shakespeare in figures

Alliteration

The repetition of a consonant at the beginning of consecutive words.

Allusion

A reference to another poet, story, idea, or event of significance sufficient to be an explicit trace.

Anaphora

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

Apostrophe

Direct address of someone or something either present or absent.

Assonance

Repetition of a vowel or vowel sound within successive words or a line.

Blank Verse

Unrhymed verse usually in iambic pentameter.

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds within words in succession or a line.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience knows something that a character on stage does not.

Feminine Rhyme

A two-syllable rhyme in which the final syllable is unstressed (ex: fashion/passion).

Hyperbole

Exaggeration in heaps (ex: "To infinity and beyond!").

Iambic Pentameter

A line of ten feet made of alternating unstressed-stressed syllables; Shakespeare's standard meter.

Imagery

Figurative language appealing to the senses.

Innuendo

A bawdy or lascivious hint within a word or phrase that otherwise seems innocuous (ex: banana hammock).

Irony

Saying or showing the opposite of the literal meaning.

Litotes

Understatement or showing splendor by negating its opposite (ex: "Oh, he's not unpretty.").

Malapropism

Misuse of a word, often aiming at a word of similar sound; common with comic characters.

Masculine Rhyme

A rhyme made of a single stressed syllable (ex: wood/stood).

Metaphor

An implicit comparison, one thing is another (ex: "My life had stood — a Loaded Gun").

Metonymy

Using the name of one thing to stand for another (ex: "I ate McDonald's" meaning fries, etc.).

Monologue

A sustained and singular speech of one character in the presence of others.

Oxymoron

Two contradictory words together for effect (ex: festina lente / "hurry slowly").

Paradox

A statement that seems self-contradictory yet may be true.

Personification

Assigning human traits to an inanimate object or thing.

Pleonasm

Redundancy or unnecessary qualification (ex: "My glass of wet water...").

Polyptoton

Repetition of a word or phrase in different cases, numbers, or forms.

Praeteritio

Pretended omission (ex: "I'm not here to talk about your stinky feet...").

Pun

Wordplay based on multiple meanings or similar sounds.

Recusatio

Feigning humility or polite refusal; ironic self-deprecation (ex: "I'm but a love poet...").

Simile

A comparison using like or as.

Soliloquy

An introspective speech revealing a character's thoughts, not heard by other characters.

Sonnet

A 14-line poem with three quatrains of interlocking rhymes and a final couplet.

Stichomythia

Dialogue in which speakers alternate short lines in rapid exchange.

Syllogism

A three-part form of deductive reasoning (ex: "I am human. Humans age...").

Symbolism

Using symbols to represent more than their literal meaning.

Synecdoche

A part representing the whole (ex: "nice wheels!" meaning "nice car").

Synesthesia

A blending of senses (ex: "my ears now taste your sorrow").