Set 16
A speech given by one character. (Hamlet’s “To be or not to be . . . ”)
monologue
A poem that tells a story.
narrative poem
The speaker of a literary work.
narrator
A formal, lengthy poem that celebrates a particular subject.
ode
The aspects of a literary work that elicit pity from the audience.
pathos
The repetition or variations of an image or idea in a work which is used to develop theme or characters.
motif
An eight-line stanza, usually combined with a sestet in a Petrarchan sonnet.
octave
A story that operates on more than one level and usually teaches a moral lesson. (The Pearl by John Steinbeck is a fine example.)
parable
A three-line stanza.
tercet
The assigning of human qualities to inanimate objects or concepts.
personification
The hero or main character of a literary work, the character with whom the audience sympathizes.
protagonist
A four-line stanza.
quatrain
A set of seemingly contradictory elements which nevertheless reflects an underlying truth. For example, in Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, the Friar says to Hero, “Come, Lady, die to live.”
paradox
The annotation of the pattern of the rhyme.
rhyme scheme
A question that does not expect an explicit answer. It is used to pose an idea to be considered by the speaker or audience.
rhetorical question
A six-line stanza, usually paired with an octave to form a Petrarchan sonnet.
sestet
A speech in a play which is used to reveal the character’s inner thoughts to the audience.
soliloquy
A 14-line poem with a prescribed rhyme scheme in iambic pentameter.
sonnet
rhyming structures with words that share similar sounds but aren't exactly perfect rhymes.
slant rhyme, near rhyme or half rhyme
from the French meaning “a striding over,” this is a poetic term for the continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line of poetry to the next.
enjambment
A unit of a poem, similar in rhyme, meter, and length to other units in the poem.
stanza
A secondary plot that explores ideas different from the main storyline.
subplot
Something in a literary work that stands for something else.
symbol
A secondary story line that mimics and reinforces the main plot. (Hamlet loses his father, as does Ophelia.)
parallel plot
The underlying ideas that the author illustrates through characterization, motifs, language, plot, etc.
theme