A line is measured by its pattern and feet. A line with 5 iambs is a iambic pentameter. A line with 4 trochees is a trochaic tetrameter. A line with 6 dactyls is a dactylic hexameter. etc...

Sestet

   A six-line stanza or poem. This term is usually applied to the last six lines of an Italian sonnet. The first six lines are called an octave. Also see Octave

Setting

   The time and place that a story, novel, play, or narrative poem occur in. If an author chooses the setting can be used to create atmosphere or just serve as a physical background.

Simile

   A comparison between two unlike things using the words "like", "as", "than", or "resembles".

   (ex. "the snow was like a blanket covering the ground", and "lips redder than a rose")

Soliloquy

   During a play, when a character delivers a speech alone on the stage. A soliloquy is when the feelings and thoughts of a character are revealed to the audience, almost as if they are speaking aloud.

   (ex. The end of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" when Macbeth is near defeat.)

Song

   A short lyric poem made for music. Most song express a simple but powerful emotion.

   (ex. George Gordon, Lord Byron's "She Walks in Beauty" )

Sonnet

   A fourteen-line lyric poem. A sonnet is usually written in rhymed iambic pentameter form about a single theme or idea. There are many stuctures and rhyme schemes that a sonnet may follow, but the two main types are Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet and Elizabethan (or Shakespearean) sonnet.
   The Italian sonnet was formed in Italy during the thirteenth century. This sonnet has an octave and a sestet. The Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains and an ending couplet.

Spenserian Stanza

   A nine-line stanza with the rhyme scheme ababbcbcc. The first eight lines are written in iambic pentameter while the ninth line is written in iambic hexameter (or an alexandrine).

   (ex. Edmund Spenser's "The Faerie Queene" )

Sprung Rhythm

   Created by Gerard Manley Hopkins, a sprung rhythm is a varying poetic meter with no particular pattern of syllables. It sounds almost like speech and it is what most nursery rhymes are made in.

Stereotype

   A typical character that is used often in literature. Reference to a stereotype is almost always picked up by the reader because it is so familiar. Stereotyped characters always act the same way and possess the same traits.

   (ex. "mad scientist", "dumb jock", and "weak girl")

Stream of Consciousness

   A type of writing that tries to impersonate the natural flow of a person's mind. This often includes feelings, expressions, mental images, and thoughts.

Strophe

   See Ode.

Style

   The author's way of expressing himself or herself through grammatical and sensory aspects like diction, sentences, and images. Style is what we use to distinguish one author from another.

Suspense

   The quality in a narrative to evoke the feeling of uncertainess or tension in a reader. Suspense makes readers want to continue reading. Most people would like to be full of suspense which is why most stories are about dangerous situations and curious mysteries.

Symbol

   A thing -a person, place, object, or action- that means something larger than itself. Symbols often express a quality, feeling, belief, or value.

   (ex. Roses often symbolize love and beauty, while the color black often symbolizes death or dying.)

Symbolism

   A literary movement in France during the end of the nineteenth century. Many English writers and poets were influenced by this movement and tried hard to communicate through means of powerful symbols instead of direct statements.

Synecdoche

   A figure of speech in which a part represents a whole.

   (ex. In the phrase "all hands on deck" the word "hands" represents the people)

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