Literary Devices

Allegory

Allegory

a story illustrating an idea or a moral principle in which objects take on symbolic meanings

in Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy,” Dante, symbolizing mankind, is taken by Virgil the poet on a journey through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise in order to teach him the nature of sin and its punishments, and the way to salvation

Alliteration

used for poetic effect, a repetition of the initial consonant sounds of several words in a group

Allusion

a reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another literary work

Ambiguity

a statement which can contain two or more meanings

Anadiplosis

a Greek word which means “to reduplicate”

refers to the repetition of a word or words in successive clauses in such a way that the second clause starts with the same word which marks the end of the previous clause

Analogue

a comparison between two similar things

in literature, a work which resembles another work either fully or in part

if a work resembles another because it is derived from the other, the original work is called the source

Anapest

in a line of poetry, two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable forming the pattern for the line or perhaps for the entire poem

Anaphora

repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines

ex. this royal throne, this sceptered isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of…

Anecdote

a very short tale told by a character in a literary work

in Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” “The Miller’s Tale,” and “The Carpenter’s Tale” are examples

Antagonist

a person or force which opposes the protagonist in a literary work

Antimetabole

repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order

sometimes known as chiasmus

ex. when the going gets tough, the tough gets going

Antithesis

literal meaning opposite, is a rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence to achieve a contrasting effect

Aphorism

a brief statement which expresses an observation on life, usually intended as a wise observation

Benjamin Franklin’s “Poor Richard’s Almanac” contains numerous examples, one of which is Drive thy business; let it not drive thee, which means that one should not allow the demands of a business to take control of one’s moral or worldly commitments

Apostrophe

a figure of speech wherein the speaker speaks directly to something nonhuman

Aside

a device in which a character in a drama makes a short speech which is heard by the audience but not by other characters in the play

Assonance

the repetition of vowel sounds in a literary work, especially in a poem

the i sound in examples such as tinkle, sprinkle, and twinkle

Asyndeton

intended omission of conjunctions where they would normally be used

Autobiography

the story of a person’s life written by himself or herself

Ballad

a story in poetic form, often about tragic love and usually sung-ballads were passed down from generation to generation by singers

Biography

the story of a person’s life written by someone other than the subject of the work

Blank Verse

a poem written in unrhymed iambic pentameter

Cacaphony

an unpleasant combination of sounds

Euphony

a pleasant combination of sounds

Caesura

a pause within a line of poetry which may or may not affect the metrical count

Canto

a subdivision of an epic poem

each of the three books of Dante Alighieri’s “Divine Comedy” is divided

for example, in each subdivision in “The Inferno,” Dante meets the souls of people who were once alive and who have been condemned to punishment for sin

Carpe Diem

a Latin phrase which translated means “Seize (catch) the day,” meaning “Make the most of today.”

Catastrophe

the scene in a tragedy which includes the death or moral destruction of the protagonist

Characterization

the method writer uses to reveal the personality of a character in a literary work: methods may include (1) by what the character says about himself or herself; (2) by what others reveal about the character; and (3) by the character’s own actions

a. Static character does not change throughout the work, and the reader’s knowledge of that character does not grow

b. Flat character embodies one or two qualities, ideas, or traits that can be readily described in a brief summary

c. Round characters are more fully developed, and therefore are harder to summarize

Chiasmus

two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels (a-b-a-b) but in inverted order (a-b-b-a)

Classicism

a movement or tendency in art, music, and literature to retain the characteristics found in work originating in classical Greece and Rome

differs from Romanticism in that while Romanticism dwells on the emotional impact of a work, while this concerns itself with form and discipline

Climax

the decisive point in a drama

the turning point of the play to which the rising action leads

the crucial part of the drama, the part which determines the outcome of the conflict

Comedy

a literary work which is amusing and ends happily

modern examples tend to be funny, while Shakespearean examples simply end well

Shakespearean examples also contain items such as misunderstandings and mistaken identity to heighten the comic effect

Conceit

a far-fetched simile or metaphor

occurs when the speaker compares two highly dissimilar things

Conclusion

also called the “Resolution”

the point in a drama to which the entire play has been leading

the logical outcome of everything that has come before it

Concrete Poetry

a poem that visually resembles something found in the physical world

a poem about a wormy apple written so that the words form the shape of an apple

Conflict

in the plot of a drama, occurs when the protagonist is opposed by some person or force in the play

Connotation

a word’s emotional content

in this sense, the word wall can also mean an attitude or action which prevent becoming emotionally close to a person

Denotation

a word’s dictionary definition

the word wall therefore, denotes an upright structure which encloses something or serves as a boundary

Consonance

the repetition of consonant sounds with differing vowel sounds in words near each other in a line or lines of poetry

Couplet

a stanza of two lines, usually rhyming

the following by Andrew Marvell is an example: Had we but world enough and time,/This coyness, lady, were no crime

Dactyl

in poetry, a metrical pattern consisting of one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables as in the following example from “The Charge of the Light Brigade” by Alfred Lord Tennyson

note that the metrical pattern in the fourth foot consists of one stressed and one unstressed syllable, rather than the one stressed and two unstressed syllables necessary to qualify as dactylic

Dialogue

in drama, a conversation between characters

Diction

an author’s choice of words

since words have specific meanings, and since one’s choice of words can affect feelings, a writer’s choice of words can have great impact in a literary work

the writer, therefore, must choose his words carefully

Dramatic Monologue

in literature generally, a major work dealing with an important topic

Elegy

a lyric poem lamenting death

Epic

in literature generally, a major work dealing with an important theme

“Gone with the Wind,” a film set in the antebellum (pre-Civil War) and Civil War South, is considered an example because of its war theme and length

Epigraph

a brief quotation which appears at the beginning of a literary work

Epithet

in literature, a word or phrase preceding or following a name which serves to describe the character

Euphemism

a mild word or phrase which substitutes for another which would be undesirable because it is too direct, unpleasant, or offensive

the word “joint” is another word for prison

”W.C.” is a word for bathroom

Exposition

the beginning of a short story, novel, or play

Fable

a brief tale designed to illustrate a moral lesson

often the characters are animals as in Animal Farm

Falling Action

the series of events which take place after the climax

Farce

a type of comedy based on a humorous situation such as a bank robber who mistakenly wanders into a police station to hide

Figurative Language

in literature, a way of saying one thing and meaning something else

same as figure of speech

Figure of Speech

states something is not literally true in order to create an effect

similes, metaphors, and personification are based on comparison

metonymy, synecdoche, synesthesia, apostrophe, oxymoron, and hyperbole are other examples

Flashback

a reference to an event which took place prior to the beginning of a story or play

Foil

a character in a play who sets off the main character or other characters by comparison

Foot

the basic unit of measurement in a line of poetry

in scansion, a foot represents one instance of a metrical pattern and is shown either between or to the right or left of vertical lines, as in the following:

pentameter=five feet to a line-since the line above is written in iambic meter, four feet to the line, the line would be referred to as iambic tetrameter

Foreshadowing

in drama, a method used to build suspense by providing hints of what is to come

Free Verse

unrhymed poetry with lines of varying lengths, and containing no specific metrical pattern

Genre

a literary type or form

Haiku

a Japanese poetic form which originated in the sixteenth century

consists of three lines: five syllables in the first and third lines, and seven syllables in the second line

Hyperbole

a figure of speech in which an overstatement or exaggeration occurs

Lamb

a metrical pattern of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable

the following is an example:

Idiom

a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deductible from those of the individual words (e.g., rain cats and dogs, see the light)

Imagery

a word or group of words in a literary work which appeal to one or more of the senses: sight, taste, touch, hearing, and smell

the use of images serves to intensify the impact of the work

Inference

a judgement based on reasoning rather than on direct or explicit statement

a conclusion based on facts or circumstances

Irony of Situation

the result of an action is the reverse of what the actor expected

Macbeth murders his king hoping that in becoming king he will achieve great happiness

actually, Macbeth never knows another moment of peace, and is finally beheaded for his murderous act

Dramatic Irony

the audience knows something that the characters in the drama do not

for example, the identity of the murderer in a crime thriller may be known to the audience long before the mystery is solved

Verbal Irony

the contrast is between the literal meaning of what is said and what is meant

a character may refer to a plan as brilliant, while actually meaning that (s)he thinks the plan is foolish

sarcasm is a form of this irony

Litote(s)

a special type of understatement in which a thing is affirmed by stating the negative of its opposite

to say “She was not unmindful” when one means that “She gave careful attention to” is an example

when you say something is “good” by saying it is “not bad”

Local Color

a detailed setting forth of the characteristics of a particular locality, enabling the reader to “see” the setting

Lyric Poem

a short poem wherein the poet expresses an emotion or illuminates some life principle

Metaphor

a figure of speech wherein a comparison is made between two unlike quantities without the use of the words “like” or “as”

Meter

a regular pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in a line or lines of poetry

Metonymy

a figure of speech in which a word represents something else which it suggests

for example, in a herd of fifty cows, the herd might be referred to a fifty head of cattle-the word “head” is the word representing the herd

Mood

the atmosphere or feeling created by a literary work, partly by a description of the objects or by the style of the descriptions

a work may contain a mood of horror, mystery, holiness, or childlike simplicity, to name a few, depending on the author’s treatment of the work

Myth

an unverifiable story based on religious belief

the characters are gods and goddesses, or the offspring of the mating of gods or goddesses and humans

Narrative Poem

a poem which tells a story

usually a long poem, sometimes even book length, the narrative may take the form of a plot less dialogue

Novel

a fictional prose work of substantial length

Ode

a poem in praise of something divine or expressing some noble idea

Onomatopoeia

a literary device wherein the sound of a word echoes the sound it represents

the words “splash” “knock” and “roar” are examples

Oxymoron

a combination of contradictory terms such as jumbo shrimp

Parable

a brief story, told or written in order to teach a moral lesson

Christ’s tale of the Good Samaritan is an example

Paradox

a situation or a statement that seems to contradict itself, but on closer inspection, does not

Parallel Structure (parallelism)

a repetition of sentences using the same structure

this line from Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address provides an example:

The world will little not nor long remember what we say here,

but it can never forget what they did here

Parody

a literary work that imitates the style of another literary work

can be simply amusing or it can be mocking, such as a poem which exaggerates the use of alliteration in order to show the ridiculous effect of overuse of alliteration

Passive Voice

the subject does not act; it is acted upon

the use of be verbs in sentence writing is an example of this

Pastoral

a literary work that has to do with shepherds and rustic settings

Pathetic Fallacy

a fallacy of reason in suggesting that nonhuman phenomena act from human feelings, such as suggested by the word “pathetic” from the Greek pathos; a literary device wherein something nonhuman found in nature

a beast, plant, stream, natural force, etc.

performs as though from human feeling or motivation

Personification

a figure of speech in which something nonhuman is given human characteristics

Plot

the structure of a story or the sequence in which the author arranges events in a story

Point of View

a piece of literature contains a speaker who is speaking either in the first person, telling things from his or her own perspective, or in the third person, telling things from the perspective of an onlooker

if the speaker knows everything including the actions, motives, and thoughts of all the characters, the speaker is referred to as omniscient (all-knowing)

if the speaker is unable to know what is in any character’s mind but his or her own, this is called limited omniscience

Polysyndeton

employing many conjunctions between clauses, often slowing the tempo or rhythm

for example, …and it was dark and there was water running, and no lights and windows broke and boats lined the harbor and trees blew down…

Protagonist

the hero or central character of a literary work

Pun

a play on words wherein a word is used to convey two meanings at the same time

Quatrain

a four-line stanza which may be rhymed or unrhymed

Resolution

the part of a story or drama which occurs after the climax and which establishes a new norm, a new state of affairs

the way things are going to be from then on

Rhyme

in poetry, a pattern of repeated sounds

End Rhyme

the rhyme is at the end of the line