Poetic and Literary Devices Flashcards
Alliteration
Repeated consonants at the beginning of words placed next to one another
Examples:
Snakes slither slowly on the sidewalk.
Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers
Allusion
A brief reference to a person, place, event from history, literature, geography, the Bible, mythology, or any other area of knowledge
Examples:
“He’s a real Romeo with the ladies”
“Of Clytemnestra, for her lechery, Who caused her husband’s death by treachery” (Chaucer)
Assonance
The repetition of similar vowel sounds.
Example:
“Green as a dream and deep as death” (Rupert Brooke)
Diction
A writer’s or speaker’s choice of words and way of arranging the words in sentences.
Denotation: dictionary definition of a word
Example:
Dove - a stocky seed- or fruit-eating bird with a small head, short legs, and a cooing voice
Connotation: emotional, cultural, and psychological overtones of a word apart from its literal definition
Example:
Dove - a symbol of peace
Foreshadowing
A warning or hint as to what will come next in the text
Examples:
A black cat crosses a character’s path
Hyperbole
An exaggeration or overstatement of the truth
Examples:
I knocked on the door a million times.
He nearly died laughing.
Imagery
Language that evokes a response from one or more of the five senses
Example:
Sight – a full moon
Sound – the chirp of a cricket
Touch – fresh rain on the grass
Smell – clean smell of pine trees; sweetness of roses
Irony
Irony - the contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant
Verbal Irony - words literally state the opposite of the speaker’s true meaning (ex. sarcasm)
Situational Irony - events turn out the opposite of what was expected
Dramatic Irony - facts or events are unknown to a character but known to the reader, audience or other characters in work
Juxtaposition
a literary technique that places two unlike ideas/distinctly dissimilar things side by side to bring out their differences
Examples:
light & dark, good & evil
Metaphor
A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one is the other or does the action of the other
Examples:
I am a china shop and you are a bull.
He is an angel.
Mood
The emotions the reader feels from the poem or story.
Examples:
The mood of Macbeth is dark, murky and mysterious, creating a sense of fear and uncertainty.
Motif
A motif is a symbolic image or idea that appears frequently in a story.
Examples:
Sophocles uses the motif of the contrast between light and darkness in Oedipus Rex to symbolize…
Onomatopoeia
The use of words which imitate sound
Examples:
Bang, Buzz, Thud, Hiss, Woof, Quack
Oxymoron
The junction of words which, at first view, seem to be contradictory, but surprisingly these contradictions express a truth or dramatic effect.
Examples:
Big baby, Open secret, Deafening silence, Clearly confused
Romeo describes love using several oxymorons, such as “cold fire,” “feather of lead” and “sick health,” to suggest its contradictory nature (Shakespeare).
Personification
Giving inanimate objects or abstract concepts living and animate qualities
Examples:
The days crept by slowly.
The leaves waved hello to us.
Point-of-view
the perspective from which a story is told (first person, third person omniscient, or third person limited omniscient)
Repetition
Where a specific word, phrase, or structure is repeated several times to emphasize a particular idea.
Example:
The repetition of the words “What if…” at the beginning of each line reinforces the speaker’s confusion and fear.
Simile
A comparison between two things using “like” or “as”
Examples:
You’re as cuddly as a cactus, you’re as slimy as an eel, Mr. Gri—inch!”
Her voice was like nails on a chalkboard.
She sings like a nightingale.
Speaker
The “voice” of a poem; not to be confused with the poet him/herself (the poet may be writing from a perspective entirely different from his own, even with the voice of another gender, race or species, or even of a material object). Analogous to the narrator in prose fiction.
Symbol
An object or action that represents something else
Example:
A nation’s flag
Syntax
Syntax refers to the ways words and phrases are arranged to form sentences.
Tone
The author’s attitude towards his or her subject. A poem’s tone may be sincere, angry, ironic, sad, etc.
Example:
The poem has a bitter and sardonic tone, revealing the speaker’s anger and resentment
