DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Literary Terms/Syntax Techniques/Figures of Speech/Sound Devices

 

LITERARY TERMS

 

Allusion is a reference to a mythological, literary, or historical person, place or thing: e.g., "He met his Waterloo."

 

Diction is a word choice intended to convey a certain effect.

 

Epiphany is a sudden unfolding in which a character proceeds from ignorance and innocence to knowledge and experience.  For instance, Pip understands all the mysterious events and signs when he hears about Molly from Wemmick.  Everything makes sense to him then.

 

A Flashback is a scene that interrupts the action of a work to show a previous event.

 

Foreshadowing is the use of hints or clues in a narrative to suggest future action.

 

Hamartia The Greek word that describes what many people refer to as the "tragic flaw" of the hero of Greek tragedy, hamartia has a complex meaning which includes "sin," "error," "trespass," and "missing the mark" (as in archery–missing the bull's-eye). The "mistake" of the hero has an integral place in the plot of the tragedy. The logic of the hero's descent into misfortune is determined by the nature of his or her particular kind of hamartia. [from www.english.hawaii.edu...

 

Imagery consists of the words or phrases a writer uses to represent persons, objects, actions, feelings, and ideas descriptively by appealing to the senses.

 

A literary genre is a category of literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content. The Pearl is a novella; “Digging” is poem; “The Cask of Amontillado” is a short story; the Odyssey is an epic poem; Romeo and Juliet is an Elizabethan play; Jane Eyre is a novel, and so on . . .

 

Mood is the atmosphere or predominant emotion in a literary work. 

 

Motivation is a circumstance or set of circumstances that prompts a character to act in a certain way or that determines the outcome of a situation or work. 

 

Narration is the telling of a story in writing or speaking.

 

Plot is the sequence of events or actions in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem.

 

Point of view is the perspective from which a narrative is told.

 

Repetition is the deliberate use of any element of language more than once—sound, word, phrase, sentence, grammatical pattern, or rhythmical pattern.

 

Rhetoric is the study of writing or speaking as a means of communication or persuasion. Writers use logos to make appeals to the readers’ logic, pathos to make appeals to the readers’ emotions, and ethos to make appeals to their own ethical ability to handle the argument.

 

Rhetorical Shift or turn refers to a change or movement in a piece resulting from an epiphany, realization, or insight gained by the speaker, a character, or the reader.

 

Setting is the time and place in which events in a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem take place.

 

Structure is the framework or organization of a literary selection. For example, the structure of fiction is usually determined by plot and by chapter division; the structure of drama depends upon its division into acts and scenes; the structure of an essay depends upon the organization of ideas; the structure of poetry is determined by its rhyme scheme and stanzaic form.

 

Style is the writer’s characteristic manner of employing language.

 

Suspense is the quality of a short story, novel, play, or narrative poem that makes the reader or audience uncertain or tense about the outcome of events.

 

A symbol is any object, person, place, or action that has both a meaning in itself and that stands for something larger than itself, such as quality, attitude, belief, or value: e.g., the land turtle in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath suggests or reflects the toughness and resilience of the migrant workers.

 

The protagonist is the central character of a drama, novel, short story, or narrative poem. Conversely, the antagonist is the character who stands directly opposed to the protagonist.

 

Theme is the central message of a literary work. It is not the same as a subject, which can be expressed in a word or two: courage, survival, war, pride, etc. The theme is the idea the author wishes to convey about that subject. It is expressed as a sentence or general statement about life or human nature. A literary work can have more than one theme, and most themes are not directly stated but are implied. The reader must think about all the elements of the work and use them to make inferences, or reasonable guesses, as to which themes seem to be implied. An example of a theme on the subject of pride might be that pride often precedes a fall.

 

Tone is the writer’s or speaker’s attitude towards the subject, character, or audience, and it is conveyed through the author’s choice of words and detail. Tone can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, indignant, objective, etc.  In TPFASTT poetry analysis, tone is synonymous with attitude.

 

SYNTAX TECHNIQUES

Syntax means the arrangement of words and the order of grammatical elements in a sentence.

Antithesis is a direct juxtaposition of structurally parallel words for the purpose of contrast: e.g., “Sink or swim.” 

 

Juxtaposition is a poetic and rhetorical device in which normally unassociated ideas, words, or phrases are placed next to one another, often creating an effect of surprise and wit.  “The apparition of these faces in the crowd:/Petals on a wet, black bough.”

 

Asyndeton is deliberate omission of conjunctions in a series of related clauses; it speeds the pace of the sentence.

 

Polysyndeton is the deliberate use of many conjunctions for special emphasis—to highlight quantity or mass of detail or to create a flowing, continuous sentence pattern; it slows the pace of the sentence.

 

Repetition is a device in which words, sounds, and ideas are used more than once to enhance rhythm and to create emphasis. All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sisters’ proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well.” 

 

Anaphora is the repetition of the same word of group of words at the beginning of successive clauses; it helps to establish a strong rhythm and produces a powerful emotional effect.

 

Epistrophe is the repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive clauses; it sets up a pronounced rhythm and gains a special emphasis both by repeating the word and by putting the word in the final position:  e.g.  “Genius is said to be self-conscious:  I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was self-conscious—remarkably self-conscious indeed.”

          “ ‘ Oh, Jane, you torture me! he exclaimed, ‘With that searching and yet faithful and generous look, you torture me!’”

The repetition of self-conscious and you torture me at the ends of clauses focuses attention on those concepts because they are the last images in the sentences, completing the thought.

  

Parallel structure (parallelism) refers to a grammatical or structural similarity between sentences or parts of a sentence.  It involves an arrangement of words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs so that elements of equal importance are equally developed and similarly phrased.  “The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled..”

 

A rhetorical question is a question that requires no answer.  It is used to draw attention to a point and is generally stronger than a direct statement.

 

A rhetorical fragment is a sentence fragment used deliberately for a persuasive purpose or to create a desired effect.

 

FIGURES OF SPEECH

 

Figures of speech are words or phrases that describe one thing in terms of something else. They always involve some sort of imaginative comparison between seemingly unlike things. Not meant to be taken literally, figurative language is used to produce images in a reader’s mind and to express ideas in fresh, vivid, and imaginative ways. The most common examples of figurative language, or figures of speech, used in both prose and poetry, are simile, metaphor, and personification.

 

Simile is a comparison of two different things or ideas through the use of the words “like” or “as.” It is a definitely stated comparison in which the poetry says one thing is like another: e.g., “The warrior fought like a lion.”

 

Metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things not using “like” or “as”: e.g., “Time is money.”

 

Synecdoche (metonymy) is a form of metaphor. In synecdoche, a part of something is used to signify the whole: e.g., “All hands on deck.” Also the reverse, whereby the whole can represent a part, is synecdoche: e.g., “Canada played the United States in the Olympic hockey finals.” Another form of synecdoche involves the container representing the things being contained: e.g., “The pot is boiling.” In one last form of synecdoche, the material from which an object is made stands for the object itself: e.g., “The quarterback tossed the pigskin.” In metonymy, the name of on e thing is applied to another thing with which it is closely associated: e.g., “I love Shakespeare.”

 

Personification is a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics: e.g., “The wind cried in the dark.”

 

Apostrophe is a form of personification in which the absent, or dead, are spoken to as if present, and the inanimate, as if animate.  These are all addressed directly: e.g. “Milton! Thou shoulds’t be living at this hour.”

 

Euphemism is the use of a word or phrase that is less expressive or direct but considered less distasteful or offensive than another:  e.g.  when Helen Burns is dying of tuberculosis, the doctor says, “she’ll not be here long”.  This phrase (not be here long) softens the blow of Helen’s dying.

 

Hyperbole is a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration: e.g., “The shot heard ‘round the world.” It may be used for either serious or comic effect.

 

Understatement (meiosis, litotes) is the opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is: e.g., “I could probably manage to survive on a salary of two million dollars per year.

 

Paradox occurs when the elements of a statement contradict each other. Although the statement may appear illogical, impossible, or absurd, it turns out to have a coherent meaning that reveals a hidden truth: e.g., “Much madness is divinest sense,” in Bronte’s Jane Eyre, it is paradoxical that Mr. Rochester must go blind before he can “see” the errors of his ways and gain humility

 

Oxymoron is a form of paradox that combines a pair of opposite terms into a single unusual expression: e.g., “sweet sorrow” or “cold fire.”

 

Pun is a play on words that are either identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings.  Puns may have serious as well as humorous uses.  When Mercutio is bleeding to death in Romeo and Juliet, he says to his friends, “Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.”

 

Irony occurs in three types. Verbal irony occurs when a speaker or narrator says one thing while meaning the opposite. An example of verbal irony occurs in the statement, “It is easy to stop smoking. I’ve done it many times.” Situational irony occurs when a situation turns out differently from what one would normally expect—though often the twist is oddly appropriate: e.g., a deep sea diver drowning in a bathtub is ironic. Dramatic irony occurs when a character or speaker says or does something that has different meanings from what he or she thinks it means, though the audience and other characters understand the full implications of the speech or action: e.g., Oedipus curses the murderer or Laius, not realizing that he is himself the murderer and so is cursing himself.

 

Sarcasm is the use of verbal irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it: e.g., “As I fell down the stairs headfirst, I heard her say, ‘Look at that coordination.’”

 

SOUND DEVICES


Sound devices are stylistic techniques that convey meaning through sound. 

 

Assonance is the repetition of accented vowels in a series of words: e.g., the words “cry” and “side” have the same vowel sound and so are said to be in assonance.

 

Consonance is the repetition of a consonant sound within a series of words to produce a harmonious effect: e.g., “And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.” The “d” sound is in consonance. The “s” sound is also in consonance.

 

Alliteration is the practice of beginning several consecutive or neighboring words with the same sound: e.g., "The twisting trout twinkled below."

 

Onomatopoeia is the use of words that mimic the sounds they describe: e.g., “hiss,” “buzz,” and “bang.”

 

Rhyme is the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem. End rhyme occurs at the end of lines; internal rhyme, within a line. Slant rhyme is approximate rhyme. A rhyme scheme is the pattern of end rhymes.

 

Rhythm is the varying speed, intensity, elevation, pitch, loudness, and expressiveness of speech, especially in poetry.  Iambic rhythm, the natural rhythm of the English language, is a rhythm in which the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is unstressed.

 

EXAMPLE:

To play with grace (assonance) and to struggle through strife (alliteration); to win with a grin (rhyme) but to face defeat without heat (rhyme and consonance); to try beyond tribulation and to rejoice within reason (alliteration):  these are the ways of a great man.

DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.