“Literary Lenses”

The Literary Devices

Alliteration the repetition of usually initial consonant

sounds in two or more neighboring words or syllables (as wild and woolly, threatening throngs) —called also initial rhyme

Allusion• an implied or indirect reference especially in

literature; also : the use of such references

• the act of alluding to or hinting at something

Ex: The lyrics contain biblical allusions.

Apostrophe• the addressing of a usually absent person or a

usually personified thing rhetorically • Ex:“O Liberty, what things are done in thy

name!” is an example of apostrophe

Anaphora“Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice”

~Robert Frost

“I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain” ~Robert Frost

Aside• an utterance meant to be inaudible to

someone; especially : an actor's speech heard by the audience but supposedly not by other characters

Assonance• repetition of vowels without repetition of

consonants Ex: (as in stony and holy)

Catalogue• A list

Conceit • An extended comparison involving unlikely

metaphors, similes, imagery, hyperbole, and oxymora.

• One of the most famous conceits is John Donne's "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," a poem in which Donne compares two souls in love to the points on a geometer's compass.

• Shakespeare also uses conceits regularly in his poetry.

Consonance• recurrence or repetition of consonants

especially at the end of stressed syllables without the similar correspondence of vowels Ex: (as in the final sounds of “stroke” and “luck”)

Dramatic Irony• in literature, a plot device in which the audience’s

or reader’s knowledge of events or individuals surpasses that of the characters. The words and actions of the characters therefore take on a different meaning for the audience or reader than they have for the play’s characters. This may happen when, for example, a character reacts in an inappropriate or foolish way or when a character lacks self-awareness and thus acts under false assumptions.

Epistrophe“The moth and the fish eggs are in their place,The bright suns I see and the dark suns I cannot see are in

their place,The palpable is in its place and the impalpable is in its

place.” ~Walt Whitman

“But the olives were not blind to Him,The little gray leaves were kind to Him:The thorn-tree had a mind to HimWhen into the woods He came.” ~Sidney Lanier

Foreshadowing• to represent, indicate, or typify beforehand; a

hint of what is to come in the story

Imagery• Word or phrases that appeal to the five senses

Metaphor• a figure of speech in which a word or phrase

literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them; does not use like or as

Ex:“He was drowning in paperwork” is a metaphor in which having to deal with a lot of paperwork is being compared to drowning in an ocean of water.

Simile: Sam is as hungry as a bear.Metaphor: When Sam is hungry, he’s a real bear.

Onomatopoeia• the naming of a thing or action by a vocal

imitation of the sound associated with it Ex: buzz, hiss

Oxymoron• a combination of contradictory or incongruous

words • Ex: cruel kindness

Parallelism• Similarity of structure in a pair or series of

related words, phrases, or clauses. Also called parallel structure.

• “O well for the fisherman's boy,That he shouts with his sister at play!O well for the sailor lad,That he sings in his boat on the bay!"(Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Break, Break, Break," 1842)

Personification representation of a thing or abstraction as a

person or by the human form Ex: The curtains batted their eyelashes.

Pun• Pun (also called paronomasia) - a play on words or the

humorous use of a word emphasizing a different meaning or application. They have been called by some “the lowest form of humor.”

• The term comes from combining two Greek words: para, meaning “beside,” and onomasia, meaning “naming.”

• There is a famous pun uttered by Mercutio as he is dying in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

SimileA figure of speech in which two fundamentally

unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by like or as

Ex: She was as white as snow

Sonnet• A 14-line verse form usually having one of

several conventional rhyme schemes, ends with a couplet

• Ex: The Prologue in Romeo and Juliet

Soliloquy• A soliloquy is a speech in which a character;

alone on stage, expresses his or her thoughts to the audience.

Monologue• Similar to a soliloquy is a monologue, which is

a lengthy speech. Unlike a soliloquy, however, a monologue is addressed to other characters, not to the audience.

•

Verbal Irony• A contradiction of expectation between what

is said and what is meant Verbal irony is implied and refers to spoken words only

EX: Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare"Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;And Brutus is an honourable man".

Mark Antony really means that Brutus is dishonourable