Question 16

a false lead, something that misdirects expectations.

Answer 16

red herring

Question 17

when used to describe a poem, play, or story, referential means making textual use of a specific historical moment or event or, more broadly, making use of external, “natural,” or “actual” detail.

Answer 17

referential

Question 18

a textual organization based on the pondering of a subject, theme, or event, and letting the mind play with it, skipping from one sound to another or to related thoughts or objects as the mind receives them.

Answer 18

reflective (meditative) structure

Question 19

to verbally depict an image so that readers can “see” it.

Answer 19

represent

Question 20

traditional figure of speech, used for specific persuasive effects.

Answer 20

rhetorical trope

Question 21

the pattern of end rhymes in a poem, often noted by small letters, e.g., abab or abba, etc.

Answer 21

rhythm scheme

Question 22

the modulation of weak and strong (or stressed and unstressed) elements in the flow of speech. In most poetry written before the twentieth century, rhythm was often expressed in regular, metrical forms; in prose and in free verse, rhythm is present but in a much less predictable and regular manner.

Answer 22

rhythm

Question 23

the second of the five parts of plot structure, in which events complicate the situation that existed at the beginning of a work, intensifying the conflict or introducing new conflict.

Answer 23

rising action

Question 24

a ritual or ceremony marking an individual’s passing from one stage or state to a more advanced one, or an event in one’s life that seems to have such significance; a formal initiation. Rites of passage are common in initiation stories.

Answer 24

rite of passage

Question 25

complex characters, often major characters, who can grow and change and “surprise convincingly”—that is, act in a way that you did not expect from what had gone before but now accept as possible, even probable, and “realistic.”

Answer 25

round characters