Literary Terms Flashcards
Alliteration
The repetition of consonant or vowel sounds in words close together to give a general sound impression
Example: The fair Breeze BlEW, the white Foam FlEW, the Furrow Followed Free.
Allusion
A brief, undeveloped, meaningful reference to a presumably familiar place, event, or figure from history, literature, mythology, or religion. An allusion can be enrich a poem by making the reader, at the mention of the allusion, recall an entire story, place, event, etc. The reader is then expected to apply the allusion’s significant features to the subject being discussed.
Example: Some mute inglorious Shakespeare here nay rest
Analogy
A comparison of two things, alike in certain aspects, to explain something unfamiliar by comparing it to something familiar. A simile is an expressed analogy while a metaphor is an implied analogy. We usually use this term when the metaphor or simile is extended throughout a piece of writing.
Apostrophie
A figure of speech in which someone who is not there, some abstract quality, or a non-existent personage is directly addressed as though present. Examples of this can include an address to a lover who is not there; to one dead as if alive; or to an inanimate object, like the sun, as if a living person.
Example: Age, thou art sham’d/ Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
Connotation
The ideas, attitudes or emotions associated with a word in the mind of the speaker or listener, writer or reader. These associations extend the meaning of the word beyond its dictionary meaning.
Colloquialism
An expression used in informal conversation but not accepted in formal speech or writing. It may differ from formal language in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, syntax, imagery or connotation. Slang is a colloquial expression.
Diction
The choice of particular words.
Syntax
How the words are arranged.(Sentence structure)
Euphemism
A device in which indirectness replaces of statement, usually in an effort to avoid offensiveness
Example: PASSED AWAY is substituted for died
Hyperbole
A figure of speech which makes conscious use of exaggeration overstatement for emphasis to make a point.
Example: Forty thousand brothers/Could not with all their quantity of love/Make up mu sum
Imagery
An appeal to the reader’s sense, through descriptive language. which creates a picture in the reader’s mind. Images can be literal(when the description is to be taken for its detonative meaning) or figurative(consisting of such devices as a metaphor, simile, personification, etc).
Irony
An expression in which the intended meaning is hidden and what is said is usually the opposite of what is meant. The perception of a clash between appearance and reality, between seems and is. There are three main types of irony:
1) Verbal: The difference between what was said and what was intended
2) Dramatic: The difference between what the audience knows and what a character believes to be true
3) Situational: The difference between expectation and fulfilment or what is and what would seem appropriate
Meiosis
A figure of speech that makes a conscious use of understatement to make a point.
Example: A minor altercation has broken out
Metaphor
A common figure of speech in which an implied comparison is made between two seeming unlike objects that DOES NOT use LIKE or AS. Treating something as if it were something else.
Example: His lightning speed helped him win the race
Metonymy
The substitution of the name of an object closely associated with a word for the word itself
Example: “the crown” stands for the king
Onomatopeia
The use of words whose sound imitates, suggests, and reinforces its meaning.
Examples: Buzz, crack, pop, moan, etc
Oxymoron
This is a type of paradox in which an adjective implying a contradiction or absurdity may be well founded or true.
Example: I must me cruel to be kind
Personification
A figure of speech attributing human characteristics to animals, inanimate objects, or abstract ideas.
Examples: Mother nature, death’s icy fingers reach out to me, the noise left the silence terrified
Satire
A work or manner that blends a censorious attitude with humour and wit for improving human institutions or humanity. Satirists attempt through laughter not so much to tear down as to inspire a remodelling.
Simile
A figure of speech in which a direct comparison is made between two seemingly unlike objects the DOES use LIKE or AS
Examples: She swims LIKE a fish~He is AS tall as a giraffe
Synecdoche
This is a device in which part of something is used to signify the whole
Example: Nice threads (meaning Cloths)
