Lit Devices

Allegory

Story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities

Alliteration

Repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together

Allusion

reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or another branch of culture

Anaphora

Repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row

Anthropomorphism

Attributing human characteristics to an animal or inanimate object

Aphorism

Brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life, or of a principle or accepted general truth

Apostrophe

Calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea. If the character is asking a god or goddess, it is instead called an invocation

Conceit

An elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different, often an extended metaphor

Foil

A character who acts as a contrast to another character

Free verse

Poetry that does not conform to a regular meter or rhyme scheme

Hyperbole

A figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration or overstatement for effect

Irony

A discrepancy between appearances and reality

Verbal irony

Occurs when someone says something but means something else

Situational irony

Occurs when there is a discrepancy between what is expected/appropriate to happen and what actually happens

Dramatic irony

The audience knows something the character does not

Juxtaposition

Poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to each other, creating the effect of surprise and wit

Metonymy

A figure of speech in whicha person, place, or thing is referred to by something closely related to it (ex. “the crown” referring to a monarch)

Motif

A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase (ex. “jumbo shrimp”)

Parallelism

The repetition of words or phrases that have similar grammatical structures

Parody

A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the author’s style

Soliloquoy

A long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage

Stream of consciousness

A style of writing that portrays the inner workings of a character’s mind

Symbol

A person, place, thing, or even that has meaning in itself that also stands for something more than itself

Tone

The attitude a writer takes toward the subject of a work, the characters in it, or the audience; revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization