Rhetorical Terms Quiz 2

Allegory

a form of extended metaphor in which objects and persons in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside of it. Often related to politics or morals.

foil

a character who is presented as a contrast to a second character to point to or show to advantage some aspect of the second character

satire

a literary work that exposes human wrongs. Historically perceived as tending towards overly informative, intended as moral criticism

ambiguity

something doubtful; an expression w/ an undetermined meaning given the context, may have more than one meaning

aphorism

short statement that expresses an observation on life, intended to be a wise observation.

chiasmus

concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form; e.g., ‘Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds.’

complex sentences

consists of an independent clause (e.g., “I will love you”) and one or more dependent clauses (e.g., “until the end of time”)

compound sentences

a sentence that connects two independent clauses, either with a coordinating conjunction like and or with a semicolon (;)

dash

punctuation mark used to indicate a sudden break in thought

active

The subject of the sentence is performing the action rather than a state of being

ex: the character is described as foolish

passive

The subject is the object of the action or the effect of the verb

ex: Delaney describes Tara as foolish

inductive reasoning

reasoning that starts with citing some specific instances

deductive reasoning

reasoning that uses persuasion by asserting a claim

parallel structure

using the same pattern of words to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance.

asyndeton

no conjunctions (and, but, so) in a list of items. The opposite of polysyndeton gives effect of abrupt, multiplicity

polysyndeton

the use of conjunctions (and, but, so) between each word / clause. opposite of asyndeton but same effect - multiplicity, energetic, building up

parallelism

two or more elements of a sentence (or series of sentences) have the same grammatical structure.

rhetorical question

question posed by the speaker not to seek an answer but to affirm or deny a point simply by asking a question abt it

extended metaphor

drawn-out metaphor beyond the usual working to extend throughout a stanza / poem. usually by using multiple comparisons between the unlike objects or ideas

stream-of-consciousness

technique that records the diverse thoughts and feelings of a character without regard to logical or narrative sequence. The writer attempts to reflect the forces influencing the psychology of a character at a specific moment.