The Basics
Devices
More Basics
Dramatic Terms
Examples of Terms and Devices
100
The main idea or underlying meaning of a work of literature
Theme
100
A figure of speech using implied comparison of seemingly unlike things.
Metaphor
100
The location or environment in which a story takes place.
Setting
100
Occurs when a character speaks their thoughts to the audience while there are other characters onstage.
Aside
100
"The Lottery" takes place in a small town in America.
Setting
200
A thing that represents something else, i.e. a material thing standing for an abstract idea.
Symbol
200
The contrast between what is stated and what is meant.
Irony
200
Occurs when the author provides a clue as to what WILL happen in the story.
Foreshadowing
200
Occurs when a character makes an extended speech while along on the stage.
Soliloquy
200
"The Cask of Amontillado" explores the idea of revenge.
Theme
300
The use of descriptive language to form mental images for the reader.
Imagery
300
A comparison that uses the words "like" or "as."
Simile
300
A work that targets human vices and follies for ridicule.
Satire
300
A play on words in which a word or phrase has a double meaning.
Pun
300
The Gift of the Magi is the worst story ever written.
Hyperbole
400
The repetition of consonants in two or more neighbouring words.
Alliteration
400
A figure of speech in which natural sounds are imitated in the sounds of words.
Onomatopoeia
400
A figure of speech in which the author describes concepts, animals, or inanimate objects by endowing them with human attributes.
Personification
400
Occurs when the audience knows something a character does not.
Dramatic irony
400
"he doth bestride the world like a Colossus"
Simile (and imagery...)
500
A less offensive substitute for a generally unpleasant word or concept.
Euphemism
500
A figure of speech in which the author groups contradictory terms to form a paradox.
Oxymoron
500
A figure of speech using deliberate exaggeration or overstatement.
Hyperbole
500
The attribution of human emotions or characteristics to inanimate objects or to nature; the natural world reflects events in the human world.
Pathetic Fallacy
500
'Beware the Ides of March'
Foreshadowing
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