English Honors. - Literary Elements examples

Alliteration

"The silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain"

Hyperbole

"She lived with no other thought / Than to love and be loved by me."

Metaphor

"For the sake of the minister's health, and to allow the leech to gather plants with healing balm in them, they took long walks on the seashore."

Paradox

"The first will be last and the last will be first."

Personification

"Because I could not stop for Death / He kindly stopped for me."

Simile

"She wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness; as vast, as intricate and shadowy, as the untamed forest"

Allusion

"But she named the infant 'Pearl,' as being of great price - purchased with all she had, - her mother's only treasure “

Conceit

"Raise up thy thoughts above the sky
That dunghill mists away may fly.
Thou hast a house on high erect
Framed by that Mighty Architect,
With glory richly furnished,
Stands permanent though this be fled.
It's purchased and paid for too
By Him who hath enough to do.
A price so vast as is unknown,
Yet by His gift is made thine own;
There's enough wealth, I need no more,
Farewell, my pelf, farewell, my store."

Direct Characterization

"His wife was a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm"

Indirect Characterization

Chilling-worth's physical transformation from a scholarly figure to a demonic, hunched presence reveals his inner corruption.

Irony

The "unsinkable" Titanic

Verbal Irony

"All is fair in love and war"

Situational Irony

The fire station catches on fire and burns down

Dramatic Irony

The audience knows Juliet is only asleep, but Romeo thinks she is dead, so he kills himself

Repetition

"Let me love the world like a mother.
Let me be tender when it lets me down.
Let me listen to the rain's one note and hear a beginner's song”

Anecdote

Anecdote

"Last night, I accidentally locked myself out of the house and had to crawl through a small, dusty window to get back in”

Analogy

Because I could not stop for Death -
He kindly stopped for me -
The Carriage held but just Ourselves -
And Immortality.
We slowly drove - He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility -
We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess - in the Ring -
We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain -
We passed the Setting Sun