S List Literary Devices Flashcards
bitter or cutting speech, intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed
sarcasm
a literary work that uses irony to criticize human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies, having the purpose of bringing about reform or keeping others from falling into similar folly
satire
the process of measuring verse, of marking accented and unaccented syllables, dividing lines into feet, identifying the metrical pattern, and noting significant variations from that pattern
scanison
a type of comedy whose main purpose is to expose and ridicule human folly, vanity, or hypocrisy
scornful comedy
a supporting character who, while not as prominent or central as a main character, is still important to the events of the story
secondary character
unmerited or contrived tender feeling; that quality in a story that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplication or falsification of reality
sentimentality
poetry aimed at stimulating the emotions rather than at communication experience honestly and freshly
sentimental poetry
a 6-line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem, the last six lines of an Italian sonnet
sestet
a poem of 39 lines written in iambic pentameter; its six-line stanzas repeat an intricate and prescribed order the final word in each of the 1st 6 lines; after the 6th stanza, there is a 3-line envoi, which uses the six repeating words, two words, two per line
sestina
the time and place of a literary work that establish its context
setting
a figure of speech used to explain or clarify an idea by comparing it explicitly to something else, using the words like, as, or as though to do so
simile
a pointed discrepancy between what seems fitting or expected in a story and what actually happens
situational irony
the manners, mores, customs, rituals, and codes of conduct in a work; an author may suggest approval or disapproval of any of these through a description of place
social setting
a speech in a play that is meant to be heard by the audience but not by the other characters on the stage; if there are no other characters present, this represents the character thinking aloud
soliloquy
does not concern itself w/ logical comprehension
surrealism
a 14-line poem in iambic pentameter; forms include English (Shakespearean), Italian (Petrarchan), and Spenserian
sonnet
the musical quality of poetry, as created through techniques such as rhyme, enjambment, caesura, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, rhythm, and cadence
sound
in drama, the character who is currently delivering lines; in poetry, the person who is expressing a point of view in the poem
speaker
a metrical foot consisting of two syllables equally accented (true blue, knick-knock)
spondee
a meter in poetry in which the number of stressed syllables in each line is the same, while the number of unstressed syllables can vary, meaning that the types of feet employed in each line can vary; developed out of an attempt to mirror natural speech patterns in poetry
sprung rhythm
a playwright’s descriptive or interpretive comments that provide readers and actors with information about the dialogue, setting, and action of the play
stage direction
the spectacle a play presents in performance, including the position of actors on the stage, the scenic background, the props and costumes, and the lighting and sound effects
staging
a division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form-either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme and meter, or with variations from one to another
stanza
the form taken by a poem when it is written in a series of units having the same number of lines and usually other characteristics in common, such as metrical pattern or rhyme scheme
stanzaic form
a character who is the same sort of person at the end of a story as at the beginning
static character
a type of flat character based on a stereotype; one who falls into an immediately recognizable category or type and this resists unique characterization
stock character
a technique in which prose follows the logic and flow of a character’s thought processes–associations, tangents, seemingly strange transitions–rather than a more ordered narrative
stream of consciousness
the organization of a work
structure
the way in which an author chooses words and arranges them in sentences or lines of dialogue or verse and develops ideas and actions with description, imagery, and other literary techniques; produced by an author’s choices in diction, syntax, imagery, figurative language, and other literary elements
style
what a story or play is about; not to be confused with plot and theme
subject
a subsidiary or subordinate or parallel plot in a play or story that coexists with the main plot
subplot
in metrical verse, the replacement of the expected metrical foot by a different one
substitution
line of reasoning that derives a statement from two terms that share a related item
syllogism
verse measured by the number of syllables rather than the number of feet per line
syllabic verse
a literary device that uses tension to make the plot more exciting; the effect created by artful delays and selective dissemination of info
suspense
a setting, object, or event in a story that carries more than literal meaning and therefore represents something significant to understanding the meaning of a work of literature
symbol
a figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole
synedoche
the grammatical order of words in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue; organization of words, phrases, and clauses in sentences of prose, verse, and dialogue
syntax
