Subtest I - Literary Devices Flashcards
Anachronism
A detail of a literary work that is not appropriate for its time setting. For example, having a woman in Victorian England make a call on a cell phone would be an anachronism.
Analogy
When a writer emphasizes the ways two apparently unlike things are actually similar.
Antithesis
A figure of speech that balances an idea with a contrasting one or its opposite. From Robert Frost: “Some say the world will end in fire,/Some say in ice.”
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds in a sentence or line of poetry.
Connotation
The use of precise words to give a positive or negative slant to a statement or passage. For example the word fragrance has a positive connotation; stench has a negative one. Both words mean “smell”
Denotation
The literal meaning of a word, as found in a dictionary, (Think definition)
Diction
The choice of words and style of language used through which the writer creates the tone of a work.
Enjambment
The continuation of a clause or sentence from one line of poetry to the next. Poets may use enjambment to subvert the reader’s expectations about what the lines are saying. Enjambment can also create a faster pace or a change of rhythm.
Epigraph
A quotation from another source that appears at the beginning of a literary work and suggests its theme.
Heroic couplets
A form of English poetry with pairs of rhyming lines in iambic pentameter (five stresses to a line).
Verbal irony
Saying one thing and meaning something else.
Situational irony
When a situation is in reality much different than the character or characters think.
Dramatic irony
When the audience is aware of something that the characters onstage (or in a story) do not know.
Malapropism
A word mistaken for another word with a similar sound.
Meter
A way of measuring the rhythm in formal verse. Meter is shown by dividing a line of verse into feet, or units of two or three syllables.
