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| The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning. |
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| The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words (as in “she sells sea shells”). The repetition can reinforce meaning, unify ideas, supply a musical sound, and/or echo the sense of the passage. |
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| A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumably commonly known, such as an event, book, myth, place, or work of art. |
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| The multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage. |
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| A similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them, often used to clarify something unfamiliar by relating it to something familiar. |
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| The intentional repetition of beginning words, phrasesclauses in order to create an artistic effect such as solidarity and determination. |
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| The word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun. |
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| The opposition or contrast of ideas; the direct opposite. Using opposite phrases in close conjunction. Examples might be, "I burn and I freeze," or "Her character is white as sunlight, black as midnight." |
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| A terse statement of known authorship which expresses a general truth or a moral principle. (If the authorship is unknown, the statement is generally considered to be a folk proverb.) |
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| A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. It is an address to someone or something that cannot answer. The effect may add familiarity or emotional intensity. |
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| The artistic elimination of conjunctions in a sentence to create a particular effect. |
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| The emotional nod created by the entirety of a literary work, established partly by the setting and partly by the author’s choice of objects that are described. |
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| (Germ. "formation novel"): The German term for a coming-of-age story. |
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| A verbal description, the purpose of which is to exaggerate or distort, for comic effect, a |
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| A rhetorical technique in which The author introduces words or concepts in a particular order, then later repeats those terms or similar ones in reversed or backwards order. It involves taking parallelism and deliberately turning it inside out. "By day the frolic, and the dance by night." |
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| A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb. |
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| The use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. Not generally acceptable for formal writing, can give a work a conversational, familiar tone, or include local or regional dialects. |
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| A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects. It displays intellectual cleverness as a result of the unusual comparison being made. |
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| The non-literal, associative meaning of a word; the implied, suggested meaning. Connotations may involve ideas, emotions, or attitudes. |
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| The strict, literal, dictionary definition of a word, devoid of any emotion, attitude, or color. (Example: the denotation of a knife would be a utensil used to cut; the connotation of a knife might be fear, violence, anger, foreboding, etc.) |
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| An event usually at the end of a work that serves as a divine and often unlikely intervention- the naval officer shows up to rescue the boys in Lord of the Flies |
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| Related to style, refers to the writer’s word choices, especially with regard to their correctness, clearness, or effectiveness. |
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| From the Greek, it literally means “teaching.” Tone that has the primary aim of teaching or instructing, especially the teaching of moral or ethical principles. |
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| Quite simply, a double. It can be a ghost or physical apparition, but it is usually a source of psychological anxiety for the person who sees it. |
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| Refers to the artful omission of a word implied by a previous clause. For instance, an author might write, "The American soldiers killed eight civilians, and the French eight." |
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| A line having no pause or end punctuation but having uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into the next line. |
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| The poet or rhetorician repeats the concluding phrase over and over for effects. This |
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| From the Greek for “good speech,” euphemisms are a more agreeable or less offensive substitute for a generally unpleasant word or concept. It may be used to adhere to standards of social or political correctness or to add humor or ironic understatement. |
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| A metaphor developed at great length, occurring frequently in or throughout a work. |
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| Rhyme emphasis os on the last two syllable- Ex. “fellow” and “mellow” |
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| Writing or speech that is not intended to carry literal meaning and is usually meant to be imaginative and vivid. |
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| The major category into which a literary work fits. The basic divisions of literature are prose, poetry, and drama. |
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| This term literally means “sermon,” but more informally, it can include any serious talk, speech, or lecture involving moral or spiritual advice. |
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| A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement. (The literal Greek meaning is “overshoot.”) Often has a comic effect; however, a serious effect is also possible. Often can produce irony. The opposite is understatement. |
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| The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. |
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| The work starts in the middle of the action- Macbeth, Hamlet, |
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| An emotionally violent, verbal denunciation or attack using strong, abusive language. |
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| The contrast between what is stated explicitly and what is really meant, or the difference between what appears to be and what is actually true. Often used to create poignancy or humor. |
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| A coarse or crude satire ridiculing the appearance or character of another person. |
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| In literature, refers to an object, animal, phrase, or other thing loosely associated with a character, a setting, or event. For instance, the color green is associated with Sir Bercilak in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; thus, the appearance of the Green Chapel and a green girdle should cause the reader to recall and connect these places and items with the Green Knight. |
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| litotes (pronounced almost like “li toe tee”) |
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| A form of understatement that involves making an affirmative point by denying its opposite. The opposite of hyperbole. Examples: “Not a bad idea,” |
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| loose sentence/non-periodic sentence |
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| A type of sentence in which the main idea (independent clause) comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units such as phrases and clauses. If a period were placed at the end of the independent clause, the clause would be a complete sentence. A work containing manyof these sentences often seems informal, relaxed, or conversational. |
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| Rhymes that end with a heavy stress on the last syllable in each rhyming word. |
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| A figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things or the substitution of one for the other, suggesting some similarity. |
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| A term from the Greek meaning “changed label” or “substitute name,” it is a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated or related to the whole of it. For example, a news release that claims “the White House declared” rather than “the President declared.” The substituted term generally carries a more potent emotional impact. |
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| The prevailing atmosphere or emotional aura of a work. |
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| The telling of a story or an account of an event or series of events. |
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| A figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words. Simple examples include such words as buzz, hiss, hum, crack, whinny, and murmur. |
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| From the Greek for “pointedly foolish,” a figure of speech wherein the author groups apparently contradictory terms to suggest a paradox. |
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| A statement that appears to be self-contradictory or opposed to common sense but upon closer inspection contains some degree of truth or validity. |
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| Also referred to as parallel construction or parallel structure, this term comes from Greek roots meaning “beside one another.” It refers to the grammatical or rhetorical framing of words, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs to give structural similarity. |
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| A work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim of comic effect and/or ridicule. |
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| An artistic composition dealing with the life of shepherds or with a simple, rural existence. It usually idealized shepherds' lives in order to create an image of peaceful and uncorrupted existence. |
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| The opposite of loose sentence, a sentence that presents its central meaning in a main clause at the end. This independent clause is preceded by a phrase or clause that cannot stand alone. The effect of it is to add emphasis and structural variety. It is also a much stronger sentence than the loose sentence. (Example: After a long, bumpy flight and multiple delays, I arrived at the San Diego airport.) |
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| A figure of speech in which the author presents or describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes or emotions. |
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| A humorous novel in which the plot consists of a young knave's misadventures and escapades narrated in comic or satiric scenes. This roguish protagonist--called a picaro--makes his (or sometimes her) way through cunning and trickery rather than through virtue or industry. |
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| In literature, the perspective from which a story is told. |
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| The narrator tells the story with the pronoun, “I,” and is a character in the story. This narrator can be the protagonist (major, like Huck Finn) , or a secondary character, or an observing character (minor, like Nick Carroway). |
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| third person omniscient point of view |
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| The narrator, with godlike knowledge, presents the thoughts and actions of any or all characters |
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| third person limited point of view |
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| The narrator presents the feelings and thoughts of only one character, presenting only the actions of all the remaining characters. |
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| third objective point of view |
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| The narrator observes and reports- no access to internal thoughts and feelings. |
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| The author’s attitude, or tone about the topic. |
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| Using many conjunctions to achieve an overwhelming effect in a sentence. For example, "This term, I am taking biology and English and history and math and music and physics and sociology." All those ands make the student sound like she is completely overwhelmed. It is the opposite of asyndeton. |
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| One of the major divisions of genre, it refers to fiction and nonfiction, including all its forms. |
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| The duplication, either exact or approximate, of any element of language, such as a sound, word, phrase, clause, sentence, or grammatical pattern. |
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| From the Greek for “orator,” this term describes the principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively. |
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| rhetorical mode: exposition |
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| Mode of writing to explain and analyze information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion. |
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| rhetorical mode: argumentation |
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| Mode of writing to prove the validity of an idea, or point of view, by presenting sound reasoning, discussion, and argument that thoroughly convince the reader. |
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| rhetorical mode: description |
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| Mode of writing to recreate, invent, or visually present a person, place, event or action so that the reader can picture that being described. Sometimes an author engages all five senses in description; good descriptive writing can be sensuous and picturesque. |
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| rhetorical mode: narration |
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| Mode of writing to tell a story or narrate an event or series of events. This writing mode frequently uses the tools of descriptive writing. |
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| From the Greek meaning “to tear flesh,” sarcasm involves bitter, caustic language that is meant to hurt or ridicule someone or something. It may use irony as a device. |
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| A work that targets human vices and follies or social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule. |
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| slant rhyme (also called inexact rhyme) |
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| Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the |
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| From the Greek for “reckoning together,” a deductive system of formal logic that presents two premises “major” and the second called “minor”) that inevitably lead to a sound conclusion. |
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| Generally, anything that represents itself and stands for something else. |
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| A figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole or, occasionally, the whole is used to represent a part. Examples: To refer to a boat as a “sail”; to refer to a car as “wheels.” |
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| Involving shifts in imagery or sensory metaphors. It involves taking one type of sensory input (sight, sound, smell, touch, taste) and comingling it with another separate sense in what seems an impossible way. |
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| The way an author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences. |
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| The central idea or message of a work, the insight it offers into life. Universal idea about humans or society. |
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| In expository writing, it is the sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author’s opinion, purpose, meaning, or position. |
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| Similar to mood, it describes the author’s attitude toward his material, the audience, or both. |
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| The ironic minimalizing of fact, presents something as less significant than it is. The effect can frequently be humorous and emphatic. |
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| Intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights. This kind of statement is humorous, while suggesting the speaker’s verbal power in creating ingenious and perceptive remarks. |
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