Literary Terms

Literary Terms

·         Allegory

1.      The term loosely describes any writing in verse or prose that has a double meaning. This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas, or events represent not only themselves on the literal level, but they also stand for something else on the symbolic level.

2.      Ex: The Dog and his Shadow - where the dog sees his reflection in a stream, and thinks the "other dog" has a larger piece of meat. He drops the one he's holding to grab it, and loses the meat in the water.

3.     

·         Archetype

1.       An original model or pattern from which other later copies are made, especially a character, an action, or situation that seems to represent common patterns of human life. Often, archetypes include a symbol, a theme, a setting, or a character that some critics think have a common meaning in an entire culture, or even the entire human race.

2.      Ex: He may be an excellent athlete, but his Achilles' heel is his strength, which is quite feeble for his stature and weight.

3.     

·         Anapest

1.      A foot or unit of poetry consisting of two light syllables followed by a single stressed syllable.

2.      Ex: understand, interrupt, comprehend, anapest, New Rochelle, contradict.

3.     

·         Blank Verse

1.      Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents.

2.      The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And, as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

3.     

·         Feminine Rhyme

1.      A feminine rhyme is a rhyme that matches two or more syllables, usually at the end of respective lines, in which the final syllable or syllables are unstressed.

2.      "'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the housing,

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mousing."

3.     

·         Heptameter

1.      A line consisting of seven metrical feet.

2.      Ex: 'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe,

All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.

O could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,

Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd scene,-

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,

So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me!

3.     

·         Heroic Couplet

1.      Two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. The second line is usually end-stopped. It was common practice to string long sequences of heroic couplets together in a pattern of aa, bb, cc, dd, ee, ff (and so on).

2.      Ex: O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull;

Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

3.     

·         Hyperbole

1.      The Use of Exaggeration of as a rhetorical device or figure of speech.

2.      Ex: It was like a hurricane outside, but in reality it was only drizzling.

3.     

·         Internal Rhyme

1.      A poetic device in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end of the same metrical line.

2.      Ex: I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

3.     

·         Litotes

1.      A form of meiosis(Understatement, the opposite of exaggeration) using a negative statement.

2.      Ex: I'm fine, even though I just got shot in my arm.

3.     

·         Metaphor

1.      A comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking.

2.      When we speak of "the ladder of success," we imply that being successful is much like climbing a ladder to a higher and better position.

3.     

·         Metonymn

1.      Using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to embody a more general idea. The term metonym also applies to the object itself used to suggest that more general idea.

2.      Ex: White House for President, Crown for King, Swag for David

3.     

·         Allusion

1.      A casual reference in literature to a person, place, event, or another passage of literature, often without explicit identification. Allusions can originate in mythology, biblical references, historical events, legends, geography, or earlier literary works.

2.      Ex: Eating is your Achilles' heel.

3.     

·         Iamb

1.       A unit or foot of poetry that consists of a lightly stressed syllable followed by a heavily stressed syllable.

2.      Ex: Inscribe, Circumspect

3.     

·         Caesura

1.      A pause separating phrases within lines of poetry.

2.      Ex: Beowulf

3.     

·         Imagery

1.      Using one of the five senses to evoke an image in the readers' mind.

2.      The sweet yet faint smell of cinnamons throughout the toll house was something that clung to the walls, and only tickled one's nose.