Literary Devices Flashcards
Alliteration
repetition of consonant sounds within close proximity, usually in consecutive words within the same sentence or line.
Anthropomorphism
Where animals or inanimate objects are portrayed in a story as people, such as by walking, talking, or being given arms, legs and/or facial features.
Blank Verse
Non-rhyming poetry, usually written in iambic pentameter.
Creative License
Exaggeration or alteration of objective facts or reality for the purpose of enhancing meaning in a fictional context.
Dialogue
Where characters speak to one another; may often be used to substitute for exposition.
Dramatic Irony
Where the audience or reader is aware of something important, of which the characters in the story are not aware.
Exposition
Where an author interrupts a story in order to explain something, usually to provide important background information.
Figurative Language
Any use of language where the intended meaning differs from the actual literal meaning of the words themselves. There are many techniques which can rightly be called figurative language, including metaphor, simile, hyperbole, personification, onomatopoeia, verbal irony, and oxymoron.
Foreshadowing
Where future events in a story, or perhaps the outcome, are suggested by the author before they happen. Foreshadowing can take many forms and be accomplished in many ways, with varying degrees of subtlety. However, if the outcome is deliberately and explicitly revealed early in a story (such as by the use of a narrator or flashback structure), such information does not constitute foreshadowing.
Hyperbole
description which exaggerates.
Iambic Pentameter
Poetry written with each line containing ten syllables, in five repetitions of a two-syllable pattern wherein the pronunciation emphasis is on the second syllable.
Imagery
Language which describes something in detail, using words to substitute for and create sensory stimulation, including visual imagery and sound imagery. Also refers to specific and recurring types of images, such as food imagery and nature imagery.
Irony
Where an event occurs which is unexpected, and which is in absurd or mocking opposition to what is expected or appropriate.
Metaphor
direct relationship where one thing or idea substitutes for another.
Onomatopoeia
Where sounds are spelled out as words; or, when words describing sounds actually sound like the sounds they describe.
Oxymoron
contradiction in terms.
Paradox
Where a situation is created which cannot possibly exist, because different elements of it cancel each other out.
Parallelism
Use of similar or identical language, structures, events, or ideas in different parts of a text.
Personification
Where inanimate objects or abstract concepts are seemingly endowed with human self-awareness; where human thoughts, actions and perceptions are directly attributed to inanimate objects or abstract ideas.
Personification 2
Where an abstract concept, such as a particular human behavior or a force of nature, is represented as a person.
Repetition
Where a specific word, phrase, or structure is repeated several times, to emphasize a particular idea.
Simile
indirect relationship where one thing or idea is described as being similar to another.
Similes usually contain the words “like” or “as,” but not always.
Symbolism
use of specific objects or images to represent abstract ideas. This term is commonly misused, describing any and all representational relationships, which in fact are more often metaphorical than symbolic. A symbol must be something tangible or visible, while the idea it symbolizes must be something abstract or universal.
Verbal irony
Where the meaning is intended to be the exact opposite of what the words actually mean.
