Literary Terms Final
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29 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 adage | familiar proverb/saying |
| anaphora | repetition of words/phrases at the beginning; i.e. we will fight in the streets, we will fight in the fields, we will fight in the hills |
| antecedent | word/phrase/clause the pronoun refers to |
| apostrophe | one directly addressing an absent/imaginary/abstract; i.e. O Death, where thy sting? |
| asyndeton | construction in which elements are presented in series without conjuctions; i.e. He provided them with jobs, with opportunity, with hope |
| bathos | a change from a serious subject to a disappointing one |
| chiasmus | a statement with two parallel parts, with the second one reversed; i.e. susan walked in, out rushed mary |
| colloquialism | words/expressions more suitable for speech |
| conceit | a fanciful, cleverly extended metaphor |
| aphorism | concise statement that expresses succulently a general truth |
| elegy | a formal poem presenting a meditation on death |
| epigram | brief, pithy and paradoxical saying; i.e. I can resist everything except temptation |
| epigraph | a quotation used at the beginning of a text used to illustrate its title/theme |
| epithet | a term used to point out a characteristic; i.e. swift footed Achilles |
| homily | a sermon or a moralistic lecture |
| invective | intense hightly emotional verbal attack |
| litotes | an understatement by negating the opposite; i.e. it was not a pretty picture |
| malapropism | mistaken substitution of one word for another; i.e. the doctor wrote a subscription |
| maxim | a statement offering advice |
| metonymy | substituting the name of one object for another closely associated; i.e. the pen is mightier than the sword |
| nonsequiter | an inference that does not follow logically from the premise; i.e. if I buy this cell phone, all people will love me |
| parallelism | the use of corresponding grammatical or syntactical form |
| pathos | the quatliy in a work that prompts the reader to feel pity |
| polysyndeton | the use for rhetorical effect of more conjunctions than necessary; i.e. This semester I am taking psychology and math and science and English |
| solecism | speaking incorrectly |
| syllepsis | one word is used in two different ways; i.e. After he threw the ball he threw a fit |
| syllogism | a three part deductive argument |
| synecdoche | using one part of an object to represent the whole |
| synethesia | loud color; busy sound |
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