Literary Devices One
When words are used to suggest the opposite of the literal meaning.
What is Verbal Irony?
A group of lines in verse, roughly analogous in function to the paragraph in prose.
What is a stanza?
A word or phrase that takes the place of a harsh, unpleasant, or impolite reality.
What is a euphemism?
Occurs when the audience expects something to happen, but then something else happens instead.
What is Situational Irony?
An 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 continuation of a syntactic unit from one line of poetry to the next without pause.
What is enjambment?
The use of a word to modify two or more words but used for different meanings.
He closed the door and his heart on his lost love.
What is zeugma?
When we the audience know of Ophelia's death but Hamlet is innocent of the knowledge.
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?
A created personality, reflective of the author; provides insight from the third person point of view.
What is a persona?
A celebrity holding a product adds this rhetorical appeal to the ad.
What is a ethos?
"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?
Excessive pride or ambition leads to the main character's downfall.
What is hubris?
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?
What is synecdoche?
In poetry, harsh awkward sounds.
What is cacophony?
The method is like first-person narration but instead of the character telling the story, the author places the reader inside the main character's head and makes the reader privy to all of the character's thoughts as they scroll through her consciousness.
What is a stream of consciousness?
An overused, worn-out word or phrase.
What is Cliche?
What is metonomy?