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ClewLiterary Devices
Literary Devices and their definitions
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| A reference or mention of something directly or by implication. | Allusion |
| Hint of events to come before they happen. | Foreshadowing |
| Directly compares two things, which may be different, because they have something in common. | Metaphor |
| A phrase that compares the characteristics of two unlike things, uses the words like or as. | Simile |
| Giving human characteristics to non-human things. | Personification |
| The use of words to form mental images or likeness of things. | Imagery |
| 1. an outcome of events contrary to expected 2. use of words to convey opposite meanings 3. dramatic irony: understood by audience but not characters. | Irony |
| combines contradictory terms | Oxymoron |
| The humorous use of words or phrase to emphasize or suggest different meanings | Pun |
| Extreme exaggeration | Hyperbole |
| The formation of a word from a sound associated with it's name | Onomatopoeia |
| The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent words. | Alliteration |
| An object or word that represents an abstract idea | Symbolism |
| a symbolic narrative | Allegory |
| repetition of word or words at the beginning of two or more verses. Ex “I needed a drink, I needed a car, and I needed a ticket for a vacation.” | Anaphora |
| a comparison in which the subject is compared point by point to something different, usually with the idea of clarifying. For example, “up Babylon-like-walls” to illustrate the doomed city of death. | Analogy |
| character that is the source of conflict | Antagonist |
| an origin or original model from which copies are made, especially a character, an action, or a situation, that represents common patterns. Ex: Yoda, Darth Vadar, Harry Potter | Archetype |
| a dramatic device in which a character makes a short speech intended for the audience but not heard by the other characters on stage | Aside |
| repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds: “Anna’s apples,” “the pond is long gone” | Assonance |
| is the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present. Ex: “Oh death, be not proud.” | Apostrophe |
| a special type of alliteration in which the repeated pattern of consonants is marked by changes in the intervening vowels i.e., the final consonants of the stressed syllables match each other but the vowels differ. Ex: Linger, Longer | Consonance |
| struggle between two or more opposing forces (person vs. person; nature; society; self; fate/God) | Conflict |
| repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses. Ex: I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream | Epistrophe |
| a novel told through a series of letters written by one or more of the characters | Epistolary Novel |
| a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem. | Extended Metaphor |
| a moral or ethical based argument | Ethos |
| a word or expression used in place of another – Ex: I’m sorry to hear your mother passed away! | Euphemism |
| - the method of returning to an earlier point in time for the purpose of making the present clearer - the method of returning to an earlier point in time for the purpose of making the present clearer | Flashback |
| hint of what is to come in a literary work | Foreshadowing |
| a character who contrasts with a second character and their differences help characterize them | Foil |
| Story within a story | Framed Narrative |
| tragic flaw. A term from Greek tragedy that literally means, “missing the mark.” The protagonist often possesses some form of hamartia that leads to their downfall or demise. | Hamartia |
| excessive pride. When a character is unable to see their weaknesses or limitations due to pride. | Hubris |
| extreme exaggeration to add meaning | Hyperbole |
| rhythm of patterned lines unstressed/stressed | Iambic pentameter |
| – language that appeals to the five senses | Imagery |
| Dramatic… when the reader or audience knows something a character does not Situational… when there is a disparity between what is expected and what actually occurs Verbal… when the speaker says one thing but means the oppo | Irony |
| argument that appeals to sense of logic | Logos |
| mental or emotional of the author towards the literary work | Mood |
| refers to a speech by one person in a drama, a form of entertainment by a single person. | Monologue |
| a recurring feature of a literary work that is related to the theme | Motif |
| use of a word whose sound imitates its meaning: “hiss” | Onomatopoeia |
| phrase that consists of two words that are contradictory: “living dead” or “Microsoft works” | Oxymoron |
| a quality of work that arouses feelings of pity, sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow | Pathos |
| the attribution of human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects or to nature; for example angry clouds; a cruel wind. | Pathetic Fallacy |
| the repetition of a syntactic construction in successive sentences for rhetorical effect. Ex: “They are laughing at me, not with me.” – Bart Simpson | Parallelism |
| a seemingly self contradictory statement that when found may not prove true. Ex: Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink. | Paradox |
| figure of speech in which non-human things are given human characteristics | Personification |
| The sequence of events in a literary work | Plot |
| 1st person point of view- the narrator is a character in the story (use of ‘I’) 2nd person point of view – story told from the perspective of “you” 3rd person point of view- the narrator is outside of the story (use of ‘he’ ‘she’ ‘they’ | Narrator / Point of view |
| repetition of similar or identical sounds: “look and crook” | Rhyme |
| – pattern of rhyme among lines of poetry [denoted using letters, as in ABAB CDCD EE] | Rhyme Scheme |
| a direct comparison of dissimilar objects, usually using like or as: “I wandered lonely as a cloud” | Simile |
| a dramatic device in which a character is alone and speaks his or her thoughts aloud | Soliloquey |
| standardized, conventional ideas about characters, plots and settings | Stereotype |
| technique that keeps the reader guessing what will happen next | Suspense |
| a balancing of the plot, where characters come together and no character is left outside the union | Synthesis |
| the underlying main idea of a literary work. Theme differs from the subject of a literary work in that it involves a statement or opinion about the subject. | Theme |
| the author’s attitude toward the subject of a work. | Tone |
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clewner
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