As You Like It Literary terms

Imagery

Using vivid words and phrases to conjure up mental pictures and associations.

Simile

A type of imagery that compares one thing to another using "like" or "as."

Metaphor

A type of imagery that suggests two dissimilar things are the same without using "like" or "as."

Personification

A type of imagery that imagines things or ideas as people.

Epithet

An adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned.

Classical Allusion

Reference to mythological characters or themes from Greek or Roman literature.

Pun

A joke exploiting the different possible meanings of a word or words that sound alike but have different meanings.

Double Entendre

A word or phrase open to two or more interpretations, one of which is usually indecent.

Apostrophe

Addressing an abstract idea or person not present, like addressing time or a skull.

Irony

Expressing one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience has information that characters do not.

Soliloquy

A speech by a character alone on stage, revealing inner thoughts.

Aside

A brief comment to the audience expressing a character's inner thoughts, unheard by other characters.

Hyperbole

Exaggeration used as a rhetorical device or figure of speech.

Oxymoron

A self-contradicting word or group of words.

Repetition

Using the same word or phrase multiple times for emphasis.

Alliteration

The repetition of the same sound at the start of a series of words in succession.

Anaphora

Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive sentences or clauses.

Epistrophe

Repetition of the same word or phrase at the end of successive sentences or clauses.

Antithesis

Contrasting words within the same sentence or text section to highlight discrepancies.

Polyptoton

Repeating words derived from the same root.

Injunctions

A bidding, command, or order.

Lists

Accumulating many words or phrases to intensify description and dramatic effect.

Burlesque

Mockery through a frivolous treatment of a serious subject.

Prose

Everyday language with no specific metric scheme, rhythm, or rhyme.

Verse

Writing with rhythm and meter.

Blank Verse

Unrhyming iambic pentameter.

Sonnet

A single-stanza lyric poem containing fourteen lines in iambic pentameter.

Turn (or Volta)

An abrupt change in the mood or argument of a poem.

Quatrain

A unit of four lines of verse.

Rhyming Couplet

Two lines of the same length that rhyme and complete one thought.

Octave

A unit of poetry containing eight lines.

Sestet

A stanza or poem with six lines.

Rhyme Scheme

A poet's deliberate pattern of rhyming lines in a poem or stanza.

Shakespearean Sonnet

A sonnet with three quatrains and a final couplet.

Petrarchan Sonnet

A sonnet with an octave and a sestet.

Meter

The rhythm in a line of verse.

Iambic Pentameter

A five-beat rhythm with alternating stressed and unstressed syllables.

Caesura

A pause in a line of poetry formed by natural speech rhythms.

End-stopping

A pause at the end of a poetic line.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence or phrase from one line of poetry to the next.

Muse

A source of inspiration to a poet.