Point of View

Narrator/character/reader all have different POVs. What engages us as a reader is a gliding POV, with a fixed POV being “boring”.

Brian was able to shake up the S-Town podcast when he decided to switch from sharing Tyler's POV to John's cousin's POV, each POV basically corroborating the other's.

Post-Modernist / Post-Structuralist

Modernism focuses more on 20th century sense of culture, nostalgia, and overall materialism that industrialized into society. Meanwhile structuralism, emerging from the French around the 1960's, centered more on objective truth and empiricism.

Whereas "The Matrix" could be Post-Modernist, it would not be Post-Structuralist, because Neo takes the pill that allows him to escape the imprisonment of his world. In Post-Structuralism, there is no escape from the structure of society.

Quatrain

Four lines of poetry in a verse or stanza; can rhyme or not.

Emily Dickinson's "Hope is the Thing with Feathers": “Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul / And sings the tune without the words / And never stops at all…”

Realism

Detailed attention to the routine texture of social life. Any movement that offers fresh, realistic view of reality.

Brian's detailed retelling of John's maze in S-Town added to the overall realism of the nature and scenery on John's property to the listener.

Rhetorical Question

A question asked not to be sincerely answered but instead to leave a thought-provoking effect from the asker to the listener.

When people ask "are you stupid?" they do not warrant an answer, rather you to consider that you might, indeed, be acting stupidly.

Round VS Flat

Round characters are dynamic, developing throughout the text. Meanwhile, flat characters see little development, remaining largely the same as the plot unravels.

While we see much change, growth, and development in Harry throughout the "Harry Potter" series (round), Hagrid remains largely unchanged (flat). Despite being the first being to introduce Harry into the world of magic, the audience never sees any dynamic change in Hagrid's character, making his role in the series rather flat.

Science Fiction

Prose dedicating the literary universe to a concept revolving around the evolution or decay of humanity as we know it, often placed at a different period in time to explain the exaggerated science of the story.

"Star Wars" was a science fiction movie that revolutionized the genre, being one of many to set science fiction stories in space, centering around characters with abilities and resources nonexistent in nonfiction stories.

Simile

Using "like" or "as" to metaphorically compare one object or experience to another.

"Happy as a clam" is a simile, since one is comparing their happiness to that of being inside a safe, comfortable clam shell (a strange simile, to be sure, but a simile nonetheless).

Soliloquy

A speech especially made dramatic like a monologue (spoken to no one).

Act 2 Scene 1 of Shakespeare's "Macbeth" features the titular character articulating his obvious preconceived guilt toward killing the King. Macbeth speaks aloud to himself about seeing blood on the dagger, expressing his inner thoughts to the audience and furthering the foreshadowing of the story.

Syntax

The way in which words and clauses are ordered and connected so as to form sentences; or the set of grammatical rules governing such word-order.

Brian Reed used syntax to effectively emulate how many Alabamians spoke in the podcast S-Town.

Tragedy

Genre of experience, normally including an unhappy ending. Any period between individual and hostiles. Progression from order to disorder, loss of high status. Spectacle that arouses pity/fear artificially, called catharsis.

"Romeo and Juliet" would be one of the most famous tragedies, due to how long its been around making it's unhappy ending well-known. The two had mutual love for another, but hostile persecution from their families drove them to die in each other's arms.

Trilogy

Three separate yet connected works of writing. The three separate works usually come together to contribute to the overarching plot line of the trilogy.

The "Back to the Future" movies each follow the same set of characters, continuing the plot from the previous movie to further the overarching plot as a whole.

Utopia

Constructed version of an idealized, advanced society of people living and working together in harmonic rhythm seen as superior to reality.

"The Truman Show" placed a normal man in fabricated, controlled surroundings his whole life, trying to make his life as utopian as possible. His defiance to this utopia begs the question of whether or not humanity would truly accept a utopia.

Villain

The antagonist to a story's protagonist(s). Evil intentions with ill-willed actions to achieve them.

The Wicked Witch of the West was the villain to Dorothy's heroine role, trying to stop Dorothy's journey home on numerous occasions in "The Wizard of Oz".

Volta

The Italian term for the 'turn' in the argument or mood of a sonnet, occurring (in the Italian form of sonnet) between the octave and the sestet, at the ninth line.

In "Italian Sonnet" by James DeFord, there is a noticeable turn in tone from the eighth to ninth line: "Accept my love, live for today / Your roses wilted, as love spurned"

Wit

Ability of a literary character to think quickly on their feet, associated during the Renaissance as the capacity to quickly "invent" things.

Odysseus telling Polyphemus his name was "Nobody" so that Polyphemus' cries would be misinterpreted showcased Odysseus' wit in "The Odyssey".

Zeugma

Utilizing one figure of speech to encapsulate two other subjects in the sentence under its meaning.

"Josh attacked the strange man with a fire in his eyes and fists" applies the metaphorical fire to both Josh's eyes and fists, creating a zeugma.