S Flashcards
a form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critical.
sarcasm
a literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure.
satire
Scansion is the process of scanning a poem, analyzing the verse to show its meter, line by line.
scanning/scansion
a character, “you,” who tells the story and necessarily has a limited point of view; may be seen as an extension of the reader, an external figure acting out a story, or an auditor; may also be an unreliable narrator.
second-person narrator
the last six lines of the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet. See also octave.
sestet
an elaborate verse structure written in blank verse that consists of six stanzas of six lines each followed by a three-line stanza. The final words of each line in the first stanza appear in variable order in the next five stanzas, and are repeated in the middle and at the end of the three lines in the final stanza, as in Elizabeth Bishop’s “Sestina.”
sestina
the design, decoration, and scenery of the stage during a play.
set
the time and place of the action in a story, poem, or play.
setting
also called an English sonnet; a sonnet form that divides the poem into three units of four lines each and a final unit of two lines (4+4+4+2 structure). Its classic rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg, but there are variations.
skakespearen sonnet
another name for concrete poetry; poetry that is shaped to look like an object.
shaped verse
a direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using the words like or as to draw the connection. See metaphor.
simile
the context of the literary work’s action, what is happening when the story, poem, or play begins.
situation
in a narrative, the incongruity between what the reader and/or character expects to happen and what actually does happen.
situational irony
a low building in the back of the stage area in classical Greek theaters. It represented the palace or temple in front of which the action took place.
skene
a monologue in which the character in a play is alone and speaking only to him-or herself.
soliloquy
a fixed verse form consisting of fourteen lines usually in iambic pentameter. See Italian sonnet and Shakespearean sonnet.
sonnet
the place of a poem, story, or play.
spacial setting
the person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of a poem.
speaker
a stanza that consists of eight lines of iambic pentameter (five feet) followed by a ninth line of iambic hexameter (six feet). The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc.
Spenserian stanza
a metrical foot consisting of a pair of stressed syllables (“Dead set”).
spondee
The words in the printed text of a play that inform the director, crew, actors, and readers how to stage, perform, or imagine the play. Stage directions are not spoken aloud and may appear at the beginning of a play, before any scene, or attached to a line of dialogue. The place and time of the action, the design of the set itself, and at times the characters’ actions or tone of voice are dictated through stage directions and interpreted by the group of people that put on a performance.
stage directions
a section of a poem demarcated by extra line spacing. Some distinguish between a stanza, a division marked by a single pattern of meter or rhyme, and a verse paragraph, a division governed by thought rather than sound pattern.
stanza
a characterization based on conscious or unconscious assumptions that some one aspect—such as gender, age, ethnic or national identity, religion, occupation, marital status, and so on—is predictably accompanied by certain character traits, actions, even values.
stereotype
a character that appears in a number of stories or plays, such as the cruel stepmother, the braggart, and so forth
stock character
the organization or arrangement of the various elements in a work.
structure
a distinctive manner of expression; each author’s style is expressed through his/her diction, rhythm, imagery, and so on.
style
a division within the category of a genre; novel, novella, and short story are subgenres of the genre fiction.
subgenre
(1) the concrete and literal description of what a story is about; (2) the general or specific area of concern of a poem—also called topic; (3) also used in fiction commentary to denote a character whose inner thoughts and feelings are recounted.
subject
another name for an underplot; a subordinate plot in fiction or drama.
subplot
the expectation of and doubt about what is going to happen next.
suspense
a form in which the poet establishes a precise number of syllables to a line and repeats it in subsequent stanzas.
syllabic verse
a person, place, thing, event, or pattern in a literary work that designates itself and at the same time figuratively represents or “stands for” something else. Often the thing or idea represented is more abstract, general, non-or superrational; the symbol, more concrete and particular.
symbol
a poem in which the use of symbols is so pervasive and internally consistent that the larger referential world is distanced, if not forgotten.
symbolic poem
the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences.
syntax
