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
Consonance
A literary device in which the same consonant sound is repeated two or more times in short succession
Onomatopoeia
Refers to words that sound exactly or almost like the thing that they represent. Many words that we use for animal or machine noises on onomatopoeia words, such as “moo” for the sound of a cow
End stop
When a sentence of a poem is ended with punctuation or thought at the end of the line
Enjambment
When a sentence from a poem spans across several ends of lines and most likely stops in the middle
Caesura
A Stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or By a grammatical boundary such as a phrase or clause. “Dead! One of them shot by the sea in the East
Foreshadowing
Hints of events to come
Allusion
A reference to a person, place, or thing from literature, history, art, religion, politics, or popular culture. The author expects the reader to be familiar with this reference. For example, honest Abe
Synecdoche
I figure of speech which expresses either more, or less, then it literally denotes. For example: “the world treated him badly.” The whole world did not treat him badly, only a part. The whole is used as a part.
Atmosphere
The mood established by the setting and action
