Rhetorical Devices and Literary Terms

Vocabulary flashcards defining key rhetorical and literary terms from the lecture notes including examples and stylistic uses.

Anecdote

a short and amusing or interesting story about an incident, event or person

Assonance

which involves the repetition of similar vowel sounds within a word, sentence, or phrase

Enumeration

A rhetorical term for the listing of details--a type of amplification and division

Colloquialism

a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar conversation

Consonance

repetitive sounds produced by END or MIDDLE consonants within a sentence or phrase

Active Voice

Opposite of passive voice; essentially any sentence with an action verb where the subject is doing the action

Ad Hominem

a general category of fallacies in which a claim or argument is rejected on the basis of some irrelevant fact about the author or of the person

Alliteration

Repetition of an initial sound in close proximity

Allusion

A reference to a (past, present or future) event, person, or place

Anadiplosis

A repetition technique; a word or phrase from the previous line, clause, or sentence at the beginning of the next