Literary Terms

Alliteration

"The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonants in two or more neighboring words (as in ""she sells sea shells). The repetition can reinforce meaning, unify ideas, supply a musical sound, and/or echo the sense of the passage."

Allusion

A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art. Allusions can be historical, literary, religious, topical, or mythical. There are many more possibilities, and a work may simultaneously use multiple layers of allusion.

Antithesis

The opposition or contrast of ideas; the direct opposite

Ambiguity

The multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage

Apostrophe

A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. It is an address to someone that cannot answer. The effect is to give vent or display intense emotion.

Atmosphere

The emotional mood created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author's choice of objects that are described. Even such elements as description of the weather can contribute to the atmosphere. Frequently atmosphere foreshadows events. Perhaps it can create a mood.

Colloquial/Colloquialism

The use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. Not generally acceptable for formal writing, colloquialisms give a work a conversational, familiar tone. Colloquial expressions in writing include local or regional dialects.

Conceit

A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects. A conceit displays intellectual cleverness as a result of the unusual comparison being made.

Connotation

The nonliteral, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning. Connotations may involve ideas, emotions, or attitudes.

Denotation

The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color.

Diction

Related to style, diction refers to the writer's word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness. Describe an author's diction (formal, informal, ornate, or plain) and understand the ways in which diction can complement the author's purpose. Diction, combined with syntax, figurative language, literary devices, etc., creates an author's style.

Didactic

"From the Greek, didactic literally means ""teaching."" Didactic works have the primary aim of teaching or instructing, especially the teaching of moral or ethical principles."

Extended Metaphor

A metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work.

Hyperbole

A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. Hyperboles often have a comic effect; however, a serious effect is also possible. Often, hyperbole produces irony.

Imagery

The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. On a physical level, imagery uses terms related to the five senses; we refer to visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory imagery. On a broader and deeper level, however, one image can represent more than one thing. For example, a rose may present visual imagery while also representing the color in a woman's cheeks and/or symbolizing some degree of perfection (It is the highest flower on the Great Chain of Being). An author may use complex imagery while simultaneously employing other figures of speech, especially metaphor and simile. In addition, this term can apply to the total of all the images in a work.

Inference/Infer

To draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented. When a multiple- choice question asks for an inference to be drawn from a passage, the most direct, most reasonable inference is the safest answer choice. If an inference is implausible, it's unlikely to be the correct answer. Note that if the answer choice is directly stated, it is not inferred and is wrong.

Invective

An emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attach using strong, abusive language

Personification

A figure of speech in which the author presents or describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes or emotions. Personification is used to make these abstractions, animals, or objects appear more vivid to the reader.

Point of View

"In literature, the perspective from which a story is told. There are two general divisions of point of view and many subdivision within those. There are two main subdivisions to be aware of: omniscient and limited omniscient. a: In the "third person omniscient" point of view, the narrator, with godlike knowledge, presents the thoughts and actions of any or all characters. This all-knowing narrator can reveal what each character feels and thinks at any given moment. When you are asked to analyze the author's point of view, the appropriate point for you to address is the author's attitude"

Repetition

The duplication, either exact or approximate, of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern.

Rhetoric

"From the Greek for ""orator,"" this term describes the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively."

Irony/Ironic

The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant. The difference between what appears to be and what actually is true. In general, there are three major types of irony used in language; (1) In verbal irony, the words literally state the opposite of the writer's (or speaker's) true meaning. (2) In situational irony, events turn out the opposite of what was expected. What the characters and readers think ought to happen is not what does happen. (3) In dramatic irony, facts or events are unknown to a character in a play or piece of fiction but known to the reader, audience, or other characters in the work.

Metaphor

A figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution of one for the other, suggesting some similarity. Metaphorical language makes writing more vivid, imaginative, thought provoking, and meaningful.

Metonymy

"A term from the Greek meaning ""changed label"" or ""substitute name,"" Metonymy is a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. A news release that claims ""the White House declared"" rather that ""the President declared"" is using Metonymy. The substituted term generally carries a more potent emotional response."

Mood

The prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work. Setting, tone, and events can affect the mood. In this usage, mood is similar to tone and atmosphere.

Narrative

The telling of a story or an account of an event or series of events.

Onomatopoeia

A figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. Simple examples include such words as buzz, hiss, hum, crack, whinny, and murmur. If you note examples of onomatopoeia in an essay passage, note the effect.

Oxymoron

"From the Greek for ""pointedly foolish,"" an oxymoron is a figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms to suggest a paradox. Simple examples includes ""jumbo shrimp"" and ""cruel kindness."" Take note of the effect which the author achieves with this term."

Paradox

A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity.

Parallelism

The grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. This can involve, but is not limited to, repetition of a grammatical element such as a preposition or verbal phrase. The effects of parallelism are numerous, but it frequently acts as an organizing force to attract the reader's attention, add emphasis and structure, or simply provide a musical rhythm.

Anaphora

A sub-type of parallelism, when the exact repetition of words or phrases at the beginning of successive lines or sentences.

Satire

A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule. Regardless of whether or not the work aims to reform human behavior, satire is best seen as a style of writing rather than a purpose for writing. It can be recognized by the many devices used effectively by the satirist: irony, wit, parody, caricature, hyperbole, understatement, and sarcasm. The effects of satire are varied, depending on the writer's goal, but good satire, often humorous, is thought provoking and insightful about the human condition.

Symbol/Symbolism

Usually a symbol is something concrete--such as an object, action, character, or scene--that represents something more abstract. However, symbols and symbolism can be much more complex. One system classifies symbols in three categories: (1) Natural symbols are objects and occurrences from nature to represent ideas commonly associated with them. (2) Conventional symbols are those that have been invested with meaning by a group. (3) Literary symbols are sometimes also conventional in the sense that they are found in a variety of works and are generally recognized.

Synecdoche

"A figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole or, occasionally, the whole is used to represent a part. Examples: To refer to a boat as a ""sail"". Different than metonymy in which one thing is represented by another thing that is commonly physically associated with it (but not necessarily a part of it), i.e. referring to a monarch as ""the crown"" or the president as ""the White House"""

Syntax

The way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences. Syntax is similar to diction, but you can differentiate them by thinking of syntax as the groups of words, while diction refers to the individual words.

Theme

The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. Usually theme is unstated in fictional works, but in nonfiction, the theme may be directly stated, especially in expository or argumentative writing.

Thesis

In expository writing, the thesis statement is the sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or position. Expository writing is usually judged by analyzing how accurately, effectively, and thoroughly a writer has proved the thesis.

Tone

Similar to mood, tone describes the author's attitude toward his material, the audience, or both. Tone is easier to determine in spoken language than in written language. Considering how a work would sound if it were read aloud can help in identifying an author's tone. Some words describing tone are playful, serious, businesslike, sarcastic, humorous, formal, ornate, sardonic, somber, etc.

Understatement

The ironic minimizing of fact, understatement presents something as less significant than it is. The effect can frequently be humorous and emphatic. Understatement is the opposite of hyperbole. Example: The 1906 San Francisco earthquake interrupted business somewhat in the downtown area. Last week I saw a woman flayed, and you will hardly believe how much it altered her person for the worse - Johnathan Swift.

Wit

In modern usage, intellectually amazing language that surprises and delights. A witty statement is humorous, while suggesting the speaker's verbal power in creating ingenious and perceptive remarks. Wit usually uses terse language that makes a pointed statement. Historically, wit originally meant basic understanding. Its meaning evolved to include speed of understanding, and finally (in the early seventeenth century), it grew to mean quick perception including creative fancy and a quick tongue to articulate an answer that demanded the same quick perception.

Anaphora

A rhetorical figure of repetition in which the same word or phrase is repeated in (and usually at the beginning of) successive lines, clauses, or sentences.

Anaphora (Macbeth Example)

"MACDUFF: each new morn, / New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows / Strike heaven on the face"

Anaphora (Poetry Example)

"Rudyard Kipling, 'If-': If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, / If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, / But make allowance for their doubting too;"

Mise-en-scène

The stage design and arrangement of actors in scenes for a theatre or film production, both in the visual arts through storyboarding, visual themes, and cinematography and in narrative-storytelling through directions. The term is also commonly used to refer to single scenes that are representative of a film.

Anadiplosis

A rhetorical figure of repetition in which a word or phrase appears both at the end of one clause, sentence or stanza, and at the beginning of the next, thus linking the two units, as in the final line of Shakespeare's 154th sonnet: Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

Anadiplosis (Medea Example)

"CHORUS: We women shall have honour, / And ugly slander hold us down no more. / No more we'll hear the age-old songs / Celebrating women's faithlessness."

Anadiplosis (Macbeth Example)

"ALL WITCHES: Fair is foul, and foul is fair."

Diacope

A rhetorical term meaning repetition of a word or phrase that is broken up by a single intervening word, or a small number of intervening words.

Diacope (Poetry Example)

"William Blake, 'London': I wander through each charter'd street, / Near where the charter'd Thames does flow,"

Antanaclasis

The literary trope in which a single word or phrase is repeated, but in two different senses. Antanaclasis is a common type of pun, and like other kinds of pun, it is often found in slogans.

Antanaclasis (Poetry Example)

"William Blake, 'London': And mark in every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe."

Consonance

A stylistic literary device identified by the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighboring words whose vowel sounds are different (e.g., coming home, hot foot). Consonance may be regarded as the counterpart to the vowel-sound repetition known as assonance.

Consonance (Poetry Example)

"William Blake, 'London': But most through midnight streets I hear / Marks of weakness, marks of woe."

Chiasmus

A figure of speech by which the order of the terms in the first of two parallel clauses is reversed in the second. Example: Love's fire heats water, water cools not love.

Caesura

A metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase begins. In time value, this break may vary between the slightest perception of silence all the way up to a full pause. Here's an example from Beowulf (c. 990AD): Hwæt! We Gardena || in gear-dagum, / þeodcyninga, || þrym gefrunon, / hu ða æþelingas || ellen fremedon.

Caesura (Poetry Example)

"Browning, 'My Last Duchess': Are you to turn and ask thus. || Sir, 'twas not"

Anapaest

A metrical foot made up of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word 'interrupt'.

Asyndeton

A form of verbal compression which consists of the omission of connecting words (usually conjunctions) between clauses, such as in Julius Caesar's famous boast, "Veni, vidi, vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered).

Polysyndeton

The deliberate insertion of conjunctions into a sentence for the purpose of "slowing up the rhythm of the prose" so as to produce "an impressively solemn note."

Antimeria

Using one part of speech in place of another, such as using a noun as a verb, such as 'texting.'

Antimeria (Poetry Example)

"Ted Hughes, 'Work and Play': And headache it homeward"

Iamb

A metrical foot made up of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word 'beyond'. (Or: A metrical unit of verse, having one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable. It is the most natural spoken form in English and has been likened to a heartbeat.)

Periphrasis

A roundabout way of referring to something by means of several words instead of naming it directly in a single word or phrase, such as 'sight-invigorating tube' for 'telescope' (in Robert Blair's 1743 poem 'The Grave').

Polyptoton

A stylistic scheme in which words derived from the same root are repeated, such as strong and strength. Example: "Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove." (William Shakespeare, 'Sonnet 116')

Polyptoton (Poetry Example)

"Browning, 'My Last Duchess': She liked whate'er / She looked on, and her looks went everywhere."

Enjambement

The fact of a sentence continuing beyond the end of a line of poetry without a break.

Apostrophe (Macbeth Example)

"MACBETH: Is this a dagger which I see before me, / The handle toward my hand?"

Stichomythia

A form of dramatic dialogue in which two disputing characters answer each other rapidly in alternating single lines, with one character's replies balancing (and often partially repeating) the other's utterances.

Stichomythia (Macbeth Example 1)

"LADY MACBETH: I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak? / MACBETH: When? / LADY MACBETH: Now. / MACBETH: As I descended? / LADY MACBETH: Ay. / MACBETH: Hark, who lies i' th' second chamber? / LADY MACBETH: Donalbain. / MACBETH: This is a sorry sight. / LADY MACBETH: A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight."

Stichomythia (Macbeth Example 2)

"LADY MACDUFF: Sirrah, your father's dead, And what will you do now? How will you live? / SON: As birds do, mother. / LADY MACDUFF: What, with worms and flies? / SON: With what I get I mean, and so do they. / LADY MACDUFF: Poor bird, thou'dst never fear the net, nor lime, the pitfall, nor the gin. / SON: Why should I, mother? Poor birds they are not set for. My father is not dead, for all your saying. / LADY MACDUFF: Yes, he is dead; how wilt thou do for a father? / SON: Nay, how will you do for a husband? / LADY MACDUFF: Why, I can buy me twenty at any market. / SON: Then you'll buy 'em to sell again."

Epic

A long narrative poem celebrating the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes, in grand ceremonious style. The hero, usually protected by or even descended from gods, performs superhuman exploits in battle or in marvellous voyages, often saving or founding a nation—as in Virgil's Aeneid (30 - 20 BCE)—or the human race itself, in Milton's Paradise Lost (1667).

Epigraph

A phrase, quotation, or poem that is set at the beginning of a document, monograph or section or chapter thereof. The epigraph may serve as a preface to the work; as a summary; as a counter-example; or as a link from the work to a wider literary canon, with the purpose of either inviting comparison or enlisting a conventional context.

Dramatic Monologue

A poetic form perfected by Browning depending on the principle of triangulation. A single person, who is not the poet, utters the entire poem in a specific situation and usually at a critical moment, and in doing so may address other people (who don't, however, reply: we know what they say or do only from clues in the discourse of the single speaker). The twist is that, while blithely holding forth in this way, the speaker unwittingly lays bare his or her true character. The gold standard is Browning's 'My Last Duchess' (1842).

Trochee

A metrical unit (or foot) of verse, having one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable, as in the word tender. It is the opposite of an iamb and consecutive lines of trochaic metre are quite rare in English.

Spondee

A metrical unit (or foot) of verse, consisting of two stressed syllables, as in the phrase grey dawn. Example from John Masefield, 'Sea Fever' (1902): And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, / And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

Metre (Accentual-syllabic)

The most common pattern of poetry in English since Chaucer (1390s), which consists of a regular number of stressed syllables appropriately arranged within a fixed total number of syllables in the line, both stressed and unstressed syllables being counted. Metre is usually named for the number of feet it contains: dimeter (2); trimeter (3); tetrameter (4); pentameter (5) and hexameter (6).

Iambic Pentameter

A poetic metre consisting of five iambs (five stressed and five unstressed syllables: U-S U-S U-S U-S U-S). Example: "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." (William Shakespeare, 'Sonnet 18')

Trochaic Tetrameter

A poetic metre consisting of four trochees (four unstressed and four stressed syllables). Example from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn and cauldron bubble."

Blank Verse

Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter. It is a flexible English verse form which can attain rhetorical grandeur while echoing the natural rhythms of speech and allowing smooth enjambment. It should not be confused with free verse, which has no regular metre. Example from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "And pity, like a naked newborn babe / Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubin hors'd / Upon the sightless couriers of the air,"

Heroic Couplet

A rhymed pair of iambic pentameter lines. It is named from its use by John Dryden and others in the heroic drama in the 17th-century, but was established much earlier by Chaucer (1390s). Example from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell / That summons thee to heaven or to hell." (Or: "Away, and mock the time with fairest show, / False face must hide what the false heart doth know.")

English Sonnet

A poem written in iambic pentameter, comprising three quatrains and a rhyming couplet, with the rhyme scheme ababcdcdefefgg. Example: The prologue to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet ("Two households, both alike in dignity…").

Acrostic

An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the first letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. Example from Aratus' Phaenomena 783-7 where the word λεπτή occurs as a gamma acrostic.

Villanelle

A nineteen-line poetic form consisting of five tercets followed by a quatrain. There are two refrains and two repeating rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately at the end of each subsequent stanza until the last stanza, which includes both repeated lines. It is a fixed verse form originally related to pastoral subjects.

Archaism

A word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to a historical epoch beyond living memory, but that has survived in a few practical settings or affairs. Literary archaism is the survival of archaic language in a traditional literary text or the deliberate use of a style characteristic of an earlier age (e.g., 'forsooth', 'thee', 'thine', 'durst').

Pun

A form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect.

Simile

A type of figure of speech that directly compares two unrelated things, using wording to explicitly make the comparison (often, with a grammatical structure of the type 'x is like y'). Usually identifiable by the use of 'like' or 'as'.

Metonymy (Poetry Example)

"William Blake, 'London': And the hapless soldier's sigh / Runs in blood down palace walls."

Anthropomorphism

The ascribing of human personality, appearance, conduct, cognition, or other attributes to non-human entities, often including non-human animals. In fiction and folklore, it is specifically the endowing of non-human characters with human-like behaviors, speech, facial expressions, etc. (e.g., talking animals, talking trees).

Zoomorphism

Describes art that imagines humans as non-human animals. It can also be defined as art that portrays one species of animal like another species of animal, or art that uses animals as a visual motif, sometimes referred to as 'animal style'.

Allegory

A narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Used to illustrate or convey complex ideas and concepts in comprehensible or striking ways.

Zeugma

The use of a word to modify or govern two or more words or phrases. An example may be 'rolling lightning and thunder', where 'rolling' is applied to two nouns.

Zeugma (Literary Examples)

"Alexander Pope, The Rape of the Lock: Dost sometimes Counsel take - and sometimes Tea. / Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers: Miss Bolo went straight home, in a flood of tears and a sedan-chair. / Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer: They covered themselves with dust and glory."

Syllepsis

A form of zeugma used in such a manner that it applies to each word or phrase in a different sense. An example may be 'she opened the door and her heart to the stray kitten', where 'opened' applies in two contrasting senses.

Sibilance

Sibilant sounds are fricative and affricate consonants of higher amplitude and pitch, such as the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip and ship ([s, z, ʃ, ʒ]). They have a characteristically intense sound used to get attention or quiet someone.