English Lit Devices | Quizlet

Sonnet

A sonnet is a poem consisting of fourteen lines, written with a specific rhyme scheme and structure.

Soliloquy

The thoughts of a character that is shared only with the audience, and no other character on stage.

Aside

A remark or passage in a play that is intended to be heard by the audience but unheard by the other characters in the play.

Stichomythia

Dialogue in which a single line spoken by one character is answered by another character's line that plays off the language of the first.

Alliteration

The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.

Assonance

Resemblance of sound between syllables of nearby words, arising particularly from the rhyming of two or more stressed vowels, but not consonants (e.g. sonnet, porridge ), but also from the use of identical consonants with different vowels (e.g. killed, cold, culled ).

Imagery

Using figurative language to describe or represent feelings, thoughts, experiences or things, commonly visual images.

Anaphora

The deliberate repetition of words, or sequences of words, at the beginning of a line or phrase for effect.

Dramatic Irony

A device in which the audience's understanding or knowledge surpasses that of the character or characters on stage.

Onomatopoeia

A word that imitates the sound it represents.

Allusion

An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.

Antithesis

A device in which two opposite things or ideas are placed side by side for contrasting effect.

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

Personification

The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true ).

Simile

A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g. as brave as a lion ).