Rhetorical Devices/Literary Terms
wit
intellectually amusing language "I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is a delicate exotic fruit, touch it and the bloom is gone." ( Oscar Wilde, 'The Importance of Being Earnest")
ellipsis
the deliberate omission of a word or of words which are readily implied by the context "The streets were deserted, the doors bolted." (Nikos Kazantzakis, Report to Greco, 1965)
asyndeton
the deliberate omission of conjunctions between a series of related clauses to produce a hurried rhythm or assertive town "He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, a maniac." (Jack Kerouac, On the Road, 1957)
polysyndeton
the deliberate use of many conjunctions to slow down the rhythm of the sentence "[I]t is respectable to have no illusions--and safe--and profitable--and dull." (Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, 1900)
litotes
the deliberate use of understatement "Now we have a refuge to go to. A refuge that the Cylons know nothing about! It won't be an easy journey." (Battlestar Galactica, 2003)
simile
the explicit comparison between two things using like or as "When he lifted me up in his arms I felt I had left all my troubles on the floor beneath me like gigantic concrete shoes." (Anne Tyler, Earthly Possessions. Random House, 1977)
parenthesis
the insertion of some verbal unit in a position that interrupts the normal syntactical flow of the sentence Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please. (Facts are stubborn, but statistics are more pliable.)" (Mark Twain)
oxymoron
the joking of two terms which are ordinarily contradictory "A yawn may be defined as a silent yell." (G.K. Chesterton, George Bernard Shaw, 1909)
understatement
the presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is. "A soiled baby, with a neglected nose, cannot be conscientiously regarded as a thing of beauty." (Mark Twain)
chiasmus
the reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clause without repeating words "Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." (Samuel Johnson)
style
A basic and distinctive mode of expression. "A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof, And made the gables laugh, The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; And signed the fete away." (Emily Dickinson, "Summer Shower")
aphorism
A brief, cleverly worded statement that makes a wise observation about life. "If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got." (attributed to Jackie "Moms" Mabley)
loose sentence
A complex sentence in which the main clause comes first and the subordinate clause follows "We observe today not a victory of party but a celebration of freedom, symbolizing an end as well as a beginning, signifying renewal as well as change.'" (John F. Kennedy, "1961 Inaugural Address")
Inference
A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning "From a drop of water a logician could infer the possibility of an Atlantic or a Niagara without having seen or heard of one or the other." (Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet, 1887)
symbolism
A device in literature where an object represents an idea. "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts," (Shakespeare, "As You Like It")
syllogism
A form of deductive reasoning consisting of a major premise, a minor premise, and a conclusion. "Dr. House: Words have set meanings for a reason. If you see an animal like Bill and you try to play fetch, Bill's going to eat you, because Bill's a bear. Little Girl: Bill has fur, four legs, and a collar. He's a dog. Dr. House: You see, that's what's called a faulty syllogism; just because you call Bill a dog doesn't mean that he is . . . a dog." ("Merry Little Christmas, House, M.D.)
clause
A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb - "We cannot walk alone." (Martin Luther King, Jr., "I Have a Dream")
satire
A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies. "If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it." (Stephen Colbert)
narrative
A poem that tells a story "The barber was cutting our hair, and our eyes were closed--as they are so likely to be. . . . Deep in a world of our own, he heard, from far away, a voice saying goodbye. It was a customer of the shop, leaving. 'Goodbye,' he said to the barbers. 'Goodbye,' echoed the barbers. And without ever returning to consciousness, or opening our eyes, or thinking, we joined in. 'Goodbye,' we said, before we could catch ourself. Then, all at once, the sadness of the occasion struck us, the awful dolor of bidding farewell to someone we had never seen. We have since wondered what he looked like, and whether it was really goodbye." (E.B. White, "Sadness of Parting." The New Yorker, May 4, 1935)
transition
A word or phrase that links one idea to the next and carries the reader from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph "Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe that their husband is about to return." (Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking, 2006)
parody
A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. Original Poem "'You are old, Father William,' the young man cried; 'The few locks which are left you are grey; You are hale, Father William--a hearty old man: Now tell me the reason, I pray.' "'In the days of my youth,' Father William replied, 'I remember'd that youth would fly fast, And Abus'd not my health and my vigour at first, That I never might need them at last.' . . ." (Robert Southey, "The Old Man's Comforts and How He Gained Them," 1799) Lewis Carroll's Parody "'You are old, Father William,' the young man said, 'And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- Do you think, at your age, it is right?' "'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.' . . ." (Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865)
tone
A writer's attitude toward his or her subject matter revealed through diction, figurative language, and organization on the sentence and global levels. "Catholics are always trying to find out if you're Catholic." (J.D. Salinger,) Catcher In The Rye") (Bitter- sarcastic tone)
rhetoric
Effective writing or speaking "Advise him of his happy state— Happiness in his power left free to will, Left to his own free will, his will though free Yet mutable" (John Milton, "Paradise Lost")
conceit
An extended metaphor "[I]n the case of the conceit . . . the resemblance is so unessential, so obscure, so tenuous, or so overshadowed by more conspicuous dissimilarities, that the reader cannot conceive of any person's ever having seen it as the complete identity of two perceptions. The experience seems quite impossible. The metaphor does not ring true. . . . It is the more or less conscious realization of this fact which gives to the conceit its peculiar flavor of artificiality, and makes it essentially unpleasing to the sensitive reader." (Gertrude Buck, The Metaphor: A Study in the Psychology of Rhetoric. Inland Press, 1899) A Questionable Conceit
prose
Any writing that is not poetry "The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep." (Robert Frost, "Stopping By the Woods on a Snowy Evening")
pathos
Appeal to emotion "He had meant the best in the world, and been treated like a dog—like a very dog. She would be sorry someday—maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only die TEMPORARILY!" (Mart Twain, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer")
logos
Appeal to logic "All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal" (Aristotle, "The Art of Rhetoric")
theme
Central idea of a work of literature *Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle~ Evil Is always punished*
pedantic
Excessively concerned with book learning and formal rules *Bill Prady and Chuck Lorre's sitcom contains a pedantic character, Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper, who is a theoretical physicist. Dr. Sheldon Cooper is idiosyncratic, obsessed, have extreme narcissism and extensive general knowledge. Other characteristics in his personality include inflated ego, prodigy, social ineptitude and his inability to express emotions to people, which show him as a typical pedantic person (The Big Bang Theory)*
subordinate clause
Created by a subordinating conjunction, a clause that modifies an independent clause. "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." (Mark Twain)
ethos
Credibility "I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV." (1960s TV commercial for Excedrin)
Imagery
Description that appeals to the senses (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) "When the others went swimming my son said he was going in, too. He pulled his dripping trunks from the line where they had hung all through the shower and wrung them out. Languidly, and with no thought of going in, I watched him, his hard little body, skinny and bare, saw him wince slightly as he pulled up around his vitals the small, soggy, icy garment. As he buckled the swollen belt, suddenly my groin felt the chill of death. (E.B. White, "Once More to the Lake," 1941)
mood
Feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the reader "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country." (President John F. Kennedy)
thesis
Focus statement of an essay; premise statement upon which the point of view or discussion in the essay is based. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." (Jane Austen, "Pride and Prejudice")
point of view
The perspective from which a story is told "I have of late,—but wherefore I know not,—lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory." (Shakespeare, Hamlet) (First Person POV)
semantics
Meaning of words and sentences "Juliet: O, be some other name! What's in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd..." (Shakespeare, "Romeo and Juliet")
climax
Most exciting moment of the story; turning point "Out of its vivid disorder comes order; from its rank smell rises the good aroma of courage and daring; out of its preliminary shabbiness comes the final splendor. And buried in the familiar boasts of its advance agents lies the modesty of most of its people." (E. B. White, "The Ring of Time")
repitition
Repeating a word, phrase, or idea for emphasis or rhythmic effect "A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And no one can talk to a horse of course That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed." (Theme song of 1960s TV program Mr. Ed)
syntax
Sentence structure "That night I sat on Tyan-yu's bed and waited for him to touch me. But he didn't. I was relieved." (Amy Tan, "The Joy Luck Club")
atmosphere
The emotional tone or background that surrounds a scene "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore - While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door - "Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door - Only this and nothing more." (Edgar Allen Poe, "The Raven")
subject complement
The name of a grammatical unit that is comprised of predicate nominatives and predicate adjectives. "Ruth and Thelma are my best friends, and their roomies are Tammy Hinsen and Rebecca Bogner." (Dean Koontz, Lightning. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1988)
antecedent
The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. "When giving treats to friends or children, give them what they like, emphatically not what is good for them." (G.K. Chesterton)
allusion
a brief reference to a person, place, event or passage in a work of literature or the Bible assumed to be sufficiently well known to be recognized by the reader "The two knitting women increase his anxiety by gazing at him and all the other sailors with knowing unconcern. Their eerie looks suggest that they know what will happen (the men dying), yet don't care" (Conrad, "heart of Darkness")
analogy
a comparison between two things in which the more complex is explained in terms of the more simple "I am to dancing what Roseanne is to singing and Donald Duck to motivational speeches. I am as graceful as a refrigerator falling down a flight of stairs." (Leonard Pitts, "Curse of Rhythm Impairment." Miami Herald, Sep. 28, 2009)
synechdoche
a figure of speech in which a part stands for a whole "And let us mind, faint heart n'er wan A lady fair." (Robert Burns, "To Dr. Blalock")
extended metaphor
a metaphor which is drawn-out beyond the usual word or phrase to extend throughout a stanza, an entire poem, through or across paragraphs, usually by using multiple comparisons between the unlike objects or ideas "I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms. Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That's the kind of school I went to for real, okay?" (Will Ferrell, Commencement Address at Harvard University, 2003)
homily
a sermon or serious talk, speech or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice "There is a fable that tells of three apprentice devils who were coming to earth to finish their apprenticeship. They were talking with Satan, the chief of the devils, about their plans to tempt and to ruin humanity. The first said, "I will tell them there is no God." But Satan said, "That will not delude many, for they know there is a God... The most dangerous of all delusions is that there is plenty of time." (Deacon Winton DeRosia's homily from Bible—24:42-51: Matthew)
allegory
a story in which the people, places, and things represent general concepts or moral qualities "There are obvious layers of allegory [in the movie Avatar]. The Pandora woods is a lot like the Amazon rainforest (the movie stops in its tracks for a heavy ecological speech or two), and the attempt to get the Na'vi to 'cooperate' carries overtones of the U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan." (Owen Gleiberman, review of Avatar. Entertainment Weekly, Dec. 30, 2009)
cariacture
a visual or verbal representation in which characteristics or traits are distorted for emphasis "Over the course of the last several weeks, commentators have taken to portraying Mr. Obama as clinical and insufficiently emotive, which is really just another way of saying the president is not really knowable. It is a caricature his opponents can exploit in part because a lot of voters remain murky on his cultural identity." (Matt Bai, "Ethnic Distinctions, No Longer So Distinctive." The New York Times, June 29, 2010)
Invective
abusive language "'Call' is valid. But 'centre'? These things, these instruments of torture, these cheese-paring, moronic bastard children of the sclerotic brains of purse-lipped accountants and the madness of perpetually pre-adolescent computer programmers, are not central to anything except their companies' urge to save money." (Michael Bywater, Lost Worlds. Granta Books, 2004)
paradox
an apparently contradictory statement that, nevertheless, contains a measure of the truth "War is peace." "Freedom is slavery." "Ignorance is strength." (George Orwell, 1984)
anastrophe
an inversion of the natural or usual word order to emphasize a point or draw attention "Powerful, you have become; the dark side I sense in you." (Yoda, "Star Wars")
rhetorical question
asking a question, not for the purpose of eliciting an answer, but for the purpose of asserting or denying something obliquely "Marriage is a wonderful institution, but who would want to live in an institution?" (H. L. Mencken)
generic conventions
describes traditions for each genre *Horror Genre~blood, villain, weapons, bad weather, scary settings, etc.*
rhetorical modes
exposition, description, narration, argumentation *Exposition: "Once upon a time, there were three bears. There was a Daddy Bear, who was very big, a Mama Bear, who was middle-sized, and a Baby Bear, who was very small. They all lived together in a little cottage in the middle of the woods. Their favorite breakfast was porridge. One morning, after they made their porridge, Daddy Bear said, 'Let's go for walk in the woods until it cools.' Mama Bear and Baby Bear liked the idea, so off they went. While they were away, a little girl named Goldilocks came walking through the forest and smelled the porridge..." (The Three Little Bears)
antithesis
juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." (Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities")
personification
presenting or describing concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by giving them human qualities "Oreo: Milk's favorite cookie." (slogan on a package of Oreo cookies)
Epanalepsis
repetition at the end of a clause of the word that occurred at the beginning of the clause "Next time there won't be a next time." (Phil Leotardo in The Sopranos)
antanaclasis
repetition of a word in two different senses "And there's bars on the corners and bars on the heart." (Tim McGraw, "Where The Green Grass Grows")
alliteration
repetition of consonants in two or more adjacent words to provide emphasis "Good men are gruff and grumpy, cranky, crabbed, and cross." (Clement Freud)
assonance
repetition of similar vowel sounds with different consonants "If I bleat when I speak it's because I just got . . . fleeced." (Al Swearengen in Deadwood, 2004)
anadiplosis
repetition of the last word of one clause at the beginning of the following clause "All service ranks the same with God, With God, whose puppets, best and worst, Are we." (Robert Browning, Pippa Passes)
anaphora
repetition of the same word or groups of words at the beginnings of successive clauses to creat a strong emotional effect or a change in rhythm "I needed a drink, I needed a lot of life insurance, I needed a vacation, I needed a home in the country. What I had was a coat, a hat and a gun." (Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940)
epistrophe
repetition of the same word or groups of words at the ends of successive clauses "A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and shattered shields, when the age of men comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight!" (Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, 2003)
polyptoton
repetition of words derived from the same root a conservative is a liberal who has been mugged, a liberal is a conservative who has been indicted." (Jeffrey Rosen, The New Yorker)
antimetabole
repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order "We didn't land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us." (Malcolm X)
isocolon
scheme of parallel structure that occurs when the parallel elements are similar not only in grammatical structure but also in length "What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?" (William Blake, "The Tyger")
parallelism
similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." (Charles Dickens, "A Tale of Two Cities")
metonymy
the substitution of some attributive or suggestive word for what is actually meant "In a corner, a cluster of lab coats made lunch plans." (Karen Green, Bough Down. Siglio, 2013)
irony
the use of a word in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite to expectation "Gentlemen, you can't fight in here! This is the War Room." (Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley in Dr. Strangelove, 1964)
euphemism
the use of a word or phrase that is less direct, but that is also less distasteful or less offensive than another "Wardrobe malfunction" (Justin Timberlake's description of his tearing of Janet Jackson's costume during a half-time performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII)
hyperbole
the use of exaggeration terms for the prupose of emphasis or heightened effect "I was helpless. I did not know what in the world to do. I was quaking from head to foot, and could have hung my hat on my eyes, they stuck out so far." (Mark Twain, "Old Times on the Mississippi")
sarcasm
the use of irony to mock or convey contempt "Oh, a sarcasm detector. That's a really useful invention!" (Comic Book Guy, The Simpsons)
onomatopoeia
the use of words whose sounds echoes the sense "Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is." (slogan of Alka Seltzer, U.S.)
metaphor
to implied comparison between two things of unlike nature "Life is a journey, travel it well." (United Airlines)
diction
word choice as an element of style "One of our defects as a nation is a tendency to use what have been called 'weasel words.' When a weasel sucks eggs the meat is sucked out of the egg. If you use a 'weasel word' after another, there is nothing left of the other." (Theodore Roosevelt, 1916)
colloquialism
words and phrases used in everyday speech but avoided in formal writing "Friends of the chancellor revealed that he had described Labour MPs as disappointing 'numpties,' a colloquialism meaning idiots." (Neil Rafferty, "Queen Opens a Pricey Piece of Scots History." The Sunday Times, Oct. 10, 2004)