J, K, and L Lists Literary Devices

Question 1

placing two things side by side for the sake of comparison or contrast; authors sometimes use incongruous juxtaposition to verbal irony

Answer 1

juxtaposition

Question 2

having the nightmarish, uncanny characteristics of Kafka’s stories

Answer 2

Kafkaesque

Question 3

a novel about an artist’s growth to maturity; such novels often depict the struggles of a sensitive youth against the values of a bourgeois society of his or her time (comes from Germanic for artist)

Answer 3

Kunstlerroman

Question 4

a fixed form consisting of five lines of anapestic meter, used exclusively for humorous or nonsense verse

Answer 4

limerick

Question 5

a form of language in which writers and speakers mean exactly what their words denote

Answer 5

literal language

Question 6

the components that together create a literary work; term encompasses elements of style (imagery, syntax, figurative language, and tone) as well as storytelling elements (plot, character, settings, and point of view)

Answer 6

literary elements

Question 7

ironic understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary

Answer 7

litote

Question 8

a short poem expressing the personal feelings of a first-person speaker; comes from Greek word lyre, and the form is descended from poems intended to be sung with a lyre

Answer 8

lyric

Question 9

a type of poem characterized by its brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling

Answer 9

lyric poem