| Term | Definition |
|---|
| abstract | referring to an idea, rather than an actual thing |
| absurdism | literature that blatantly rejects the notion of life haveing some "deeper meaning" |
| accent | relatively strong stress placed on a particulat syllable in a word |
| allegory | an extended metaphor in which the elements of a narrative, actions, settings, objects, represent abstract ideas |
| alliteration | the repetition of initial sound in a series of words placed close together |
| allusion | a reference to to some person, place, or thing from literary or cultural history |
| anachronism | an object, person, or behavior that appears outside its appropriate historical time |
| analogy | a comparison of two fundamentally different things |
| anapest | a metrical foot of three syllables accented - - / |
| anaphora | the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines of verse |
| anecdote | a brief narrative based on a fact and involving an entertaining incident |
| anthropomorphism | personification |
| anticlimax | a shift from increasing emphasis and significance to unexpected insignificance or triviality |
| aphorism | a short statement delived in memorable words and offering a principle, a general truth, or a wise observation about life |
| epigram | a short, witty, carefully constructed and often paradoxical statement |
| apostrophe | a poetic device in which an imaginary or absent person, a non-human creature, an object, or an abstract idea is directly addressed as if it were present |
| pathetic fallacy | the tendency of writers to portray nature as having human emotions |
| proverb | a short statement delivered in memorable words and offering a principle, general truth, or wise observation about life passed down through oral tradition |
| repartee | a quick, witty comeback, especially to an insult |
| witticism | a particular expression of wit |
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