Literary Terms - English 2 Honors

allusion - an indirect reference to a person, event, statement, or theme found in literature, the other arts, history, myths, religion, or popular culture

antithesis - opposition, or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction

apostrophe (figure of speech) r- a figure of speech in which the speaker directly and often emotionally addresses a person who is dead or otherwise not physically present, an imaginary person or entity, something inhuman, or a place or concept

chiasmus - a type of rhetoric in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first

figurative language - Language that moves beyond the denotative meanings of literal imagery with additional connotations and richness. There are two types of figurative language: tropes: and rhetorical figures.

genus - meaning 'the whole', as opposed to species, meaning 'part of the whole'

imagery - a term used to refer to: 1) the literal language that a writer uses to convey a visual picture or to represent any sensory experience, and 2) the use of figures of speech to express abstract ideas in a vivid way

irony - an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant

literal imagery - Literal imagery attempts to directly represent "an object or event with words that draw on or appeal to the kind of experiences gained through the five senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell)

metaphor - A trope that represents one thing (tenor) through another (vehicle). Unlike similes, metaphors use no connective words such as like or as to make their comparison.

metonymy - reference to something or someone by naming one of its attributes

motif - a unifying element in an artistic work, especially any recurrent image, symbol, theme, character type, subject, or narrative detail

parallelism - a rhetorical figure that emphasizes ideas and images by using grammatically similar constructions, thereby creating a sense of balance that can be meaningful and revealing

pun - A play on words that capitalizes on a similarity of spelling and/or pronunciation between words that have different meanings. A pun may also use one word that has multiple meanings.

rhetorical figure - One of the two major divisions of figures of speech, the other being tropes. Unlike tropes, which turn one word or phrase into a representation of something else, rhetorical figures involve a less radical use of language to achieve special effects.

simile - A trope that represents one thing (tenor) through another (vehicle). Unlike metaphors, similes use connective words such as like or as to make their comparison.

species - meaning 'part of the whole', as opposed to genus, meaning 'the whole'

symbol - an image that has both literal and figurative meaning

symbolism - the serious and relatively sustained use of symbols to represent or suggest other things and ideas

synecdoche - a whole is represented by naming one of its parts (genus named for species), or vice versa (species named for genus), where 'genus' is the whole and 'species' is a part of that whole

tenor - the object being represented by an image (vehicle) in a figure of speech

trope - 'metaphorical language'. The five most important (principal) tropes are metaphor, simile, metonymy, synecdoche, and personification.

vehicle - the image used to represent something else (tenor) in a figure of speech