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| When characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities; also an extended metaphor. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious or political significance and the characters are often personifications of abstract ideas such as charity, hope, greed, or envy. Ex: In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem represent innocence, Atticus is a model of integrity, etc. Or in the children’s holiday video “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Rudolph, the dentist elf, Yukon Cornelieus and the Abominable Snowman represent the various types of misfits in society; Santa and the Reindeer Coaches represent normal society. |
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Repetition of initial or medial consonants in two or more adjacent words. It can be used to
reinforce meaning, unify thought, or simply for the musical effect. |
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| A reference to someone, something, or some event known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, music, art, or some other branch of culture. |
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Out of time; placing something in a time where it does not belong, Ex. A reference to
World War I as “the first world war” in a novel set in the 1920’s. (No one anticipated the second World War in the 1920’s, and WWI was referred to during that time as “the Great War,” not the first one.) |
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A comparison between two items, situations, or ideas that are somewhat alike but unlike in most
respects. Frequently an unfamiliar or complex object or idea will be explained through comparison to a familiar or simpler one. |
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| atypical protagonist, who can be particularly graceless, inept, stupid, or dishonest. |
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Balancing or contrasting of one term against another.
“Man proposes, God disposes”—Pope
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” –Macbeth, Shakespeare |
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A brief saying embodying a moral, such as Pope’s “ Some praise at morning what they blame at
night, / but always think the last opinion right.” From the Essay on Criticism. |
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Addressing an absent person or a personified abstraction. (Ex., Donne’s “Death, be not
proud”.) |
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| An image, story-pattern, or character type which recurs frequently in literature and evokes strong, often unconscious, associations in the reader. |
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| The repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words. Ex: “She hated her failure to make the grade.” |
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| A part of an actor's lines supposedly not heard by others on the stage and intended only for the audience. |
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Unrhymed Iambic Pentameter, a line of five metric feet.
(Ex., Romeo’s " but SOFT, what LIGHT through YON der WIN dow BREAKS? /
It IS the EAST and JULiET the SUN”) |
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a succession of harsh, discordant sounds in either poetry or prose, used to
achieve a specific effect. Note the harshness of sound and difficulty of articulation in these lines:
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur” |
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A person, animal, or natural force presented as a person in a literary work.
Dynamic- undergoes change in attitude, maturity, etc.
Static -does not undergo change.
Flat - exhibits few or one personality trait.
Round- exhibits various, often contradictory, personality traits. |
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| Specifically described items placed in a work for effect and meaning. |
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A lyric poem in which the speaker addresses someone whose replies are not
recorded. Sometimes the one addressed seems to be present, sometimes not. |
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| Literally, “God in the Machine,” a Greek idea from when a god would be lowered or brought on stage to rescue the hero; now it applies to any time the hero is saved by a miraculous or “out-of-the-blue,” unexpected event. |
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| A writer’s choice of words. |
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| of the emotions associated with a word. |
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| The dictionary definition of a word. |
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| A sudden understanding or realization which prior to this was not thought of or understood. |
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| device where being indirect replaces directness to avoid unpleasantness. |
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| a combination of pleasing sounds in poetry or prose |
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| A scene in a literary work that interrupts the action to show an event that happened earlier. |
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A type of poetry that differs from conventional verse forms in being ”free” from a fixed
pattern of meter and rhyme, but using rhythm and other poetic devices. |
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A character whose traits are the opposite of those of another character and who thus points up the
strengths or weaknesses of another character. |
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| use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest coming action. |
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| A pair of rhymed verse lines in Iambic Pentameter. |
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| Hyperbole (Overstatement) |
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| The use of exaggerated terms for the purpose of emphasis or heightened effect to reveal some truth. ex. His eloquence would split rocks. Must be used with restraint and for a calculated effect. |
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| Words or phrases that appeal to one of the five senses. |
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| Res “In the midst of things,” starting a story in the middle of the action. Later, the first part will be revealed. A familiar example of this would be The Odyssey. |
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A contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is meant, or between what is expected to happen and what actually happens.
Verbal A writer or speaker says one thing and means something entirely different.
Dramatic A reader or audience perceives something that a character does not know.
Situational The outcome of a situation is contrary to what is expected, and is meaningful. |
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| To place side by side purposefully so as to permit comparison or contrast. |
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A figure of speech in which the speaker emphasizes the magnitude of a statement by denying its opposite. Ex. “That sword was not useless / to the warrior now” Beowulf;
He was not unfamiliar with the works of Dickens (implying he was very familiar with them); |
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A comparison between two things not normally thought of as similar, yet having something in common. Does not use like or as. Ex. “David is a lion.”
Implied Metaphor—a more subtle comparison where the similarity is implied, less obvious. Ex. “David bared his claws and roared his answer to the cowering clerk.”
Extended Metaphor—sustained comparison over several lines, or stanzas of a work. For instance, the David/Lion metaphor above might be carried throughout a paragraph or more, with multiple images/details emphasizing or reinforcing the idea of David as lion-like. |
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A kind of metaphor substituting some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually
meant; ex. crown for royalty, White House for president; Rome for the Pope, brass for military officers; pen for writers. |
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| , incident, idea or object that recurs in various works or in various parts of the same work. |
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| Use of words whose sound echoes the sense. |
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| The yoking of two contradictory term; ex. sweet pain, thunderous silence, original copy BUT may also be a phrase: conspicuous by her absence, make haste slowly. |
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| An apparently contradictory statement that nevertheless contains a measure of truth; ex. “Art is a form of lying in order to tell the truth.” -Pablo Picasso; “But the essence of that ugliness is the thing which will always make it beautiful.” - Gertrude Stein, “How Writing Is Written” |
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A humorous imitation of another, usually serious, work, trying to make the original work seem
absurd. Ex. Weird Al Yankovich, or Saturday Night Live’s version of evening network news. |
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| A form of metaphor in which human characteristics are attributed to non-human things. |
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A play on words. Ex. In Romeo & Juliet, Mercutio’s “Ask for me tomorrow and you shall find me a
grave man.” Or “My advanced geometry class is full of squares.” |
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A line in which the thought continues beyond the end of the poetic line there should be no
pause after thine in the first line:
For sure our souls were near allied, and thine
Cast in the same poetic mould with mine.
Dryden, “To the memory of Mr. Oldham” |
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| The use of language to hurt or ridicule. It is less subtle in tone than irony. |
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Literary art of ridiculing a subject, folly or vice in order to expose or correct it. The object of satire is
usually some human frailty; people, institutions, ideas, and things are all fair game. Sarcasm and Irony are often used in writing satire. |
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| marking off of lines of poetry into feet, indicating the stressed and unstressed syllables. |
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An explicit comparison between two things of unlike nature that yet have something in
Common uses “like” or “as”; ex. David is like a lion. David is as brave as a lion. |
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A dramatic convention that allows a character alone on stage to speak his or her thoughts
aloud. If someone else is on stage, and the characters’ words are unheard, the soliloquy becomes an aside. |
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The recording or re-creation of a character’s flow of thought. Raw images,
perceptions, memories come and go in seemingly random, but actually controlled, fashion, much as they do in people’s minds. |
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| Something concrete that represents an abstraction. |
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A type of metaphor that substitutes a part for the whole, or the whole is used for a part. Ex. Part used for whole: “head” to mean cattle, “wheels” to mean car, “suit” for businessman.
Whole used for part: “the police” to mean a handful of officers |
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| Figure of speech juxtaposing one sensory image with another image that appeals to an unrelated sense; ex. loud green shirt, bitter sweet success, golden touch, cool blue eyes. |
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| Saying less than one means for effect; ex. calling the Battle of Gettysburg a “skirmish.” |
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| – a literary sketch or verbal description, a brief incident or scene. |
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