The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic. While both Swift and Pope are satirizing much the same subjects, there is a profound difference in their tone.

A work that treats a serious subject frivolously-- ridiculing the dignified. Often the tone is mock serious and heavy handed.

A novel that presents an ideal society where the problems of poverty, greed, crime, and so forth have been eliminated.

How fully the characters and actions in a work of fiction conform to our sense of reality. To say that a work has a high degree of verisimilitude means that the work is very realistic and believable--it is "true to life.".

Generally, the structural form of a verse, as revealed by scansion. Identification of verse structure includes the name of the metrical type and the name designating number of feet:

• Monometer: 1 foot
• Dimeter: 2 feet
• Trimeter: 3 feet
• Tetrameter: 4 feet
• Pentameter: 5 feet
• Hexameter: 6 feet
• Heptameter: 7 feet
• Octameter: 8 feet
• Nonameter: 9 feet

A novel set in the western United States featuring the experiences of cowboys and frontiersmen. Many are little more than adventure novels or even pulp fiction, but some have literary value. Examples:

• Walter Van Tilburg Clark, The Ox-Bow Incident
• Owen Wister, The Virginian