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Literary Terms R-V
Literary Terms Beginning with R - V
Term | Meaning |
---|---|
refrain | A phrase or verse that is repeated throughout a poem or song. |
rhetorical question | A question put forth to achieve an effect or make a point, to which an answer is not expected. |
rhyme | The repetition of similar or identical sounds at the ends of lines of verse. |
rhythm | The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry or prose. |
satire | Ridicule of a subject; the work in which it is contained. |
short story | A brief work of narrative prose. |
simile | The comparison of two unlike objects using “like” or “as”. |
soliloquy | A dramatic monologue meant to convey the thoughts of a character in a play. |
sonnet | A poem consisting of fourteen iambic pentameter lines with a rigidly prescribed rhyming scheme. |
spondee | A type of metrical foot with two stressed syllables. |
spoonerism | The transportation of the initial sounds of two or more words, often with humorous results. Named for a Professor Spooner of Oxford, who was famous for such transpositions. |
style | An author’s individual method and tone. |
subplot | A secondary plot in a story. |
symbol | In literature, something that stands for, or means, something else. |
theme | The central idea or thesis of a work. |
trochee | A metrical foot that contains one long or stressed syllable preceding one short or unstressed syllable. |
verse | Lines of writing arranged in metrical patterns, or a single such line. |