Literary devices Flashcards
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is when non-human things like animals or objects act human, exhibiting traits such as speech, thoughts, complex emotions, and sometimes even wearing clothes and standing upright.
Allusion
An allusion is an indirect reference to another figure, event, place, or work of art that exists outside the story. Allusions are made to famous subjects so that they don’t need explanation—the reader should already understand the reference.
Allegory
Allegories are narratives that represent something else entirely, like a historical event or significant ideology, to illustrate a deeper meaning. Sometimes the stories are entirely fabricated and only loosely tied to their source, but sometimes the individual characters act as fictional stand-ins for real-life historical figures.
Amplification
Amplification is the technique of embellishing a simple sentence with more details to increase its significance.
Analogy
An analogy compares one thing to something else to help explain a similarity that might not be easy to see.
Antithesis
Antithesis places two contrasting and polarized sentiments next to each other in order to accent both.
Example: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” —Neil Armstrong
Chiasmus (or antimetabole)
The literary technique of chiasmus takes two parallel clauses and inverts the word order of one to create a greater meaning.
Colloquialism
Colloquialism is using casual and informal speech, including slang, in formal writing to make dialogue seem more realistic and authentic. It often incorporates respelling words and adding apostrophes to communicate the pronunciation.
Circumlocution
Circumlocution is when the writer deliberately uses excessive words and overcomplicated sentence structures to intentionally convolute their meaning. In other words, it means to write lengthily and confusingly on purpose.
Epigraph
An epigraph is an independent, pre-existing quotation that introduces a piece of work, typically with some thematic or symbolic relevance.
Euphemism
A euphemism is a soft and inoffensive word or phrase that replaces a harsh, unpleasant, or hurtful one for the sake of sympathy or civility.
Example: Euphemisms like “passed away” and “downsizing” are quite common in everyday speech, but a good example in literature comes from Harry Potter, where the wizarding community refers to the villain Voldemort as “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” in fear of invoking him.
Imagery
Imagery refers to writing that invokes the reader’s senses with descriptive word choice to create a more vivid and realistic recreation of the scene in their mind.
Metaphor
Similar to an analogy, a metaphor is a figure of speech that compares two different things to show their similarities by insisting that they’re the same.
Motif
A motif is a recurring element in a story that holds some symbolic or conceptual meaning. It’s closely related to theme, but motifs are specific objects or events, while themes are abstract ideas.
Example: In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Lady Macbeth’s obsession with washing her hands is a motif that symbolizes her guilt.
Personification
Personification is when an author attributes human characteristics metaphorically to nonhuman things like the weather or inanimate objects. Personification is strictly figurative, whereas anthropomorphism posits that those things really do act like humans.
