Learn: Literary and Rhetorical Terms

Inference/infer

To draw a reasonable conclusion from the information presented; it is not directly stated in the text.

Invective

An emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language.

Irony/ironic

The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant, or the difference between what appears to be and what is actually true.

Juxtaposition

When two words, phrases, images, or ideas are placed close together or side by side for comparison or contrast.

Litotes

A figure of thought in which a point is affirmed by negating its opposite; a special form of understatement.

Loose sentence

A type of sentence in which the main idea (independent clause) comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units.

Metaphor

A figure of speech using an implied comparison of seemingly unlike things, suggesting some similarity.

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it.

Mood

Has two meanings: (1) grammatical, dealing with verbal units and a speaker's attitude, and (2) literary, meaning the prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work.

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.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms to suggest a paradox.

Paradox

A statement that appears to be self-contradictory 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.