Rhetorical Strategies & Literary Devices
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Created by:
liongiraffe on June 16, 2012
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Description:
Advanced Placement
English Literature and Composition
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96 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Allegory | a story in which the narrative or characters carry an underlying symbolic, metaphorical, or ethical meaning |
| Alliteration | the repetition or one or more initial consonants in a group of words or lines of poetry or prose |
| Allusion | a reference to something literary, mythological, or historical that the author assumes the reader will recognize; creates and effect or enhances the meaning |
| Ambiguity | a vagueness of meaning; a conscious lack of clarity meant to evoke multiple meanings of an idea |
| Anachronism | a person, scene, event, or other element in literature that fails to correspond with the time or era in which the work is set |
| Analogy | a comparison that points out similarities between two dissimilar things |
| Antagonist | a character or force in a work of literature that, but opposing the protagonist produces tension or conflict |
| Antithesis | a statement in which two opposing ideas are balanced |
| Aphorism | a concise, statement that expresses succinctly a general truth or idea |
| Apostrophe | a rhetorical device in which a speaker addresses a person or personified thing not present |
| Archetype | an original model or form |
| Assonance | repetition of similar vowel sounds, preceded and followed by different consonants, in the stressed syllables of adjacent words |
| Ballad | a simple narrative verse that tells a story that is sung or recited |
| Bathos | the use of insincere or overdone sentimentality |
| Bildungsroman | a German word referring to a novel structured as a series of events that take place as the hero travels in quest of a goal |
| Blank verse | poetry written in iambic pentameter, the primary meter used in English poetry; it is "blank" because the lines generally do not rhyme |
| Bombast | inflated, pretentious language used for trivial subjects |
| Cacophony | grating, inharmonious sounds |
| Caesura | a pause somewhere in the middle of a verse, often (but not always) marked by punctuation |
| Canon | the works considered most important in a national literature or period; works widely read and studied |
| Catharsis | a cleansing of the spirit brought about by the pity and terror of a dramatic tragedy |
| Climax | the high point, or turning point, of a story or play |
| Conceit | a fanciful, particularly clever thought often stated in figurative language |
| Connotation | the implied or associative meaning of a word |
| Consonance | the repetition of two or more consonant sounds in a group of words or a line of poetry |
| Couplet | a pair of rhyming lines in a poem; two rhyming lines in iambic pentameter is called heroic couplet |
| Denotation | the literal meaning of a word |
| Denouement | the resolution that occurs at the end of a play or work of fiction |
| Diction | the word choices made by a writer |
| Dramatic irony | a circumstance in which the audience or reader knows more about a situation than a character |
| Elegy | a poem or prose selection that laments or meditates on the passing or death of something or someone of value |
| End stopped | describes a line of poetry that ends with a natural pause often indicated by a mark of punctuation |
| Enjambment | in poetry, the use of successive lines with no punctuation or pause between them |
| Euphony | pleasing, harmonious sounds |
| Euphemism | a mile or less negative usage for a harsh or blunt term |
| Extended metaphor | a series of comparisons between tow unlike objects |
| Falling action | the action in a play or story that occurs after the climax and that leads to the conclusion and often to the resolution of the conflict |
| Farce | a comedy that contains an extravagant and nonsensical disregard of seriousness, although it may have a serious, scornful purpose |
| Figurative language | language employing one or more figures of speech to imply meaning (simile, metaphor, personification,etc.) |
| First person narrative | a narrative told by a character involved in the story |
| Foil | a minor character whose personality or attitude contrasts with that of the main character; juxtaposing one character against another intensifies the qualities of both |
| Foot | a unit of stressed and unstressed syllables used to determine the meter of a poetic line |
| Foreshadowing | providing hints of things to come in a story or play |
| Frame | a structure that provides premise or setting for a narrative |
| Hubris | excessive pride that often leads tragic heroes to their death |
| Hyperbole | intentional exaggeration to create an effect |
| Imagery | the use of language to create vivid images that appeal to the five senses (taste, touch, sound, smell, sight) |
| Irony | the use of words in which the intended meaning is the opposite of what is stated; incongruity between what is expected and what actually occurs (situational, verbal, dramatic) |
| Jargon | the specialized language or vocabulary of a particular group or profession |
| Juxtaposition | placing two elements side by side to present a comparison or contrast |
| Litotes | a form of understatement in which the negative of the contrary is used to achieve emphasis or intensity. (Ex. He is not a bad dancer.) |
| Lyric poetry | personal, reflective poetry that reveals the speaker's thoughts and feelings about the subject |
| Melodrama | a literary form in which events are exaggerated in order to create an extreme emotional response |
| Metaphor | a direct comparison of two unlike things |
| Meter | the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables found in poetry |
| Metonymy | a figure of speech that uses the name of one thing to represent something else with which it is associated |
| Mood | the emotional atmosphere of a work of literature |
| Motif | a phrase, idea, or event that through repetition serves to unify or convey a theme in a work of literature |
| Narrative | a form of verse or prose that tells a story |
| Ode | a lyric poem usually marked by serious, respectful, and exalted feelings toward the subject |
| Omniscient narrator | a narrator with unlimited awareness, understanding, and insight of characters,setting, background, and all other elements of the story |
| Onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sounds suggest their meaning (Ex. bubbling, murmuring brooks) |
| Oxymoron | a term consisting of contradictory element juxtaposed to create a paradoxical effect (Ex. loud silence, jumbo shrimp) |
| Paradox | an apparently contradictory statement that actually contains some truth |
| Parody | an imitation of a work meant to ridicule its style and subject |
| Pathos | the quality in a work that prompts the reader to experience emotions such as pity or sorry |
| Pentameter | a verse with five poetic feet per line |
| Personification | endowing non-human objects or creatures with human qualities or characteristics |
| Plot | the interrelationship among the events in a story; the plot line is the pattern of events |
| Point of view | the relation in which a narrator or speaker stands to the story or subject matter of a poem; a story told in the first person has an internal point of view; an observer uses an external point of view |
| Prosody | the grammar of meter and rhythm in poetry |
| Protagonist | the main character in a work of literature |
| Pun | a humorous play on words, using similar- sounding or identical words to suggest different meanings |
| Quatrain | a four-line poem or a four-line unit of a longer poem |
| Rhetoric | the language of a work and its style; words, often highly emotional, used to convince or sway an audience |
| Rhyme | the repetition of similar sounds at regular intervals, used mostly in poetry |
| Rhyme scheme | the pattern of rhymes within a given poem |
| Rhythm | the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that make up a line of poetry |
| Satire | a literary style used to poke fun at, attack or ridicule and idea, vice, or foible, often for the purpose of inducing change |
| Setting | the total environment for the action in a novel or play; includes time, place, historical milieu, and social, political, and even spiritual circumstances |
| Simile | a comparison of two things using "like," "as," or other specifically comparative words |
| Sonnet | a form of verse consisting of fourteen lines and a prescribed rhyme scheme |
| Stanza | a group of two or more lines in poetry combined according to subject matter, rhyme, or some other plan |
| Stream of Consciousness | a style of writing in which the author tries to reproduce the random flow of thoughts in the human mind |
| Structure | the arrangement or framework of a sentence, paragraph, essay, or entire work |
| Style | the manner in which an author uses and arranges words, shapes, ideas, forms sentences, and creates a structure to convey ideas |
| Subplot | a subordinate or minor collection of events in a novel or play, usually connected to the main plot |
| Symbolism | the use of one object to evoke ideas and associations not literally part of the original object |
| Synecdoche | a figure of speech in which a part signifies the whole or the whole signifies the part |
| Syntax | the manner in which words are arranged in sentences |
| Theme | a central idea of a work; the writer's perspective/view about the topic; often an abstract idea upon which a work of literature is built |
| Tone | the attitude of a writer, usually implied, toward the subject or audience; emotion that pervades a work of a part of a work |
| Tragedy | a form of literature in which the hero is destroyed by some character flaw and a set of forces that cause the hero considerable anguish |
| Verbal irony | a discrepancy between the true meaning of a situation and the literal meaning of the written or spoken words |
| Verse | a synonym for poetry; also a group of lines in a song or poem; also a line of poetry |
| Voice | the real or assumed personality used by a writer |
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