General Literary Devices Flashcards
Allegory
A literary or visual form in which characters, events or images represent or symbolise ideas. It can be a story of some complexity corresponding to another situation on a deeper level. Animal Farm is about a community of animals, but reflects the Russian Revolution and satirises Communism.
Alliteration
Repetition of an identical consonant sound at the beginning of stressed words, usually close together. Alliteration can create different effects. (Used in poetry and prose).
Allusion
An indirect reference to an event, person, place, another work of literature, etc. that gives additional layers of meaning to a text or enlarges its frame of reference. Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out”, about a boy’s accidental death, alludes to Macbeth’s line about life: “Out, out, brief candle”.
Ambiguity
Where language, action, tone, character, etc. are (sometimes deliberately), unclear and may yield two or more interpretations or meanings. Gertrude’s actions and character are ambiguous in the early acts of Hamlet.
Ambivalence
Simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings towards something or someone. A writer’s attitude to a character or event may not be clear-cut, but may seem to hold at least two responses at the same time. Distinguish this from ‘ambiguity’.
Anagnoris
(a Greek term associated with tragedy but also used with fiction). A moment of recognition or discovery usually late in the plot where the protagonist discovers something about his or her true nature or behaviour or situation. Elizabeth Bennet, late in Pride and Prejudice dramatically realises her prejudice.
Analogy
An extended comparison between two seemingly dissimilar things.
Anaphora
The repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.
Anecdote
A short account of an interesting event.
Annotation
Explanatory or critical notes added to a text.
Antecedent
The noun to which a later pronoun refers.
Antimetabole
The repetition of words in an inverted order to sharpen a contrast.
Antithesis
Expressing contrasting ideas by balancing words of opposite meaning and idea in a line or sentence, for rhetorical impact: “They promised opportunity and provided slavery”.
Aphorism
A short, astute statement of a general truth.
Apostrophe
An exclamatory passage where the speaker or writer breaks off in the flow of a narrative or poem to address a dead or absent person, a particular audience, or object.
Appositive
A word or phrase that renames a nearby noun or pronoun.
Archaic diction
The use of words common to an earlier time period; antiquated language.
Argument
A statement put forth and supported by evidence.
Aristotelian triangle
A diagram representing a rhetorical situation as the relationship among the speaker, the subject, and the audience (see rhetorical triangle).
Assertion
An emphatic statement; declaration. An assertion supported by evidence becomes an argument.
Assonance
Repetition of similar vowel sounds close to one another (“The sweep / of easy wind”: Frost). This can create atmosphere in descriptive poetry. Sound this aloud to hear the effect.
Assumption
A belief or statement taken for granted without proof.
Asyndeton
Leaving out conjunctions between words, phrases, clauses.
Atmosphere
It refers specifically to place – a setting, or surroundings.
Attitude
The speaker’s position on a subject as revealed through his or her tone.
Audience
One’s listener or readership; those to whom a speech or piece of writing is addressed.
Authority
A reliable, respected source—someone with knowledge.
Bathos
A sudden descent from the serious, to the ridiculous or trivial, for rhetorical effect. “His pride and his bicycle tyre were punctured in the first hour”.
Bias
Prejudice or predisposition toward one side of a subject or issue.
Bildungsroman
German term for a novel focusing on the development of a character from youth to maturity (Joyce: Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man is a famous example for a male; Jane Eyre for a female).
Blank verse
Unrhymed poetry, not broken into stanzas, keeping to a strict pattern in each line, usually in iambic pentameter. Used by Shakespeare.
Caesura
A break or pause within a line of poetry, created by a comma or full stop or unmarked pause needed by the sense. Used effectively for emphasis, or to change direction or pace.
Caricature
An exaggerated representation of a character, often emphasising physical or vocal features, usually for comic and satiric purposes. Jane Austen and Dickens frequently use this.
Cite
Identifying a part of a piece of writing as being derived from a source.
Claim
An assertion, usually supported by evidence.
Close reading
A careful reading that is attentive to organization, figurative language, sentence structure, vocabulary, and other literary and structural elements of a text.
Colloquial
Everyday speech and language; as opposed to a literary or formal register. The inclusion of the odd colloquial word or phrase in an otherwise formal work can be stirking.
Common ground
Shared beliefs, values, or positions.
Complex sentence
A sentence that includes one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
Conceit
A witty thought or idea or image, a fanciful or deliberately far-fetched comparison, as found in Shakespeare and other 16th and 17th century English poetry. A famous example is John Donne’s comparison of two lovers to the points of a mathematical compass.
Concession
A reluctant acknowledgment or yielding.
Conclusion
All horses are warm-blooded (see syllogism).
Concrete
(As in ‘concrete imagery’). Refers to objects or aspects that may be perceived by one or more of the five senses, through the language used.
Connotation
An association suggested by a word, useful when discussing diction.
Consonance
Where the final consonants are the same in two or more words close together, as in Macbeth’s “Poor player/That struts and frets his hour upon the stage”.
Context
(i) The circumstances, background or environment in which an event (or text) takes place, or an idea is set, and in terms of which it can be understood.
(ii) The part of a text that surrounds a word or passage and determines or clarifies its meaning.
Contradiction
(Distinguish from ‘paradox’). Stating or implying the opposite of what has been said or suggested.
Coordination
Grammatical equivalence between parts of a sentence, often through a coordinating conjunction such as “and”, or “but.”
Counterargument
A challenge to a position; an opposing argument.
Couplet (rhyming couplet)
Two consecutive rhyming lines of verse. May clinch or emphasise an idea.(“Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold”. Frost)
Declarative sentence
A sentence that makes a statement.
Deduction
Reasoning from general to specific.
Defamiliarization
The technique of making the familiar seem new and strange, of making us see more vividly, of awakening the mind. Although a specific term of literary theory, it is generally the aim of art and all good writing. It may be achieved, for example, through point of view, or perspective, as in Gulliver’s Travels, or unusual chronology, or diction and imagery.
Denotation
The literal meaning of a word; its dictionary definition.
Denouement
From the French, literally ‘unknotting’. How the ending of a novel or play turns out, how the plot is unravelled or revealed.
Diction
The writer’s choice and arrangement of words or distinctive vocabulary (its effectiveness and precision).
Didactic
Describes text where there is an intention to preach a (usually) moral, political or religious point it usually has a negative connotation.
Documentation
Bibliographic information about the sources used in a piece of writing.
Dramatic irony
Where a character (or characters) is/are unaware of something of which the audience/reader and often other characters on stage are aware. A powerful tool especially in drama, used for tragic or comic purposes.
Elegy
A mournful lament for times past or the dead. It is a specific poetic form, but the term can be used more generally. “Elegiac” describes a meditative mood in prose or verse, reflecting on the past.
