Devices 1
Devices 2
Devices 3
Slaughterhouse 5
William Blake
100

 What device is created by the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses?

What is anaphora?

100

What is the term for the omission of conjunctions in a list to accelerate pace and intensity?

What is an asyndetic list?

100

"I am sad." is what kind of sentence?

What is a simple declarative sentence?

100

 What phrase recurs after every death in the novel?

What is “So it goes”?

100

Which poem contains the phrase “mind-forg’d manacles”, and what abstract force do they most specifically symbolise?

What is London, and they symbolise the internalised psychological imprisonment created by oppressive ideological systems?

200

 Identify the device in Blake’s repeated opening structure: “In every” across successive lines in London.

What is syntactic parallelism combined with anaphora?

200

What is the poetic device in which a word is repeated successively, multiple times?

What is epizeuxis?

200

What do we call a metaphor sustained and repeated throughout a text?

What is an extended metaphor (conceit)?

200

What narrative technique most defines the novel’s treatment of time?

What is non-linear chronology / temporal fragmentation?

200

Provide one quotation we should all revise from 'Holy Thursday' 

  • ‘Came children walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green’ - Holy Thursday
  • ‘Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow’ - Holy Thursday
  • ‘into the high dome of Paul’s they like Thames waters flow’ - Holy Thursday
  • ‘these flowers of London town!’ - Holy Thursday
300

What is the term for a sequence of short, unconnected clauses placed side by side without subordinating conjunctions, often creating abruptness or fragmentation?

What is parataxis?

300

What is the name of the term which describes the repetition of a word or phrase at the end of successive clauses or sentences, often used in rhetorical contexts. 

What is epistophe?

300

'He snarled' is an example of what kind of figurative language?

What is zoomorphism?

300

What is the critical significance of the Tralfamadorian perception of time?

What is fatalistic simultaneity, where all moments coexist and free will is destabilised?

300

In The Garden of Love, what does the transformation of the green space into a chapel and graveyard specifically critique?

What is the corruption of natural innocence and desire by institutional religion and moral repression?

400

In highly technical stylistics, what is the precise term for the accumulation of semantically linked vocabulary items that construct a conceptual atmosphere, such as disease, confinement, or corruption?

What is a lexical field (or semantic field)?

400

This device described a seemingly contradictory statement

What is a paradox?

400

This is the name for repetition within successive clauses: 'in the summer I eat strawberries, in the winter I eat pie, in the autumn I eat cheese...'

What is mesodiplosis?

400

What postmodern technique is evident when Vonnegut inserts himself into the narrative voice and foregrounds the process of writing?

What is metafiction / authorial self-reflexivity?

400

Which poem most directly explores the ideological hypocrisy of Christian consolation as a tool of class control?

What is The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Experience?

500

Name the device in which each successive phrase repeats the previous ending word or idea, creating a climactic chain.

What is gradatio (also called climax / anadiplotic progression)?

500

Name a literary device where a part of something is used to represent the whole, or the whole is used to represent a part. 

What is a synecdoche

500

This device occurs when a writer substitutes a concept, institution, or person with a closely associated symbol or object, such as using “the crown” to represent monarchy.

What is metonymy?

500

Which allusory figure does the narrator frequently parallel Billy with and why?

What is that Billy is aligned with Jesus Christ as an innocent martyr and witness to suffering, yet the comparison is deeply ironic because he possesses no redemptive power or heroic agency? This subverts the traditional Christian promise of meaningful sacrifice, exposing war as a force that manufactures suffering without purpose, salvation, or moral resolution, thereby intensifying Vonnegut’s anti-war critique.

500

How does Blake’s lyric form itself become ideological critique across the Songs?

What is that the deceptively simple song-like lyric structure masks profound philosophical and political critique, using formal simplicity to expose the constructed nature of innocence, oppression, and moral authority?

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