poetic devices and figures speech

Slant rhyme

(also known as half rhyme or imperfect rhyme) occurs when the last stressed vowel sounds are different but the following sounds are identical, as in fish/crash

Oxymoron

A descriptive phrase that combines two contradictory terms to create a totally fresh image or idea. Example: Jumbo shrimp, working vacation, planned spontaneity.

Metaphor

A direct comparison of two unlike things without the use of "like" or "as." A ____________ can create an effective word picture for the reader. An especially long _____________ is called an "extended" ______________. Example: In Lord of the Flies, the boys in Jack's tribe are called savages until that eventually becomes their label.

Personification

A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or animal is given human qualities or characteristics. Example: "...my thoughts hum in my brain..." from All Quiet on the Western Front (Remarque 210).

Apostrophe

A form of direct address spoken by a character to an inanimate object or a person who does not appear. Example: "Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him." From Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Malapropism

A ludicrous misuse of words. Example: Mark Twain's characters Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn were masters of the _____________. They jumbled words and meanings so that their speeches had comic effects.

Synecdoche

A metaphor that presents a part of a person or item as used for the whole or the whole as used for a part. Example: In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald refers to groups or classes of wealthy people as East Egg and West Egg, indicating where their communities of homes were located.

Mixed Metaphor

A pair or more of ineffective, descriptive comparisons that confuse the reader with their incompatibility and contradictory images. Example: Those snakes told us of our plans and stabbed us in the back. (student example)

Pun

A play on words, often humorous, that builds on words which sound similar, yet have unrelated meanings. Example: "I am a mender of bad soles," declares the cobbler in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Rhetorical Question

A question posed to provoke thought rather than to generate an answer. This type of question may have an implied or obvious answer that the audience already knows. Example: "To be or not to be" Hamlet in Shakespeare's is a device to trigger deeper thought and is not a question to be answered.

Aphorism

A short, wise saying that portrays a general truth or idea held by many people. Example: "One man's meat is another man's poison." Another example, from Nietzsche; "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." 16 Guide to Literary Terms

Paradox

A statement that appears to be absurd but which actually may bear truth. In literature, a _______ may also refer to a situation that seems to be contradictory—or both true and false. Example: In The Pirates of Penzance, the audience learns the _____________ of Frederic's birthday when told that a person's fifth birthday is the day he turns twenty; this _________ is true because of leap-year birthdays.

Euphemism

A word or phrase that, as a substitution, "softens the blow" of the direct meaning. Example: A friend might say that your neighbor has "passed away," rather than telling you outright that the neighbor is dead.

Trope

A word picture or figure of speech. Example: Similes, metaphors, metonymy, irony, synecdoche, personification, and hyperbole are all considered tropes. Stylistic Techniques Allusion An author's reference to a person, place, event, or piece of literature which he expects his audience to recognize or understand. Example: In John Steinbeck's

Lampoon

A written piece ridiculing or satirizing an individual group, institution, or set of ideas. Example: Mad Magazine is an extended ________ that satirizes its featured material.

Colloquialism

An expression that people may use in casual conversations but which is too informal or full of slang for proper English. Example: "But any kid with brains knows that there've been some changes in science since the days of old Mazer Rackham and the Victorious Fleet" (82). From Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.

Conceit

An extended metaphor or controlling image in a piece of literature. Often the ________ employs a unique image to create a relationship within the metaphor. Example: Many sonnets and love poems compare one's love to a blossoming flower as the image or conceit.

Anachronism

An item or person that is "out of place" in relation to a time period.

Hyperbole

An overstatement or exaggeration that can be used for dramatic effect or to help paint a word picture. Example: "I'm dying of hunger."

Cliché

An overused and sometimes trite word or expression. Example: When George Orwell coined the term "Big Brother" in 1984, it was a new phase; however, people now often use it to mean they are being watched.

Meiosis

An understatement used for ironic effect. Example: In Shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio declares his mortal wounds merely "a scratch."

identical rhyme

Blue/blew and rain/reign are examples of ____________ (or rime riche)

Gallows/Black Humor

Grotesque or morbid humor which is used to express the absurdity, cruelty, and insensitivity of the modern world. Ordinary characters or situations are exaggerated far beyond the limits of normal satire or irony. __________ uses devices often associated with tragedy and is sometimes equated with tragic farce. Example: Slattery, talking to Ender in Card's Ender's Game: "I'm only fair-minded before and after battles" (207).

Invective

Harsh or abusive language. Example: "I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." From Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels.

Simile

Indirect comparison between two unlike objects using the words "like" or "as". The comparison helps create an effective word picture. Example: In John Hersey's Hiroshima, Dr. Fujii is "squeezed...like a morsel between two huge chopsticks" (11).

Metonymy

It is a figure of speech that replaces the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated. We can come across examples of _______both from literature and in everyday life. ________is often confused with another figure of speech called synecdoche. They resemble each other but are not the same. Synecdoche refers to a thing by the name of one of its parts. For example, calling a car "a wheel" is a synecdoche. A part of a car i.e. "a wheel" stands for the whole car. In a _______, on the other hand, the word we use to describe another thing is closely linked to that particular thing, but is not a part of it. For example, "Crown" which means power or authority is a ______________.

Situational Irony

The difference between what is expected to happen and what actually happens.

Connotation

The implied and understood meaning of a phrase or expression which extends beyond the explicit dictionary definition. Example: An emotionally positive response is often attached to the adjective; but "scrawny" causes most people to think of an extremely skinny, unattractive person.

Denotation

The literal or dictionary meaning of a word, phrase, or clause. Example: A __________( of "writing" is the representation of ideas through a uniform, symbolic system of letters that form words and sentences. Epithet See listing in Section I, p. 4.

Anaphora

The repetition of a word or phrase at the very beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or sentences. Example: Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech, "I Have a Dream" uses that refrain to begin several lines, emphasizing the hope he was trying to instill.

Archaism

The use of an older or obsolete word or phrase that is no longer recognized or popular in the culture. Example: "You bring me, tomorrow early, that fi le and them vittles" (food). From Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Idiom

The use of an older or obsolete word or phrase that is no longer recognized or popular in the culture. Example: "You bring me, tomorrow early, that fi le and them vittles" (food). From Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

Sarcasm

The use of invectives or harsh terms to indicate weakness or fault. ___________ can be cutting and cynical and may be displayed by an action as well as by words. Example: George Orwell uses sarcasm to chastise government in both Animal Farm and 1984.

Parallelism

The use of symmetrical sentence structure or phrasing to create either an effect or a more telling comparison. Example: Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, in which he writes: "The world will little note or long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."

Verbal Irony

The use of words to mean something different than what they appear to mean.

Onomatopoeia

The use of words whose sounds seem to imitate the sound of the object or action being named. Example: The word "hiss" itself sounds like a snake moving its tongue. The word "splash" reverberates almost like the sound of something hitting water.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience is more aware of what is happening than a character.

oxymoron

a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other .bittersweet

irony

a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony) or what is expected in a particular circumstance or behavior (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a situation known to the audience or other characters (dramatic). "Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea"

apostrophe

a direct address of an inanimate object, abstract qualities, or a person not living or present. Example- "Beware, O Asparagus, you've stalked my last meal."

dactylic (dactyl)

a metrical foot containing three syllables—the first is stressed, while the last two are unstressed

anapestic (anapest)

a metrical foot containing three syllables—the first two are unstressed, while the last is stressed

trochaic (trochee)

a metrical foot containing two syllables—the first is stressed, while the second is unstressed

iambic (iamb)

a metrical foot containing two syllables—the first is unstressed, while the second is stressed

spondee

a nontraditional metrical foot in which two consecutive syllables are stressed

couplet

a pair of lines, usually rhymed

heroic couplet

a pair of rhymed lines in iambic pentameter (tradition of the heroic epic form)

synecdoche

a part substituted for the whole. "All hands on deck" instead of "All sailors on deck."

pause (caesura)

a pause for a beat in the rhythm of the verse (often indicated by a line break or a mark of punctuation)

allusion

a reference to a person, event, or work outside the poem or literary piece. "Shining, it was Adam and maiden"

paradox

a situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering "In order to preserve peace, we must prepare for war."

iambic pentameter

a traditional form of rising meter consisting of lines containing five iambic feet (and, thus, ten syllables)

metonymy

a word or phrase that replaces the name of an object or concept for another to which it is related "We have always remained loyal to the crown" instead of "We have always remained loyal to the monarchy."

synesthesia

an attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of another. the sound of her voice was sweet

symbol

an object or action that stands for something beyond itself white = innocence, purity, hope

figurative meaning

associative or connotative meaning; representational

metaphor

comparison between essentially unlike things, or the application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable - "[Love] is an ever fixed mark, / that looks on tempests and is never shaken."

simile

comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as "like," "as," or "as though". "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"

rhyme

correspondence of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse

eye rhyme

cough/dough

hyperbole

exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement)-"I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

quatrain

four-line stanza or grouping of four lines of verse

stress

greater amount of force used to pronounce one syllable over another

literal meaning

limited to the simplest, ordinary, most obvious meaning

free verse

lines with no prescribed pattern or structure

meter

measured pattern of rhythmic accents in a line of verse

falling meter

meter containing metrical feet that move from stressed to unstressed syllables

rising meter

meter containing metrical feet that move from unstressed to stressed syllables

pun

play on words, or a humorous use of a single word or sound with two or more implied meanings; quibble. "They're called lessons . . . because they lessen from day to day."

open

poetic form free from regularity and consistency in elements such as rhyme, line length, and metrical form

closed

poetic form subject to a fixed structure and pattern

slant rhyme (off rhyme, half rhyme, imperfect rhyme)

rhyme formed with words with similar but not wholly identical sounds. barn / yard

denotation

the dictionary meaning of a word

personification

the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities. "Time let me play / and be golden in the mercy of his means"

connotation

the implied or suggested meaning connected with a word

elision

the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry. "Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame"

alliteration

the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words. ". . . like a wanderer white"

consanance

the repetition of similar consonant sounds "Tyger Tyger, burning bright"

assonance

the repetition of similar vowel sounds. "I rose and told him of my woe"

onomatopoeia

the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. "crack" or "whir"

stanza

unit of a poem often repeated in the same form throughout a poem; a unit of poetic lines ("verse paragraph")

blank verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter

imagery

word or sequence of words representing a sensory experience (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory). "bells knelling classes to a close" (auditory)