160 literary techniques

literary techniques

Accumulation

The wind blows south, then returns to the north, round and round goes the wind, on its rounds it circulates.

Accumulation is a literary device that puts together scattered points of similar words to generate a common and deeper feeling in writing. It is a stylistic device used by writers to produce the effect of amplification.

Adynaton

I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his cheek.

hyperbole taken to such extreme lengths as to insinuate a complete impossibility

Allegory

Alliteration

Allusion

Amblysia

Euphemistic or reduced language to prepare for the announcement of something tragic

Amphiboly

She saw a man on a hill with a telescope

An ambiguity in the meaning of a sentence caused by grammatical looseness to produce a double meaning.

Anachronism

The misplacement of an action, character, phrase, or setting in time. Anachronisms may be used deliberately to distance events and to underline a universal verisimilitude and timelessness.

Anacoluthon

The good stuff – think about it.

A sentence that is begun in one way, but then ended in a different way, usually with a hyphen linking two disparate clauses. create a stream-of-consciousness style in which a character's thoughts flit from one idea to the next

Anadiplosis

Our doubt is our passion, and our passion is our task

The repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the next clause.

Analogue

– A word or thing that is similar or parallel to another, to the point that most salient features are alike

Anaphora

Anastrophe

Anecdote

Anesis

A rhetorical device in which a concluding sentence, clause, or phrase is used to deliberately diminish or discredit the previous statements.

Antanaclasis

Anthropomorphism

Anthimeria

Antipophora

– A character asks a question of themself, and then answers by themself.

Antimetabole

– The repetition of words in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order.

Antonomasia

– The substitution of a proper noun for an epithet, title, occupation associated with that object or person.

Aphorism

Aposiopesis

like opp of anacoluthon

Apostrophe

Archaism

Assonance

Asyndeton

Aside

Bathos

Bathetic

Black Comedy

Blank verse

Blazon

Bombast

Burlesque

Cacophony

Caesura

Catachresis

The misapplication of a word or metaphor, particularly when used in a mixed metaphor.

Catalexis

Catharsis

Chiasmus

A reversal of grammatical structure in subsequent clauses or phrases with different words.

Circumlocution

Cliche

Conceit

Connotation

Consonance

Couplet

Defamilarisation

The modification of a reader’s habitual perceptions by drawing attention to the artifice of the text, or the peculiarities of the writing itself.

Denotation

The most literal and limited meaning of a word, regardless of any additional feelings or connotations that have evolved for it.

Depitation

Dissonance

Double entendre

Dramatic Irony

Dysphemism

Ecphonema

Ekphrasis

Elegy

Elision

Ellipsis

Enjambment

Epanados

Epanalepsis

Epexegesis

Epideictic oratory

Epistrophe

Epitasis

Epizeuxis

Euphemism

Euphony

Farce

Feminine rhyme

Flyting

Foreshadowing

Free Verse

Hamartia

Hemistich

Hendiadys

Homonym

Homophone

Hubris

Hypallage

Hyperbaton

Hyperbole

Hypocorism

Hypostatisation

Hypotyposis

Hypozeuxis

Idiom

Imagery

Invective

Inversion

Invocation

Irony

Isocolon

Jargon

Kenning

Light Rhyme

Litotes

Malapropism

Masculine Rhyme