Literary Terms Flashcards
Author’s purpose ,
The reasoning behind why the author wrote the piece.
-persuade, inform, explain, entertain
Rhetorical Devices
Use of language that is intended to have an effect its audience.
Examples: repetition and figurative language. Gettysburg: we cannot
Symbol
A person, a place, an object, or an activity that stands for something beyond itself.
In gettysburg: battlefield= grave
Theme
The central idea or underlying message that the writer wants the reader to understand.
The theme of gettysburg is reunification.
Inference
Logical assumption or conclusion that is based on observed facts and ones own knowledge and experience.
In night calls i can infer that the girls dad is an alcoholic because she says he smells like brandy.
Parallelism
when the same patterns of words or structures are used to show that two or more ideas have the same level of importance.
Gettysburg several sentences in a row start with “we cannot”
Repetition
a literary technique in which a sound, word, phrase or line is repeated for emphasis.
The gettysburg speech repeats “nation” several times.
Text structure
How an author arranges parts of a story.
Speech, short story, letter, etc
simile
comparing two things by using like or as.
cute as a kitten
supporting textual evidence
material that serves to prove a claim.
specific page/line #s from the text
Metaphor
comparing two things by stating one is another.
her tears were a river
Claim/point of view
The writers position on an issue or problem.
mood
The feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader.
foreshadowing
a writer use of hints for clues to suggest events that will occur later in the story.
extended metaphor
a figure of speech that compares two essentially unlike things at same length in several ways.
