Ethos
In dramatic
literature, the moral element that determines a character's actions, rather
than thought or emotion.
Example:
"As a doctor, I am qualified
to tell you that this course of treatment will likely generate the best
results."
"The veterinarian says that an
Australian shepherd will be the perfect match for our active lifestyle."
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Eulogy
A speech or
piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, typically someone
who has just died.
Example:
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Credit: threewordphrase.com
Euphemism
A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one
considered to be too harsh
Example:
Break
wind instead of pass gas; kick the bucket instead of die
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Euphony
The use of phrases and words that have the quality of being
pleasing to the ear, through a harmonious combination of words.
Example: Ode to Autumn by John Keats
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing
sun;
Conspiring with him how to load
and bless
With fruit the vines
that round the thatch -eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d
cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit
with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the
hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set
budding more,
And still more, later flowers for
the bees,
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Expletive
Word or short phrase intended to emphasize surrounding words.
Commonly, expletives are set off by commas.
Example:
Upon my
recovery, too, I felt very… (Poe, 1843)
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Faulty parallelism
The failure to maintain a balance in grammatical forms wherein
similar grammatical forms receive dissimilar/unequal weight.
Example:
Paul
prefers the guitar to playing the saxophone.
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Flashback
Showing events to the reader, which have taken place before the
present time the narration is following or currently being unfolded in the
story.
Example:
Back in
the day when Sarah was a young girl…
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Flash-Forward (prolepsis)
the representation of a thing as existing before it actually
does or did so
Example:
He was a dead man when he entered .
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Foil
Person or thing that makes another seem better by contrast.
Example:
a brave
policewoman foiled the armed robbery.
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Foreshadow
be a warning or indication of a future event
Example:
Romeo
says, that he would rather have her love and die sooner than not obtain her
love and die later. Eventually, he gets her love and dies for her love, too.
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Genre
A term used to describe a literary form.
Example:
Short
story, poem, essay, etc.
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Hamartia
Example:
In the
Lord of the Rings series of books, the ring is Frodo’s fatal flaw
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Hubris
Extreme pride and arrogance shown by a character that ultimately
brings about his downfall.
Example:
Yes! I
have rid this country of evil. All by myself!
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Hyperbaton
The inversion in the
arrangement of common words.
Example:
Some
rise by sin, and some by virtue fall…. (Shakespeare)
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Hyperbole
A striking exaggeration.
Example:
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Idiom
A set
expression or a phrase that is not interpreted literally.
Example:
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Imagery
Sensory details in a work to evoke a feeling, call to mind an
idea, or describe an object. Imagery involves any or all of the five senses.
Example:
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Inductive
Conclusion or type of reasoning whereby observation or
information about a part is applied to the whole.
Example:
Robert
is a teacher. All teachers are nice. Therefore, it can be assumed that Robert
is nice.
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Innuendo
An indirect or subtle observation about a thing or person that
is usually showing a critical or disrespectful attitude in nature.
Example:
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In Media Res
Opening a story in the middle of the action, requiring filling
in past details by exposition or flash back.
Example: The opening scene of movie
Premium Rush shows the character falling out of his bike.
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Internal rhyme
Metrical lines in which its middle words and its end words
rhymes with each other.
Example: Dr. Seuss’s Green eggs and ham
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Invective
Use of angry and insulting language in satirical writing.
Example:
I'd ram them down your ungrateful
throat. (Pygmalion, 1912)
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Invocation
An address to a deity or muse that often takes the form of a
request for help in composing the poem at hand.
Example: Can be seen in the first
paragraph of Odyssey
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the
man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had
plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of men he saw and learned
their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to
save his life and bring his comrades home. But he could not save them from
disaster, hard as he strove- the recklessness of their own ways destroyed
them all, the blind fools, they devoured the cattle of the Sun and the Sungod
blotted out the day of their return. Launch out on his story, Muse, daughter
of Zeus, start from where you will - sing for our time too.
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Irony: dramatic
A contrast between reality and a character’s intention or
ideals.
Example:
·
Two people are engaged to be
married but the audience knows that the man is planning to run away with
another woman.
· In a scary movie, the character walks into a house and the
audience knows the killer is in the house.
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Irony: poetic
A distance between what is said and what is meant. Based on the
context, the reader is able to see the implied meaning in spite of the
contradiction.
Example: In the Greek
drana “Oedipus Rex” written by Sophocles,
“Upon the murderer I invoke this
curse – whether he is one man and all unknown,
Or one of many –
may he wear out his life in misery to miserable doom!
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Isocolon
Parallel structure in which the parallel elements are similar
not only in grammatical structure, but also in length.
Example:
"I'm a Pepper, he's a Pepper, she's a Pepper, we're a
Pepper--
Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper, too? Dr. Pepper!"
(advertising
jingle for Dr. Pepper soft drink)
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Juxtaposition
Placing of two items side by side to create a certain effect,
reveal an attitude, or accomplish some other purpose.
Example:
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Credit: aisforeducation.pressible.org
Kennings
A figurative compound word that takes the place of an ordinary
noun. It is found frequently in Old Germanic, Norse, and English poetry
Example:
Bookworm = someone who reads a lot
Four-eyes = someone who wears
glasses
Tree hugger = an environmentalist
First Lady = wife of the president
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Litotes
A deliberate understatement for effect; the opposite of
hyperbole. [meiosis]
Example:
litotesexamples.com
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Logos
A statement, sentence or argument used to convince or persuade
the targeted audience by employing reason or logic.
Example:
"Ladies and gentlemen of the
jury: we have not only the fingerprints, the lack of an alibi, a clear
motive, and an expressed desire to commit the robbery… We also have video of
the suspect breaking in. The case could not be more open and shut."
"You don’t need to jump off a
bridge to know that it’s a bad idea. Why then would you need to try drugs to
know if they’re damaging? That’s plain nonsense."
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Malapropism
Misusing words by substituting words with similar sounding words
that have different, often unconnected meanings for a humorous effect.
Example:
Everybody in the company has their
own cuticle. (cubicle)
Flying saucers are just an optical
conclusion. (illusion)
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Metonymy
Misusing words by substituting words with similar sounding words
that have different, often unconnected meanings for a humorous effect.
Example:
Pen - for the
written word
Sword - for military might
Hand - for help
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Mood
A literary element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in
readers through words and descriptions.
Example:
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Motif
A central or recurring image or action in a literary work that
is shared by other works and may serve an overall theme.
Example: In the novel “The Great
Gatsby” the green light is the motif.
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Negative capability
The power to bury self-consciousness, dwell in a state of
openness to all experience, and identify with the object contemplated.
Example:
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Nemesis
A situation where the good characters are rewarded for their
virtues and the evil characters are punished for their vices. [poetic
justice]
Example: One of the poem of John Keat.
Keats hears a nightingale singing in
his garden - on Hampstead Heath, London, in 1819.
The song of the nightingale then makes
Keats think about all the other places that people have listened to nightingales,
and what their song has meant. He finds himself daydreaming about ancient
Greece, and then about the magical world that the nightingale's song has led
many poets to.
Then he realises: he isn't in a
magical world. He is standing outside a house in London in 1819.
Or is he? If Keats wasn't in that
magic world which just seemed so real to him, then who was?
The poem ends with the question:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music: - Do I wake or
sleep?
Keats wants us to understand that the
magic in life is just as real as the reality; and that the reality in life is
just as magical as the magic.
Keats asks 'Am I awake - in London in
1819 - or asleep - in the magical world where the nightingale song just took
me?'
You don't answer the question. You
accept that both possible answers are equally true.
This is a Negative Capability at work.
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Neologism
A newly coined word.
Example:
BFF: Stands for
best friends forever. Used to state how close you are to another individual.
Troll:
An individual who posts inflammatory, rude, and obnoxious comments to an
online community.
App: Software application
for a smartphone or tablet computer.
Bootylicious: A woman who is sexually attractive
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Non Sequitur
Statements that do not follow the fundamental principles of
logic and reason.
Example:
“All humans have bones. Crocodiles
have bones. Therefore, crocodiles are humans”
Mrs. Smith:
There, it’s nine o’ clock; we have drunk the soup, and eaten the fish and
chips and the English salad… That’s because we live in the suburbs of London
and because our name is smith.
Mr. Smith:
(continues to read and clicks his tongue)
Mrs. Smith:
Potatoes are very good, fried in fat: the salad oil was not rancid… However,
I prefer not to tell them that their oil is bad.
Mr. Smith:
(continues to read and clicks his tongue)
Mrs. Smith:
However, the oil from the grocer at the corner is till the best.
Mr. Smith: Mr.
Smith: (continues to read and clicks his tongue)
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Onomatopoeia
The sound of a word imitates its sense.
Example:
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Oxymoronic
Bringing together contradictory words for effect.
Example:
· Jumbo shrimp
· Definitely maybe
· Walking dead
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Palindrome
A word, phrase, or sentence that reads the same backward and
forward.
Example:
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Paradox
A seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that
illuminates a truth.
Example:
•
"I can resist anything
but temptation."-Oscar Wilde
•
I'm a compulsive liar- am I
lying when I say that?
•
Men work together whether
they work together or apart. - Robert Frost
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Parallelism
The use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the
same; or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter.
Example:
Like father, like son.
Nancy read a book while Joe watched
television.
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Parody
A comic imitation of another author’s work or characteristic
style.
Example: Starving games is a parody to
the movie “ The Hunger Games”
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Pastiche
A patchwork of lines or passages from another writer (or
writers), intended as a kind of imitation designed not to mock, but honor.
Example: Dave McClure’s poem “The Traveler” is a comical
imitation written after Edgar Alan Poe’s poem “The Raven”.
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Pathetic fallacy
The relationship between the poet’s emotional state and what he
or she sees in the object or objects.
Example: In Shakespeare’s play “
Macbeth”
“The night has been unruly. Where
we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’
th’ air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of
dire combustion and confused events
New hatched to the woeful time. The
obscure bird
Clamored the livelong night. Some say the Earth
Was feverous and
did shake.”
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Pathos
An experience in life or a work of art that stirs up emotions of
pity, sympathy and sorrow.
Example:
•
"If we don’t move soon,
we’re all going to die! Can’t you see how dangerous it would be to
stay?"
•
"I’m not just invested
in this community – I love every building, every business, every hard-working
member of this town."
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Persona
The voice or figure of the author who tells the story.
Example:
Higgins in the
play “Pygmalion” personifies the author George Bernard Shaw
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Personification
A description of an abstraction, a thing, or a nonhuman form as
if it were a person.
Example:
•
The stars danced playfully in
the moonlit sky.
•
The run down house appeared
depressed.
The first rays of morning tiptoed
through the meadow.
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Perspective
The view of the character (or author) of the situation or events
in the story.
Example:
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Plot
The events that make up a story or the main part of a story.
These events relate to each other in a pattern or a sequence.
Example:
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Credit: waxebb.com
Poetic diction
The vocabulary, phrasing, and grammatical usage deemed
appropriate to verse as well as the deviations allowable for effect within
it.
Example: Keats in his “Ode to the Grecian Urn” uses formal
diction to achieve a certain effect.
“Heard melodies are sweet, but
those unheard
Are sweeter: therefore, ye soft
pipes, play on”
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Poetic license
A poet’s departure from the rules of grammar, syntax, and
vocabulary in order to maintain a metrical or rhyme scheme.
Example: the book An Introduction to Poetry (2) notes that you might see a
poet using unusual word order or use auxiliary verbs such as "did"
or "do" when we normally wouldn't as in this line from "The
Ancient Mariner"
They all the day did lie
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Point of View
View the reader gets of the action and characters in a story.
Example:
First,
second, or third person
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Polysndeton
Using several coordinating conjunctions in succession in order
to achieve an artistic effect.
Example:
“And Joshua, and all of Israel with
him, took Achan the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the
wedge of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and his asses,
and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he had.” (The Bible)
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Portmanteau
Joining two or more words together to coin a new word.
Example:
•
web + log = blog
•
iPod + broadcasting =
podcasting
•
motor + hotel = motel
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Prologue
An opening of a story that establishes the setting and gives
background details.
Example: A prologue from “Romeo and
Juliet”
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Propaganda
Information, ideas, or rumors deliberately spread widely to help
or harm a person, group, movement, institution, nation, etc...
Example:
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Credit: theallstate.org
Prose
A form of language that
has no formal metrical structure.
Example: “Stopping
by Woods on a Snowy Evening” written by Robert Frost.
“The woods are
lovely, dark and deep.
But I have
promises to keep,
And miles to go
before I sleep,
And miles to go
before I sleep.”
Prose Form
“The woods look lovely against the
setting darkness and as I gaze into the mysterious depths of the forest, I
feel like lingering here longer. However, I have pending appointments
to keep and much distance to cover before I settle in for the night or else I
will be late for all of them.”
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Prosody
The principles of metrical structure in poetry. [meter]
Example:
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Protagonist
Chief character in a work of literature.
Example: Alice is the protagonist in
the movie “Alice in wonderland”
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Pun
Wordplay that uses homonyms (two different words that are
spelled identically) to deliver two or more meanings at the same time.
Example:
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Credit: viralcircus.com
Realism
Literary practice of attempting to describe life and nature
without idealization and with attention to detail.
Example:
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Rhetorical question
Questions asked that do not expect to be answered.
Example:
"If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice?"
(Billy Corgan)
Is the pope catholic?
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Sarcasm
A sharp caustic remark. A form of verbal irony in which apparent
praise is actually bitterly or harshly critical.
Example:
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Credits: instructables.com
Satire
A literary style making fun of or ridicule an idea, vice or
weakness.
Example:
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Credits: skeptikai.com
Setting
The time, place and mood of the events of the story. It
establishes where and when and under what circumstances the story is taking
place.
Example:
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Spoonerism
Interchanging the first letters of some words in order to create
new words or even to create nonsensical words in order to create a humorous
setting.
Example:
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Stanza
A a division of four or more lines having a fixed length, meter
or rhyming scheme.
Example:
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Credits: 1.bp.blogspot.com
Stream of consciousness
A method of narration that describes in words the flow of
thoughts in the minds of the characters.
Example: James
Joyce successfully employs the narrative mode in his novel “Ulysses” which
describes the day in life of a middle-aged Jew, Mr. Leopold Broom, living in
Dublin, Ireland.
“He is young Leopold, as in a
retrospective arrangement, a mirror within a mirror (hey, presto!), he
beholdeth himself. That young figure of then is seen, precious manly, walking
on a nipping morning from the old house in Clambrassil to the high school,
his book satchel on him bandolier wise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten
loaf, a mother’s thought.”
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Sublime
A lofty, ennobling
seriousness as the main characteristic of certain poetry.
Example:
Mozart’s piano concertos
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Syllepsis
Using a single verb for more than one part in a sentence but
where the single verb applies grammatically and logically to only one.
Example:
• "When I address Fred I never have to raise either my
voice or my hopes."
(E.B. White, "Dog Training")
• "Vegetarianism is harmless enough, though it is apt to
fill a man with wind and self-righteousness."
(Robert Hutchinson,
address to the British Medical Association, 1930)
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Syllogism
Deduction using subtle, sophisticated, or deceptive argument.
Example:
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Credits: grammar.about.com
Symbol
Something in the world of the senses, including an action, that
reveals or is a sign for something else, often abstract or otherworldly.
Example:
Roses stand for romance.
White stands for life and purity.
A chain can symbolize the coming
together of two things.
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Syncope
The contraction or the shortening of a word by omitting sounds,
syllables or letters form the middle of the word.
Example:
• AS'N: ASSOCIATION
• BO'S'N: BOATSWAIN
• 'COS: BECAUSE
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Synecdoche
A part of something stands for the whole.
Example:
•
The phrase “gray beard”
refers to an old man.
•
The word “sails” refers to a
whole ship.
•
The word “suits” refers to
businessmen.
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Synesthesia
A blending or intermingling of different senses in description.
Example: From James Joyce's Ulysses (1922).
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Syntax
Way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and
sentences. It is sentence structure and how it influences the way a text is
perceived.
Example:
• “Why is it men are permitted to be obsessed about their work,
but women are only permitted to be obsessed about men?” - Barbra Streisand
• “Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you
doing for others?'” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Tautology
A statement redundant in itself. [pleonasm]
Example:
• “Shout It Out Loud!” – Kiss
• “This is like deja vu all over again” (Yogi Berra)
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Theme
The central or dominant idea or concern of a work.
Example:
• Love is the theme for Romeo and Juliet by William
Shakespeare
• War is the theme for Gone
with the wind by Ernest Hemingway
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Thesis
Focus statement of an essay; premise statement upon which the
point of view or discussion in the essay is based.
Example: The thesis from the play
“Pygmalion”
The difference between a lady
and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she's treated.
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Tone
A attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience.
Example:
Father: “We are
going on a vacation.”
Son: “That’s
great!!!”
-
The tone of son’s response is
very cheerful.
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Tragedy
A drama that presents a serious subject matter about human
suffering and corresponding terrible events which is treated in a dignified
manner.
Example:
-
Halmet
-
Othello
-
Macbeth
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Transition words
Words and devices that bring unity and coherence to writing.
Example:
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Ubi sunt
Posing a series of questions about the fate of the strong,
beautiful, or virtuous, meditating on the nature of life and inevitability of
death.
Example:
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Utopia
An imaginary place of ideal perfection.
Example:
Credits: austincoppock.com
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Verisimilitude
A likeness to the truth, a resemblance of a fictitious work to
the real event even if it is a far-fetched one.
Example: Amy Lowell in her poem “Night Clouds” constructs an analogy between clouds
and mares. She compares the movement of the white clouds in the sky at night
with the movement of white mares on the ground. Such comparisons give her
far-fetched ideas an air of reality.
“The white mares
of the moon rush along the sky
Beating their golden hoofs upon the glass
Heavens.”
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Verse
Lines limited by meter or rhyme.
Example: The prologue of “ Rome and
Juliet”
"Two households, both alike in
dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our
scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands
unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these
two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take
their life;
Whose misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their
parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their
death-mark'd love,
And the continuance of their parents'
rage,
Which, but their children's end,
nought could remove,
Is now the two hours' traffic of our
stage;
The which if you with patient ears
attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall
strive to mend."ack
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Voice
Acknowledged or unacknowledged source of words of a story.
Example:
In the play
Pygmalion, Professor Higgins is the voice of George B. S.
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Volta
The turn of thought or argument.
Example: Wordsworth’s 'London, 1802'
Milton! thou
shouldst be living at this hour:
England hath
need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant
waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Fireside, the
heroic wealth of hall and bower,
Have forfeited
their ancient English dower
Of inward
happiness. We are selfish men;
Oh! raise us
up, return to us again;
And give us
manners, virtue, freedom, power.
Thy soul
was like a Star, and dwelt apart;
Thou hadst a
voice whose sound was like the sea:
Pure as the
naked heavens, majestic, free,
So didst thou
travel on life's common way,
In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart
The lowliest
duties on herself did lay.
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Zeugma
Where one verb or preposition joins two objects within the same
phrase, often different meanings.
Example:
•
“Friends, Romans, countrymen,
lend me your ears.”
(William Shakespeare, Julius
Caesar)
•
“We were partners, not soul
mates, two separate people who happened to be sharing a menu and a life.”
(Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret
Senses)
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Labels: literary devices, part 2, written by Catharina
