Scarlet Letter Literary Terms

allusion

• Reference to another work of literature, history, religion, etc.

Extended metaphor

• Metaphor (comparison between two unlike things) that is carried on over several lines of poetry, or throughout a work of fiction.

Affective fallacy

• A proposition in literary criticism that a a work should be analyzed and described in terms of its own internal structure and not in terms of the emotional response of the reader.

Pathetic fallacy

• the endowment of nature, inanimate objects, etc., with human traits and feelings.

allegory

• A narrative that has a second meaning beneath the surface, often relating each literal term to a fixed, corresponding abstract idea or moral principle.

anachronism

• Something or someone that is not correct in its historical context.

mondegreen

• Word or phrase that is misinterpreted as another, usually with amusing results.

malapropism

• Misuse of words

zeugma

• Use of a word to modify 2 or more words when it is appropriate to only one, or appropriate to each, but in a different way.

litotes

• Understatement; especially when expressing an affirmative by the negative of its contrary. “not bad at all.”