| Term | Definition |
|---|
| Sound | the combination of tones and noises that make up a word |
| Connotation | what a word suggests beyond what it expresses. |
| Denotation | the dictionary meaning of a word |
| imagery | "Most commonly represents a visual image, but can also represent a smell, a taste, or even an internal sensation like hunger, thirst, or nausea." |
| synesthesia | deliberately mixing up the senses for poetic effect |
| Metaphor | a means of comparing two things that are unalike |
| simile | "a means of comparing two things that are unalike using like, as, resembles, or seems" |
| Personification | "giving the attributes of a human being to an animal, object, or concept" |
| Apostrophe | addressing someone absent or dead or nonhuman as if that person or thing were present and could reply. |
| Synecdoche | "a figure of speech in which a part is substituted for a whole or a whole for a part, as in 50 head of cattle for 50 cows, or the army for a soldier" |
| Metonymy | "a figure of speech in which an attribute or a suggestive word is substituted for the name of something, as in “The Crown” for “the monarchy”." |
| Symbol | Roughly defined as something that means more than what it is. Something that stands in the place of another thing. A symbol can be as simple as the color red representing “stop” or as complex and culturally loaded as an eagle. |
| Allegory | a narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface one. It is a less common literary device than it once was. |
| Paradox | An apparent contradiction that is somehow true. Shock value that startles the reader. |
| Hyperbole | Deliberate exaggeration for effect. “You could have knocked me over with a feather”). |
| Verbal Irony | Saying one thing and meaning another |
| Dramatic Irony | literary device where the audience/author are aware of something a character is not |
| Situational Irony | a situation where there is an incongruity between what is anticipated and what actually happens. |
| Alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds |
| Consonance | repetition of final consonant sounds |
| Assonance | repetition of vowel sounds |
| Rhyme | repetition of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds |
| Meter | "is consistent rhythm, something that we can tap our feet to. Meter comes from the term “to measure”." |
| Foot: | "one accented syllable with one, two, three or zero unaccented syllables." |
| Iamb | unstressed/stressed (Today) |
| Trochee | stressed/unstressed (Daily) |
| Anapest | Unstressed/unstressed/stressed (intervene) |
| Dactyl | Stressed/unstressed/unstressed (Yesterday) |
| Spondee | Stressed/stressed (True-blue) |
| Allusion | a reference to something in history or previous literature. |
| Tone | "A writer or speaker’s attitude toward his subject, her audience, or his/herself. It is the emotional coloring and emotional meaning of the words and phrases used." |
| Stanza | A group of lines within a poem (functions like a paragraph in prose). |
| Juxtaposition | Deliberately placing dissimilar things side by side for comparison |
| Free Verse | "poetry in lines of irregular length, usually unrhymed." |
| Blank Verse | "unrhymed iambic pentameter; that is, with every second syllable stressed." |
| Enjambment | "a line of poetry in which the grammatical and logical sense run on, without pause, into the next line or line" |
| Onomatopoeia | words (or the use of words) that sound like what they mean |
| Litotes | "A figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite, as in This is no small problem." |
Combine with other sets
Share on Facebook
Share on MySpace