Literary devices: terms you should know
(definitions and examples)
1. Alliteration: (1)the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or soundgroup , (2)the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the same letter(example):apt alliteration's artful aid
2. Allusion: a metaphor
(example): There is an allusion to a 1916 Frost poem about a boy's accidental death: 'No more to build on there. And they, since they/ Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.' (The poem's title ('Out, Out--) is an allusion by Frost to [William] Shakespeare.(after Lady Macbeth dies, Macbeth speaks of life's shortness, 'Out, out, brief candle!')
3. Figurative language: (1) language that contains or uses figures of speech, especially metaphors, (2) speech or writing that departs from literal meaningin order to achieve a special effect or meaning,speech or writing employing figures of speech
(example):
I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.Hear the mellow wedding bells. - Edgar Allen Poe
4. Free verse: verse that does not follow a fixed metrical pattern.
(example): Fog by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
5. Hyperbole: obvious and intentional exaggeration.
(example): The poet Homer made use of hyperbole in his epic poems. Two examples include the lines suggesting that the god Mars cried out
"as loudly as nine or ten thousand men" and that the weather was so foul that "two winds rose with a cry that rent the air and swept the clouds before them."
6. Imagery: the formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things,or of such images collectively
(example):T.S. Eliot- Preludes
Example of the horse steaming and stamping and smell the steaks:
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scrapsOf withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.And then the lighting of the lamps.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
7. Lyric: having the form and musical quality of a song, and especially the character of a song like outpouring of the poet'sown thoughts and feelings, as distinguished from epic and dramatic poetry.
(example): Poet written by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
8. Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance
(example): “She is all states, and all princes, I.” is a metaphysical poet written by John Donne. In this poet, he scolds sun for waking up him and his lover.
9. Mood:Feeling of someone at particular time, (2) It is also the emotional quality of literature, music, or other expressive arts.
(example): "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary" or "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain"
Edgar Ellen Poe mood(mysterious)
10. Onomatopoeia: the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.
(example): The bell sounds are expressed throughout the poem as a “tinkle tinkle,” a “tintinnabulation,” a “jingling,” and finally a “moaning and groaning,” suggesting bells of various sizes and melodic properties. ('The Bells' written by Edgar Ellen Poe)
11. Oxymoron: a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous,seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly.”
(example): cruel kindness, to make haste slowly
12. Paradox: a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory orabsurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
(ex.):You can save money by spending it., I'm nobody
13. Personification: the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.
(ex.):
Hey diddle, Diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
14. Repetition: the act of repeating; repeated action, performance, production,or presentation.
15. Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhymes used in a poem, usually marked by letters to symbolize correspondences, as rhyme royal.
2. Allusion: a metaphor
(example): There is an allusion to a 1916 Frost poem about a boy's accidental death: 'No more to build on there. And they, since they/ Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.' (The poem's title ('Out, Out--) is an allusion by Frost to [William] Shakespeare.(after Lady Macbeth dies, Macbeth speaks of life's shortness, 'Out, out, brief candle!')
3. Figurative language: (1) language that contains or uses figures of speech, especially metaphors, (2) speech or writing that departs from literal meaningin order to achieve a special effect or meaning,speech or writing employing figures of speech
(example):
I'm so hungry I could eat a horse.Hear the mellow wedding bells. - Edgar Allen Poe
4. Free verse: verse that does not follow a fixed metrical pattern.
(example): Fog by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
5. Hyperbole: obvious and intentional exaggeration.
(example): The poet Homer made use of hyperbole in his epic poems. Two examples include the lines suggesting that the god Mars cried out
"as loudly as nine or ten thousand men" and that the weather was so foul that "two winds rose with a cry that rent the air and swept the clouds before them."
6. Imagery: the formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things,or of such images collectively
(example):T.S. Eliot- Preludes
Example of the horse steaming and stamping and smell the steaks:
The winter evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scrapsOf withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.And then the lighting of the lamps.
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells
7. Lyric: having the form and musical quality of a song, and especially the character of a song like outpouring of the poet'sown thoughts and feelings, as distinguished from epic and dramatic poetry.
(example): Poet written by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed,
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed.
8. Metaphor: a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance
(example): “She is all states, and all princes, I.” is a metaphysical poet written by John Donne. In this poet, he scolds sun for waking up him and his lover.
9. Mood:Feeling of someone at particular time, (2) It is also the emotional quality of literature, music, or other expressive arts.
(example): "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary" or "And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain"
Edgar Ellen Poe mood(mysterious)
10. Onomatopoeia: the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent.
(example): The bell sounds are expressed throughout the poem as a “tinkle tinkle,” a “tintinnabulation,” a “jingling,” and finally a “moaning and groaning,” suggesting bells of various sizes and melodic properties. ('The Bells' written by Edgar Ellen Poe)
11. Oxymoron: a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous,seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly.”
(example): cruel kindness, to make haste slowly
12. Paradox: a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory orabsurd but in reality expresses a possible truth.
(ex.):You can save money by spending it., I'm nobody
13. Personification: the attribution of human nature or character to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract notions, especially as a rhetorical figure.
(ex.):
Hey diddle, Diddle,
The cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon;
The little dog laughed
To see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.
14. Repetition: the act of repeating; repeated action, performance, production,or presentation.
15. Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhymes used in a poem, usually marked by letters to symbolize correspondences, as rhyme royal.
(example): ababbcc.