Literary Devices R-Z Flashcards
Define REALISM
- Literary Realism was a movement that went on mostly in the 19thC and talked about life plainly.
-Instead of romanticising things, these guys just told it like it was
Define REFRAIN
a refrain in poetry is a regularly recurring phrase or verse, especially at the END of each stanza or division of a poem
Define RHETORIC
- rhetoric is the art of argument; that is, persuading someone to see your POV
- Aristotle had lots to say about how to do just that, and many of these rhetorical principles from the classical period remain today
- When we try to PERSUADE people, we use rhetorical devices like rhetorical Qs, parallelism, and hyperbole
Define INTERNAL RHYME
- rhyme that occurs WITHIN a line of poetry
Define END RHYME
- rhyme that occurs only at the ENDS of lines
Define PERFECT RHYME
- a rhyme that rhymes perfectly, ex: cat and sat
Define SLANT RHYME
- rhymes that are CLOSE, but not quite there: dear and door OR soul and all
- also known as half rhyme, imperfect rhyme, or weak rhyme
Define EYE RHYMES
-look alike, but don’t sound alike: tough and bough, mint and pint
Define RHYME SCHEME
- are patterns of end rhymes in poems
- to talk about rhyme schemes, we use capital letters
Define RHYTHM
- it’s all about SOUND
- how does language create that beat? By creating (and then riffing off of) a pattern
- That pattern can be made up of any number of things- repeated phrases, a MIX of stressed and unstressed syllables, periodic pauses, and even RHYME
- EASIER to define it by what it is NOT
1) it is NOT METER:
~meter can often be used to create rhythm, but meter refers to a formal and specific pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables
2) it is NOT CADENCE
~ cadence too, is a part of rhythm, but it refers specifically to the moments the language SPEEDS up or SLOWS down
-Define RISING ACTION
- it’s the road to the climax
- it’s all the stuff that sets the stage for the bigger, more exciting moment in the book
Define SESTET
- is the LAST 6 lines of a sonnet, and you can’t have a Petrarchan sonnet without one
- last 8 lines: OCTAVE
Define SIBILANCE
- alliteration that employs ONLY the soft consonant sounds
-EX:
~s, sh, ch, th, x, z, f, c (soft c)
Define SOLILOQUY
- an important monologue given by a character in a play is ALONE on the stage
- because they are alone when they deliver these speeches, a character might reveal some v key thoughts, feelings and opinions to the audience during a soliloquy
Define SPONDEE
- a metrical foot consisting of 2 consecutive stressed syllables: DUM-DUM
Define SONNET
- Sonnets typically have:
~ 14 lines
~ a rhyme scheme
~ IP
~ a volta, somewhere around line 8/9, where the poem takes a new direction or changes its argument in some way
Define Petrarchan Sonnet
- divided into 2 sections:
1) an octave
2) followed by a sestet
The RHYME SCHEME for the octave is usually ABBAABBA
While the rhyme scheme for the sestet is a little more flexible- some go with CDECDE or CDCDCD
In a PS the volta comes at line 9, at the BEGINNING of the sestet
Typically the octave would present some sort of pickle that the sestet would SOLVE, or describe some sort of state of affairs that the sestet would then comment on
Define SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET
- Usually WS (and his successors) would arrange his sonnet into 3 QUATRAINS, followed by a final COUPLET
- Usually the volta would come around the BEGINNING of the 3rd quatrain
- rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
Define SPENSERIAN SONNET
- Like the WS Sonnet, these usually have 3 quatrains, followed by a final couplet
- UNLIKE the PS, there’s not necessarily any volta going down
- They are unique for using an INTERLOCKING rhyme scheme: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE
Define STRUCTURALISM
- according to the Structuralists:
1) ALL lit works abide by some larger structure
2) In order to read a lit work, you need to think it in terms of this more universal structure:
~ what is this structure? Anything really, as long as it’s something that can be applied to MULTIPLE TEXTS: i.e. genres, narrative patterns, archetypal characters, etc
3) Nothing is ever new- it’s just a combo of already-created things
4) Individual texts do NOT create meaning of their own
EX: Christopher Booker’s 7 Basic Plot Structures: argues that stories fall into 7 categories
EX: Joseph Campbell’s stages of the hero’s journey
HOWEVER, it doesn’t always work- Foucault, Derrida, Barthes: didn’t like what they saw in structuralism, and they became known as the post-Structuralists. They thought that Structuralists IGNORED the whole concept of a changing history or social influence
Define SYNECDOCHE
- is a form of metonymy, but instead of a “part for a part”, the writer substitutes “a part for a whole”
- i.e. they represent an object with ONLY a distinct part of the object: EX: “car” becomes “a nice set of wheels”
Define SYNESTHESIA
- where you mix the senses in order to create a more complex or meaningful description of something
EX: a loud shirt= loud is an adj that pertains to sound, and shirts do not make sounds.
Define SYNTAX
- it’s all about sentence structure- how words and phrases relate to each other
- can refer to the order of the words in a sentence
Define TENOR
- in a metaphor, the TENOR is the subject
i.e. the tenor is what’s getting reimagined by the other part of the metaphor (the vehicle) - EX: “Seals are total angels”
tenor: seals
vehicle: angels
-EX: “I devoured The Kite Runner”
tenor: “reading” (A word not used here)
vehicle: devoured