English Literary Devices

Double meaning poem

A poem that can be interpreted with two meanings.

Free verse

Poetry written with no meter or rhyme.

Tone

An author’s attitude toward a subject.

Speaker

The narrator of a poem.

Allusion

A reference within a text to an outside source.

Mood

Atmosphere or feeling.

Syntactic whisper

When the author directly confides something intimate with the reader.

Poet

Author of a poem.

Alveolar stop

The use of d, n, or t sounds.

Metaphor

A direct comparison using is or was.

Simile

A comparison using like or as.

Imagery

Descriptive language meant to activate the five senses.

Onomatopoeia

A word that echoes the sound it represents.

Repetition/refrain

The reoccurrence of a word or phrase throughout a text.

Alliteration

The recurrence of a letter at the beginning of each successive word.

Hyperbole

An exaggeration not meant to be taken literally.

Dramatic irony

When the reader knows something that the character does not.

Assonance

Repetition of a vowel sound on the accented syllable and followed by a different consonant sound.

Anaphora

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.

Palindrome Poem

A poem that can be read both top to bottom and bottom to top with different meanings.

Monostitch

A stanza of one line.

Narrative poem

A poem that tells a story, usually written in blank verse.

Figurative Language

Metaphor, simile, onomatopoeia, hyperbole, personification, allusion, or idiom.

Stanza

A paragraph in a poem.

Sibilance

Repetition of S, C, Th, and F sounds at the beginning of words in succession.

Quatrain

A stanza of four lines.

Foreshadowing

A precursor of future events.

Suspense

A feeling of uncertainty or stress of what is yet to come.

Caesura

A break midline originally intended to help poets recall lines from long poems.

End Rhyme

A rhyme occurring at the end of lines.

Rhythm

The flow of sound.

Lyric Poetry

Poetry that conveys a strong feeling of emotion, written in blank verse.

Blank verse

Meter, no rhyme.

Meter

Patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables that make up the rhythm.

Enjambment

A break between a sentence continuing on the next line.

Slant rhyme

A type of rhyme in which the two words rhyme slightly, but not completely.

Tercet

A stanza of three lines.

Personification

The attribution of human characteristics to a non-human object.

Iamb

A type of meter in which the emphasis is placed on the second syllable of a two syllable word (da-DA).

Iambic trimeter

Verse containing three iambs.

Iambic tetrameter

Verse containing four iambs.

Iambic pentameter

Verse containing five iambs.

Amphibrach

A metrical foot in which the stressed syllable occurs on the second syllable of a three syllable word (da-DA-da).

Inverted syntax

Rearranging of proper syntax.

Memento Mori

A reminder of death.

Couplet

A stanza of two lines.

Polysyndeton

The use of the word 'and' in place of a comma.

Satire

Making fun of a topic or using humor to shed light on a topic.

Tragedy

A literary work in which the main character is brought to ruin or suffers extreme sorrow.

Pun

A joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word.

Foil

A character meant to bring out the negative qualities of another.

Conflict

The struggle between two opposing forces in a text.

Melodrama

Strong language meant to invoke emotion in the reader.

Monologue

A speech delivered by one single character that can be heard by others.

Soliloquy

A speech delivered by a character that cannot be heard by others.

Malapropism

The use of an incorrect word that makes the character seem unintelligent.

Sonnet

A fourteen line poem written in iambic pentameter.

Theme

The overall message of a literary work.

Pathetic fallacy

Giving human emotions to a nonhuman object (usually the weather).

Dramatic irony

A type of irony where the reader knows something the characters do not.

Verbal irony

A type of irony where the character says the exact opposite of what they mean.

Situational irony

A type of irony in which the outcome of a situation is the exact opposite of what was intended.

Idiom

A phrase that is understood by a group of people but cannot be taken literally.

Comic relief

The insertion of humorous or comedic content into an otherwise serious situation.

Tragic hero

The character that a tragedy follows.

Tragic flaw

A fatal flaw in a character’s being that leads them to a tragic consequence.

Sarcasm

The use of irony to mock or convey contempt.

Analogy

A comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.

Litotes

A figure of speech with an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite.

Parallelism

Components in a sentence that are grammatically the same or similar in construction, sound, meaning, or meter.

Rhetorical question

A question that is not intended to be answered.

Anecdotal fallacy

When people use a one-time experience, their limited personal experience or that of an acquaintance to draw general conclusions about a subject.

Hasty generalization

An informal fallacy of faulty generalization, which involves reaching an inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence