Sounds & Rhythm
“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free;" (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Rime of the Ancient Mariner)
What is Alliteration
"The Hebrew will turn Christian: he grows kind." (William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice)
HINT: Focus on the italicized words - why use those terms?
What is Connotation
"But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
What is Metaphor
“Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed toward me like towers of Pisa.” (Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita)
What is Simile
“He is just what a young man ought to be,” said she, “sensible, good humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners! — so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!” (Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice)
What is 3rd Person Point of View
"Reckon I have. Almost died first year I come to school and et them pecans — folks say he pizened ‘em and put ‘em over on the school side of the fence." (Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)
What is Dialect
“I had to wait in the station for ten days-an eternity.” (Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness)
What is Hyperbole
“It went zip when it moved and bop when it stopped, And whirr when it stood still. I never knew just what it was and I guess I never will.” (Tom Paxton, "The Marvelous Toy")
What is Onomatopoeia
"These are the lips of the lake, on which no beard grows. It licks its chops from time to time." (Henry David Thoreau, Walden)
What is Personification
“I could picture it. I have a habit of imagining the conversations between my friends. We went out to the Cafe Napolitain to have an aperitif and watch the evening crowd on the Boulevard.” (Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises)
What is 1st Person Point of View
“What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? what dread grasp Dare its deadly terrors clasp?” (William Blake, "The Tyger")
What is Anaphora
“I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs.” (William Shakespeare, Othello)
What is Euphemism
“You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy.”
What is 2nd Person Point of View
“Have you got a brook in your little heart, Where bashful flowers blow, And blushing birds go down to drink, And shadows tremble so?” (Emily Dickenson)
What is Imagery
"An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was thick, warm, heavy, sluggish." (Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness)
What is Asyndeton
“Let the whitefolks have their money and power and segregation and sarcasm and big houses and schools and lawns like carpets, and books, and mostly–mostly–let them have their whiteness.” (Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
What is Polysendeton
"Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light." (Dylan Thomas, "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night")
What is Juxtaposition
"For Venus smiles not in a house of tears" (William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)
What is Allusion
“Water, water, everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "Rime of the Ancient Mariner")
HINT: Focus on content, not structure
What is Irony
“Who is here so base that would be a bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so vile that will not love his country? If any, speak; for him have I offended….” (William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar)
What is Epistrophe
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.” (Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities)
What is Antithesis
"[Beowulf] raised the hard weapon by the hilt, angry and resolute – the sword was not useless to the warrior…" (Beowulf)
What is Litote
“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts,” (William Shakespeare, As You Like It)
What is Symbolism
In George Orwell’s "Animal Farm," a farm in which the animals kick out the humans to become equal workers, and the pig Comrade Napoleon squashes any possibility of equality, mirrors the Russian Revolution of 1917 very closely.
What is Allegory
“Good we must love, and must hate ill, For ill is ill, and good good still;" (John Donne, "Community")
What is Parallelism