General Literary Terms Flashcards
Visual imagery
Appealing to the site
Imagery
Concrete details assigned to appeal to the readers five senses. By itself, the term imagery implies a reference to sight; only referred to visual imagery if you’re distinguishing it from the other types.
Olfactory imagery
Appealing to the sense of smell
Tactile imagery
Appealing to the sense of touch
Auditory imagery
Appealing to the sense of hearing
Gustatory imagery
Appealing to the sense of taste
Simile
A comparison of two unlike things using like or as, such as “my love is like a red, red rose.”
Synesthesia
A blending or intermingling of different senses and description. “Light laughs in the breeze in her castle of sunshine,”
Metaphor
A comparison of two things not using like or as
Verbal irony
A form in wordplay that is used to signify it’s opposite for example, “war is kind”
Dramatic irony
Dramatic irony occurs when a character is left ignorant of facts revealed to the audience
Situational irony
When the outcome is different than what the author has been leading you towards
Symbolism
A device in literature when an object represents an idea
Alliteration
A literary device that repeats a speech sound in a sequence of words that is closer to each other. Alliteration typically uses consonants at the beginning of the word to give stress to its syllable. For example “I pondered weak and weary to the rare and radiant maiden”
Assonance
When a writer repeats the vowel sounds in the stressed syllables of words. For example, in the line, “my rabbit walked my ear,” the words rabbit and why aren’t example of assonance because they both contain a short “a” sound on the stressed syllable