Literary Devices One
When words are used to suggest the opposite of the literal meaning.
What is Verbal Irony?
a rhetorical device in which a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines to create emphasis, rhythm, and emotional impact, common in speeches, poetry, and songs. Example: "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times..."
What is anaphora?
A literary device in which a writer gives an advance hint of what is to come later in the story.
what is Foreshadowing?
Occurs when the audience expects something to happen, but then something else happens instead.
What is Situational Irony?
An extreme exaggeration.
What is Hyperbole?
A form of figurative language in which something that is not human is given human characteristics.
What is Personification?
An author’s attitude toward his or her subject and audience.
What is Tone?
The author’s use of developing a character through speech, thoughts, emotions, actions, and looks.
What is Indirect Characterization?
The author’s use of developing a character by providing physical and personality traits of an individual in the story.
What is Direct Characterization?
When the audience knows something the characters do not.
What is Dramatic Irony?
The writer or speaker refers either directly or indirectly to a person, event, or thing in history or to a work of art or literature.
What is Allusion?
Anything that appears on the surface to be one thing, yet represents something else and carries a hidden, deeper meaning.
What is Symbolism?
Using a part of something to describe the whole. Example: "Let's get some boots on the ground."
What is synechdoche?
The placement of two contrasting elements side buy side for the purpose of comparison and contrast. Example: A rose growing out of a skull or a mushroom cloud blooming from a tree root.
What is juxtaposition?
"A cool breeze carried carnival music and the aroma of popcorn my way. Just over the rise the lights blinked in a million colors." This appeal to the senses and the mental picture are this literary device.
What is a imagery?
When the first letters of words are the same as in: She shook the shears at the sheep.
What is alliteration?
A character who contrasts with another character - usually the protagonist— to highlight particular qualities of the other character.
What is Foil?
The pairing of two opposing words together, resulting in a poetic, paradoxical expression. It's often used to highlight the complexity or irony of a situation or idea.
Example: "Cruel kindness" and "giant shrimp"
What is an Oxymoron
A figure of speech that makes a comparison using "like" or "as."
What is Simile?
A figure of speech that compares two things that are unrelated, but which share some common characteristics.
What is Metaphor?
Words that imitate sounds.
What is Onomatopoeia?
When you compare someone to a summer's day, you're using this literary device.
What is Analogy?
When a poem changes direction in tone or message, it is called this.
What is a shift?
An overused, worn-out word or phrase.
What is Cliche?
In poetry, the repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in nonrhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible.
Example: "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain"
What is assonance