Figures of Speech
A deliberate exaggeration for various effects – comic, tragic, etc. When Frost writes that the beauty of Spring “is only so an hour”, he emphasizes how very brief the life of precious things seems.
What is Hyperbole?
A gap or mismatch between what is said and what is intended. For example, between what a character or group might see or think, and what the author wishes us to see or think. A powerful tool for a writer to expose hypocrisies and lack of awareness.
What is Irony?
The main character that the story follows.
What is the protagonist?
It means "life" and is found in your science text book.
What is "bio"?
The blocks of lines into which a poem is organised. In traditional forms of poetry each stanza follows a scheme governing metre, lines and rhymes.
What is "Stanza"?
The use of words that imitate or suggest the sounds associated with them, such as “murmur” or “buzz”.
What is Onomatopoeia?
The mental pictures created by language (both metaphorical and literal) that appeal to the senses.
What is Imagery?
The sequence of events in a story.
What is plot?
This two letter combo means "do again".
What is "re"?
Stanza or group of four lines in a poem. They can have different rhyme schemes. Shakespeare’s sonnets often contain three of these and a couplet.
What is "Quatrain"?
Where human feelings or sensations are attributed to an inanimate object.
What is Personification?
An association suggested by a word, useful when discussing diction. The "flavor" of a words as opposed to or in addition to its dictionary meaning.
What is Connotation?
The sense of anticipation that builds as a story continues.
What is suspense?
This prefix means "self".
What is "auto"?
Objects that represent or evoke an idea or concept of wider, abstract significance, as roses represent love, walls divisions, often with understood meanings. For example dove = peace.
What is "symbol'?
A comparison between two unlike things that are seen as alike in some aspect, without the use of ‘like’ or ‘as’.
What is metaphor?
An exclamatory passage where the speaker or writer breaks off in the flow of a narrative or poem to address a dead or absent person, a particular audience, or object. Hint: there is a punctuation mark with the same name.
What is Apostrophe?
It can be happy or sad or confusing. But we are not looking for "ending".
What is outcome?
Similar to the French, this means "bad".
What is "mal"?
Repetition of a phrase or lines in a work of literature, often at the end of a stanza.
What is "Refrain"?
When a part is substituted for the whole such as in "All hands on deck!" where the hands represent the sailors. Is it Metonymy, Litotes, or Simile?
What is Metonymy?
An indirect reference to an event, person, place, another work of literature, etc. that gives additional layers of meaning to a text or enlarges its frame of reference. Robert Frost’s poem “Out, Out”, about a boy’s accidental death, alludes to Macbeth’s line about life: “Out, out, brief candle”.
What is Allusion?
Action that took place before the story began and influences the character's actions or situation. Hint: ante_____ action
What is antecedent action?
This combo is found in words related to "stars".
What is "astro"?
The organization of lines of verse into regular patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables, to achieve a rhythmic effect. “Iambic” and “trochaic” are useful to know.
What is "Meter"?