Poetic and Literary Devices

Poetic and Literary Devices

Adnomination

• Repetition of words with the same root, differing by a sound or letter.
• Creates euphony.
• Examples:
  • “Nobody loves no one.” (Chris Isaak)
  • “Someone, somewhere, wants something.”

Allegory

• Representation of ideas through forms like characters or events.
• Conveys hidden meanings via symbolic figures, actions, and imagery.
• Example: Animal Farm by George Orwell, representing the Russian Revolution.
  • Characters symbolize working/upper classes, military, and political leaders.

Alliteration

• Repetition of the initial consonant sound in a series of words.
• Examples:
  • A lazy lying lion.
  • Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers.
  • Sally sells seashells by the seashore.

Allusion

• Reference to a myth, character, literary work, art, or event.
• Example: “I feel like I’m going down the rabbit hole” (allusion to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland).

Anaphora

• Repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences for emphasis.
• Example: Martin Luther King's "Let freedom ring" speech.
  • “Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.”
• Opposite: Epiphora – repetition at the end of sentences.
  • Example: “And that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” (Abraham Lincoln)

Antithesis

• Emphasizing contrast between two things or characters.
• Example: “Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Apostrophe

• Directed speech to someone not present or to an object.
• Example: “Work on, my medicine, work! Thus credulous fools are caught.” (William Shakespeare)

Assonance

• Repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming.
• Example: “Hear the mellow wedding bells.” (Edgar Allan Poe)
• Related: Consonance – repetition of consonant sounds.

Cataphora

• Mentioning someone or something, followed by a more specific reference later in the text.
• Examples:
  • I met him yesterday, your boyfriend who was wearing the cool hat.
  • If you want some, here's some cheese.
  • After he had received his orders, the soldier left the barracks.

Climax

• Arranging text to gradually increase tension.
• Example: He was a not bad listener, a good speaker and an amazing performer.
• Opposite: Anticlimax – tension decreases.

Charactonym (or Speaking Name)

• Giving fictional characters names that describe them.
• Example: Scrooge, Snow White.

Ellipsis

• Omission of a word or phrase.
• Example: I speak lots of languages, but you only speak two (languages).

Euphemism

• Replacing offensive words with lighter equivalents.
• Example: Visually challenged (blind); meet one’s maker (die).
• Opposite: Dysphemism – replacing a neutral word with a harsher one.

Epigram

• Memorable and brief saying, often satirical.
• Example: “For most of history, Anonymous was a woman.” (Virginia Woolf)

Hyperbole

• Exaggeration of a statement.
• Example: If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times.
• Opposite: Litotes – understatement.

Hypophora

• Asking a question and answering it immediately.
• Example: Are you going to leave now? I don’t think so.

Irony

• Three types:
  • Verbal (Antiphrasis) – expressing something different from the literal meaning.
    • Example: ”I’m so excited to burn the midnight oil and write my academic paper all week long”.
  • Situational – outcome differs from expectation.
    • Example: Bruce Robertson in Filth is a corrupt policeman.
  • Dramatic – audience knows something the character doesn't.
    • Example: Audience knows characters will be killed, but characters are oblivious.

Merism

• Describing something by enumerating its traits.
• Example: Lock, stock, and barrel (gun); heart and soul (entirety).

Metalepsis

• Referencing one thing through something related to it.
• Example: “Stop judging people so strictly—you live in a glass house too.” (referencing the proverb about glass houses and throwing stones).

Metaphor

• Comparing two different things with shared characteristics.
• Example: “Love is clockworks and cold steel.” (U2)

Metonymy

• Giving something a name associated with it.
• Example: The heir to the crown was Richard. (the crown stands for authority)

Onomatopoeia

• Imitating sounds in writing.
• Example: oink, ticktock, tweet tweet

Oxymoron

• Combining contradictory traits.
• Example: Living dead; terribly good; real magic

Parallelism

• Arranging a sentence with a parallel structure.
• Example: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I may remember. Involve me and I will learn.” (Benjamin Franklin)
• Opposite: Chiasmus – inverted parallelism.
  • Examples: “To stop, too fearful, and too faint to go.” (Oliver Goldsmith); “My job is not to represent Washington to you but to represent you to Washington.” (Barack Obama)

Parenthesis

• Interrupting a sentence with extra information in brackets, commas, or dashes.
• Example: Our family (my mother, sister, and grandfather) had a barbeque this past weekend.

Personification

• Giving human characteristics to nonhumans.
• Example: Animals in fairy tales acting like humans.

Pun

• Wordplay, including:
  • Antanaclasis – repetition of a word with different meanings.
    • Example: “Cats like Felix like Felix” (“Felix” catfood slogan).
  • Malapropism – using an incorrect word with a similar sound.
    • Example: “optical delusion” instead of “optical illusion”.
  • Paradox – self-contradictory statement that can be partially true.
    • Example: “I can resist anything but temptation.”—Oscar Wilde.
  • Paraprosdokian – sentence with an unexpected ending.
    • Example: You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
  • Polyptoton – repetition of words with the same root.
    • Example: “The things you own end up owning you.”—Chuck Palahniuk.

Rhetorical Question

• Questioning without expecting an answer.
• Example: Why not? Are you kidding me?

Simile

• Direct comparison using "like" or "as".
• Example: “Your heart is like an ocean, mysterious and dark.” (Bob Dylan)

Synecdoche

• Generalization or specification based on a part/trait of an object.
• Example: He just got new wheels. (car)

Tautology

• Saying the same thing twice in different ways.
• Example: First priority; I personally; repeat again

Zeugma (or Syllepsis)

• Applying a word to multiple other words in a sentence to give different meanings.
• Example: Give neither counsel nor salt till you are asked for it.