Literary Terms and Devices
Allegory: A story in which people, things, and events have another meaning. Examples of allegory are Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Spenser's Faerie Queene, and Orwell's Animal Farm.
Allusion: an indirect reference to other literature, myths, music, history, etc. Authors assume that readers will recognize the original sources and relate their meaning to the new context.
Analogy: a comparison between two things that are similar in some respects, often used to help explain something or make it easier to understand. While simile and analogy often overlap, the simile is generally a more artistic likening, done briefly for effect and emphasis, while analogy serves the more practical purpose of explaining a thought process or a line of reasoning or the abstract in terms of the concrete, and may therefore be more extended.
Anecdote: A short, narrative account of an amusing, curious, revealing, or interesting event often told in order to illustrate a particular point or to add to a character’s development.
Archetype: An original model from which others are copied (Hero’s Journey). Archetypes are drawn from myth and tradition in literature, film, political speeches, and religious writings.
Attitude: The position the writer takes toward his subject.
Character can be revealed through the character's actions, appearance, speech and thoughts. Character is also revealed by the comments of other characters and the narrator.
Protagonist is the central character (person, animal, or personified object) in the plot's conflict.
Antagonist is the force in conflict with the protagonist. It may be society, nature, or fate, as well as another person. It can also be the protagonist's own self, if he or she has an internal conflict.
Character types:
• flat character: not fully developed; we know only one side of the character.
• round character: fully-developed, with many traits--bad and good--shown in the story. We feel that we know the character so well that he or she has become a real person.
• static character: one who does not experience a basic character change during the course of the story.
• dynamic character: one who experiences a basic change in character through the events of the story. This change is internal and may be sudden, but the events of the plot should make it seem inevitable.
• stereotypical character: a character who is so ordinary and unoriginal that he or she seems to have been cast in a mold: a representative character.
Conflict: the struggle between the protagonist and an opposing force. There are several types of conflict:
• Internal conflict or person-against-self: occurs when the protagonist struggles within himself or herself. The protagonist is pulled by two courses of action or by differing emotions. This is often considered a characteristic of fine literature because it frequently leads to a dynamic change in the protagonist.
• Interpersonal conflict, or person-against-person: pits the protagonist against someone else.
• Person-against-society: the protagonist is in conflict with the values of his or her society.
• Person-against-nature takes place when the protagonists is threatened by an element of nature.
Connotation: the implied meaning of an expression in addition to its primary meaning.
Denotation: the explicit meaning of a word, as distinct from its connotation.
Devices of sound can increase pleasure and clarity. Poetry is particularly rich in such devices.
Onomatopoeia is the use of words that sound like their meaning: a skirt "swishes," a bat "cracks," a hasty eater "gulps" his food.
Alliteration is repetition of initial consonants: "the soft surge of the sea."
Consonance is repetition of consonants sounds anywhere in the words: "The sight of the apple and maple trees pleased the people."
Assonance is repetition of vowel sounds in a phrase: The owl swept out of the woods and circled the house."
Rhyme is the repetition of a stressed sound, usually the final syllable: "His aim was to blame the dame."
Rhythm is the recurring flow of strong and weak beats in a phrase: "Chicka, chicka, boom, boom! Will there be enough room?" Meter is the regular rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables found in a line of poetry. The less regular rhythm sometimes found in prose is often called cadence.
Diction: The words the writer chooses to use to effect mood, tone and attitude.
Euphemism: A figure of speech using indirection to avoid offensive bluntness, such as "deceased" for "dead" or "remains" for "corpse."
Flashback: A reference to an event, which took place prior to the beginning of a story or play.
Figurative language: uses words in a non-literal way, giving them a meaning beyond their ordinary one.
Figures of Speech:
Personification: gives human traits to animals, nonhuman beings, or inanimate objects: "The trees bowed before the wind."
Simile: compares two different things, using the words "as," "like," or "than": "The snowbank looked like a huge pile of marshmallow syrup."
Metaphor: an implied comparison stating the resemblance between two things: "Her presence was a ray of light in a dark world."
Hyperbole: exaggeration for effect. "He was frightened out of his wits."
Understatement: expressing an idea with less emphasis or in a lesser degree than is the actual case. The opposite of hyperbole. Understatement is employed for ironic emphasis. "He was upset when he learned he had AIDS."
Foreshadowing: In fiction or drama, a method used to build suspense by providing hints of what is to come.
Idiom: a phrase that must be taken as a whole. Usually having a meaning that is not clear from the meanings of the individual words. “hang around” and “a change of heart.”
Imagery: an appeal to any of the senses--taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell. It paints pictures in our mind.
Irony: A mode of expression, through words (verbal irony) or events (irony of situation), conveying a reality different from and usually opposite to appearance or expectation.
Verbal irony: language stressing the importance of an idea and stating the opposite of what is meant.
Situational irony: a type of irony emphasizing that human beings are enmeshed in forces beyond their comprehension or control.
Dramatic irony: a special kind of situational irony in which a character perceives his/her plight in a limited way, while the audience or one or more of the other characters understand it entirely.
Mood: the emotional aura invoked by a work—the audience’s reaction or attitude toward the subject.
Motif: see Theme
Onomatopoeia: The use of words such as buzz, crunch, pow and splash which are pronounced in ways that suggest their meanings.
Oxymoron: a figure of speech combining incongruous or contradictory words, usually for descriptive purposes (e.g. silent scream, sweet sorrow, living death).
Paradox: A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.
(e.g. Opposites attract.)
Parallelism—A repetition of sentences, clauses, phrases, or parts of speech using the same structure.
Parody: A composition that imitates the style of another composition normally for comic effect.
Pastoral: A literary work that has to do with shepherds and rustic settings.
Plot: The events selected by the writer to reveal the conflicts, or struggles, among or within characters, often arranged chronologically but sometimes including flashbacks to past events. Traditionally, the plot begins with exposition, which presents background information; rises to a climax, the point of greatest tension; and ends with a resolution and denouement, which contain the outcome.
Exposition—the beginning portion of a plot in which background information is provided, such as details about characters and situation at the beginning of the story.
Rising Action—reveals complication and increasing conflict, leading up to, but not including, the climax.
Climax—The part of a plot when a crisis comes to its point of greatest intensity and most intense interest; the turning point when the conflict begins its resolution.
Falling Action/Resolution/Denouement—The part of a plot that follows the climax, in which the outcome of complex sequence of events is revealed.
Point of view depends upon who the narrator is and how much he or she knows.
Point of view may be:
First person - uses "I" - A character is telling the story.
Second person - uses "you" - The author speaks directly to the reader. Second person is seldom used; it is found most often in nonfiction today.
Third person - uses "he," "she," or "it" - The author is telling about the characters. There are three third person points of view:
Limited omniscient - We are told the thoughts and feelings of only one character (sometimes, but very seldom, of two or three characters).
Omniscient - We are told everything about the story, including the thoughts and feelings of all the characters, and even information in the author's mind which no character knows.
Dramatic or objective - We are told only what happens and what is said; we do not know any thoughts or feelings of the characters. It is called "dramatic" because it includes the words and actions, just what you would see and hear if it were in a play or film.
Repetition: repeating words or lines for emphasis or effect
Rhetoric: speech or writing that communicates its point persuasively;
the study of methods employed to write or speak effectively and persuasively; also, fine-sounding but insincere or empty language
Sarcasm: A form of verbal irony, expressing sneering, personal disapproval in the guise of praise.
Satire: Writing that seeks to arouse a reader's disapproval of mankind by ridicule. Satire is usually comedy that exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly.
Setting: The time and place in which a work of literature occurs.
Shift: A place in the literature where the writer’s attitude changes and he reveals more about his attitude, sometimes surprising the reader.
Style: The mode of expression in language; the characteristic manner of expression of an author. Many elements contribute to style, such as diction, syntax, figurative language, imagery, selection of detail, sound effects, and tone. Ernest Hemingway's style derives, in part, from his short, powerful sentences. The style of the Declaration of Independence can be described as elegant. Others can be formal, ornate, or conversational.
Symbol: Something—a person, an animal, an object, a situation, or an action—that operates on two levels, the literal and the symbolic. For instance, an engagement ring is a real object, but it is also stands for the abiding love of the engaged couple.
Syntax: the grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence.
Theme: A major and often recurring idea; the larger meaning of a work, including any thoughts or insights about life or people in general. A theme should generally be expressed as a complete sentence; an idea expressed by a single word or fragmentary phrase is usually a motif.
(e.g. Orwell’s theme is that absolute power corrupts absolutely.)
Tone: The attitude that a writer displays in his or her work through his choice of words, details, and syntax. (e.g. The words “I don’t think so” convey uncertainty, while the shift in diction and syntax in the phrase “I think not” suggests certainty.)
It may be easier to understand tone as the attitude that the reader gets from the author's words. The easiest tone to recognize is humor. In describing tone, use adjectives: humorous, mysterious, creepy, flip, caustic
straight-forward, matter-of-fact, exciting, boring, etc.
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