Help
Options
Didn't know it?
click below
click below
Knew it?
click below
click below
Don't Know
Remaining cards (0)
Know
retry
shuffle
restart
0:00
Embed Code - If you would like this activity on your web page, copy the script below and paste it into your web page.
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Normal Size Small Size show me how
Literary Devices
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Alliteration | A literary device in which the initial sounds of a word, beginning either with a consonant or a vowel, are repeated in close succession. |
| Antithesis | Balanced writing about conflicting ideas, usually in sentence form. Examples: "Expanding from the center," or "searching never finding." |
| Aphorism | A focused, succinct expression about life from a sagacious viewpoint. Example: "Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame" - Benjamin Franklin |
| Apostrophe | Literary device of addressing an absent or dead person, an abstract idea, or an inanimate object. |
| Assonance | A literary device that occurs when the vowel sound within a word matches the same sound in a nearby word, but the surrounding consonant sounds are different. Example: "tune" and "food" |
| Bathos | A ludicrous attempt to portray pathos - that is, to evoke pity, sympathy, or sorrow. It may result from inappropriately dignifying the commonplace, elevated language to describe something trivial, or greatly exaggerated pathos. Example: "He spent his fi |
| Blank Verse | Poetry written in iambic pentameter but unrhymed. Examples: Works by Shakespeare and Milton |
| Caesura | A pause, usually signaled by punctuation, in a line of poetry. Example: "To err is human, // to forgive, divine" - Beowulf (earliest usage, first English epic) |
| Climax | A number of phrases or sentences arranged in ascending order of rhetorical forcefulness. |
| Conceit | A comparison, usually in verse, between seemingly disparate objects or concepts. |
| Connotation | The ripple effect surrounding the implications and associations of a given word, distinct from the denotative or literal meaning. Example: The word "rest" in Hamlet's "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest," refers to a bu |
| Consonance | The repeated usage of similar consonant sounds, most often used in poetry. Example: "She sells seashells by the seashore." |
| Couplet | Two rhyming lines of poetry. Example: Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" |
| Denotation | What a word literally means, as opposed to its connotative meaning. |
| Diction | The right word in the right place for the right purpose. |
| Epiphany | The moment when something is realized and comprehension sets in. |
| Euphemism | The substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive term for one that might offend or suggest something unpleasant. Examples: "Passed away," "crossed over," or "passed" to refer to death. |
| Exposition | Fill-in or background information about characters meant to clarify and add to the narrative; the initial plot element that precedes the buildup of conflict. |
| Free Verse | Poetry that does not have any predictable meter or patterning. Examples: Margaret Atwood, E.E. Cummings, and Ted Hughes |
| Hyperbole | Exaggeration for a specific effect. Examples: "I am so hungry I could eat a horse, " or "The lesson was taking forever." |
| Iambic Pentameter | The two elements in a five-foot line of poetry. Example: William Shakespeare |
| Iamb | Two syllables, unaccented and accented, per foot or measure. Examples: exist, belong, predict, away |
| Pentameter | Five feet of iambs per line or ten syllables. Example: "Fast by the Oracle of God: I thence / invoke thy aid to my adventurous Song / That with no middle flight intends to soar / Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues..." - John Milton's Paradise Lost |
| Imagery | A word or sentence of words that refers to any sensory experience. |
| Inversion | An atypical sentence order to create a given effect or interest. Example: "Yet certain am I of the spot," instead of "I am certain of the spot." |
| Irony | An unexpected disparity between what is written or stated and what is really meant or implied by the author. Types of irony include verbal, dramatic, and situational. |
| Verbal Irony | The literary device used when an author says one thing and means something else. |
| Dramatic Irony | The literary device used when an audience perceives something that a character in literature does not know. |
| Situational Irony | A discrepancy between the expected result and the actual results. |
| Kenning | Another way to describe a person, place, or thing so as to avoid prosaic repetition. Also called an epithet. Examples: Daenerys Targaryen is also referred to as Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, Khaleesi o |
| Malapropism | A verbal blunder in which one word is replaced by another similar in sound but different in meaning. Example: "The pineapple of perfection" instead of "the pinnacle of perfection." |
| Metaphor | Indirect comparison between two things. Example: broken heart |
| Metaphysical Poetry | Verse characterization by ingenious wit, unparalleled imagery, and clever conceits. Example: John Donne |
| Metonymy | Use of an object or idea closely identified with another object or idea to represent the second. Example: "Hit the books" means "go study." |
| Motif | A key, oft-repeated phrase, name, or idea in a literary work. |
| Octava Rima | A specific eight-line stanza of poetry whose rhyme scheme is abababcc. |
| Onomatopoeia | Word used to evoke the sound in its meaning. Example: The early Batman series with Adam West. |
| Oxymoron | A contradiction in terms deliberately employed for effect. Example: jumbo shrimp |
| Paradox | Seemingly untrue statement, which when examined more closely proves to be true. Example: John Donne's sonnet "Death Be Not Proud" postulates that death shall die and humans will triumph over death, at first thought not true, but ultimately explained and |
| Parallelism | A type of close repetition of clauses or phrases that emphasize key topics or ideas in writing. Example: "Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man." - Francis Bacon's Of Studies |
| Personification | A literary device in which human characteristics are attributed to an inanimate object, an abstract quality, or animal. |
| Quatrain | A poetic stanza composed of four lines. A Shakespearean or Elizabethan sonnet is made up of three quatrains and ends with a heroic couplet. |
| Scansion | The two-part analysis of a poetic line. Count the number of syllables per line and determine where accents fall. Divide the line into metric feet. Name the meter by the type and number of feet. |
| Slant Rhyme | A literary device that occurs when the final consonant sounds are the same but the vowels are different. Examples: "green and gone," "that and hit," and "ill and shell." |
| Simile | Direct comparison between two things using "like," "as," or "such as." Example: "My love is like a red-red rose." |
| Soliloquy | A highlighted speech in drama, usually delivered by a major character expounding on the author's philosophy or expressing, at times, universal truths. Example: Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy. |
| Spenserian Stanza | Invented by Sir Edmund Spenser for use in "The Faerie Queen," his epic poem honoring Queen Elizabeth I. Each stanza consists of nine lines, eight in iambic pentameter. The ninth line, called an alexandrine, has two extra syllables or one extra foot. |
| Alexandrine | The ninth line of a Spenserian stanza which has two extra syllables or one additional foot. |
| Sprung Rhyme | Invented and used extensively by the poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins. It consists of variable meter, which combines stressed and unstressed syllables syllables fashioned by the author. |
| Stream of Consciousness | A style of writing which reflects the mental processes of the characters expressing, at times, jumbled memories, feelings, and dreams. |
| Symbolism | A symbol is an object or action that can be observed with the senses in addition to its suggesting many other things. Examples: The lion as a symbol of courage; the cross a symbol of Christianity; the color green the symbol of envy. |
| Synecdoche | A figure of speech in which the word for part of something is used to mean the whole. Example: "Sail" for "boat," or vice versa. |
| Terza Rima | A series of poetic stanzas that use the recurrent rhyme scheme of aba, bcb, cdc, ded, and so forth. Examples: Keates, Byron, Shelley, and Dante Alighieri |
| Tone | The discernible attitude inherent in an author's work regarding the subject, readership, or characters. |
| Wit | Writing of genius, keenness, and sagacity expressed through clever use of language. |
Created by:
NMBL9285