First Rhetorical Terms Set Flashcards
Repetition of words in successive clauses in reverse grammatical order
Antimetabole
Balancing words, phrases, or ideas that are strongly contrasted, often by means of grammatical structure
Antithesis
Elaborate metaphor that compares two things that are startlingly different
Conceit
Form of fiction or nonfiction that teaches a specific lesson or moral or provides a model of correct behavior or thinking
Didactic
A quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of the theme
Epigraph
An atmosphere created by a writer’s diction and the details selected
Mood
A recurring image, word, phrase, action, idea, object, or situation used throughout a work, unifying the work by tying the current situation to previous ones, or new ideas to the theme
Motif
A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase
Oxymoron
Statement that appears self-contradictory, but that reveals a kind of truth
Paradox
A work that makes fun of another work by imitating some aspect of the writer’s style
Parody
Sentence that places the main idea or central complete thought at the end of the sentence, after all introductory elements
Periodic
An unknown narrator, tells the story, but this narrator zooms in to focus on the thoughts and feelings of only one character
Third Person Point of View
Omniscient or all knowing narrator tells the story, also using the third person pronouns
Omniscient Point of View
Sentence which uses a conjunction with NO commas to separate the items in a series
Polysyndeton
A poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit
Quatrain
