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Lit Devices
for Semester Exam
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Alliteration | the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. |
| Alliteration | "Herot trembled, wonderfully built to withstand the blows, the struggling great bodies beating at its beautiful walls..." |
| Anaphora | the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses. |
| Anaphora | He had visited Hrothgar’s home…. He Journeyed, forever …. He strode quickly” |
| Ambiguity | Ambiguity or fallacy of ambiguity is a word, phrase, or statement which contains more than one meaning. Ambiguous words or statements lead to vagueness and confusion, and shape the basis for instances of unintentional humor. |
| Ambiguity | A good life depends on a liver. (a common saying, apparently) |
| Antecedent | Broadly speaking, antecedent is a literary device in which a word or pronoun in a line or sentence refers to an earlier word. |
| Antecedent | “And still more, later flowers for the bees, / Until they think warm days will never cease, / For Summer has o’er brimmed their clammy cell.” (HINT: the word “bees”) |
| antithesis | the direct contrast of words or phrases in a parallel fashion |
| antithesis | “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times[…]” |
| aphorism | short sentence stating a general fact or observation |
| aphorism | “To err is human, to forgive divine.” |
| asyndeton | omission of conjunctions (and, or, etc.) in a sentence |
| asyndeton | “I came, I saw, I conquered.” |
| colloquialism | casual language use, tends to be familiar to a specific group of people, informal |
| colloquialism | “Ain’t no thing.” |
| ellipsis | the intentional omission of words that are not needed to make the meaning clear |
| ellipsis | “My friend enjoys studying, my mother encourages, I resent.” |
| Euphemism | making something bad sound nicer |
| Euphemism | In Animal Farm they say readjustment when the pigs really mean they are going to take your food |
| Exposition | a description of an idea or theory; in a story, material that serves to describe or explain characters, settings, or plot points |
| Exposition | In Othello, the note they found in Roderigo’s pocket describing Iago’s plan |
| Figurative language | language where the literal meaning of the words is disregarded in order to show an imaginative relationship between diverse things |
| Figurative language | the extended metaphor of Madam Defarge’s knitting in A Tale of Two Cities |
| Imagery | vivid and descriptive language the author uses to add depth and paint a more specific picture in the readers mind |
| Imagery | “Oh, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! / It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / Like a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear, / Beauty too rich for use..." |
| Juxtaposition | placement of two or more distinct concepts, characters, ideas or places next to each other to contrast or compare them. |
| Juxtaposition | “All’s fair in love and war.” |
| Metaphor | a figure of speech that compares unlike two things without the use of “like” or “as”. |
| Metaphor | “Humor is the shock absorber of life; it helps us take the blows.” |
| Metonymy | a figure of speech in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by something associated with it. |
| Metonymy | “In a corner, a cluster of lab coats made lunch plans.” |
| Paradox | a seemingly contradictory statement that is true. |
| Paradox | “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.” |
| Parallelism | the state of being parallel or of corresponding in some way “Easy come, easy go.” |
| Parallelism | "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessing; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." |
| Polysyndeton | literary technique in which conjunctions (and, but, or, etc.) are used repeatedly in quick succession. |
| Polysyndeton | “…he came along, and discharging it to mingle with the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and whatnot…” |
| Simile | comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, normally using “like” or “as” |
| Simile | “The boy was like a thirsty dog the way he drank water after running a marathon.” |
| Personification | the attribution of human nature or character or animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure |
| Personification | “The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky.” |
| Understatement | a statement that represents something as less than the case |
| Understatement | Wearing a bikini to my graduation was a bit provocative. |
| Inverted Sentence | a reversal of normal sentence structures used to create rhythm, rhyme, or another effect (often, the verb or predicate comes before the subject) |
| Inverted Sentence | "The castle of Macduff I will surprise." |
| Loose Sentence | sentence consisting of a statement with a string of details added to it |
| Loose Sentence | “But they also knew that everything would be different from then on, that their houses would have wider doors, higher ceilings, and stronger floors…where the sun’s so bright that the sunflowers don’t know which way to turn..." |
| Periodic Sentence | sentence with additional details placed before the basic statement |
| Periodic Sentence | Long and fluffy, my sweater was very comfortable. |
Created by:
MaggieJohnson
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