Literary terms
Literary Terminology
STYLE: The manner of a literary work is its style, the effect of which is its tone. Below are concepts by which you can analyze stylistic features.
Figures of Speech
Alliteration: The repetition of an initial consonant sound or consonant cluster in consecutive or closely positioned words
Anaphora: The repetition of words or groups of words at the beginning of consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases
Assonance: The repetition of identical or near identical stressed vowel sounds in words whose final consonants differ, producing half rhymes.
Chiasmus: The inversion of an already established sequence. This can involve verbal echoes. (repetition of a word), or it can be a matter of syntactic inversion
Consonance: The repetition of final consonants in words or stressed syllables whose vowel sounds are different
Homophone: A word that sounds identical to another word but has a different meaning
Onomatopoeia: Verbal sounds that imitate and evoke the meanings they denote
Rhyme: The repetition of identical vowel sounds in stressed syllables whose initial consonants differ. Rhyme includes masculine and feminine forms, half rhyme, full rhyme, rhyme riche, off rhyme…
Figures of Thought/ Trope/ Conceit
Allegory: Saying one thing and meaning another. Allegories may be momentary aspects of a work as in a metaphor, or through an extended metaphor may constitute the basis of a narrative
Antithesis: Juxtaposition of opposed terms in clauses or sentences that are next to or near each other.
Emblem: A picture allegorically expressing a moral or a verbal picture open to such interpretation.
Euphemism: The figure by which something distasteful is described in alternative, less repugnant terms.
Hyperbole: Overstatement, Exaggeration
Irony: Saying one thing and meaning its opposite/ the opposite of what is stated.
Litotes: Understatement by denying the contrary
Metaphor: The identification or implicit identification of one thing with another
STYLE: The manner of a literary work is its style, the effect of which is its tone. Below are concepts by which you can analyze stylistic features.
Figures of Speech
Alliteration: The repetition of an initial consonant sound or consonant cluster in consecutive or closely positioned words
Anaphora: The repetition of words or groups of words at the beginning of consecutive sentences, clauses or phrases
Assonance: The repetition of identical or near identical stressed vowel sounds in words whose final consonants differ, producing half rhymes.
Chiasmus: The inversion of an already established sequence. This can involve verbal echoes. (repetition of a word), or it can be a matter of syntactic inversion
Consonance: The repetition of final consonants in words or stressed syllables whose vowel sounds are different
Homophone: A word that sounds identical to another word but has a different meaning
Onomatopoeia: Verbal sounds that imitate and evoke the meanings they denote
Rhyme: The repetition of identical vowel sounds in stressed syllables whose initial consonants differ. Rhyme includes masculine and feminine forms, half rhyme, full rhyme, rhyme riche, off rhyme…
Figures of Thought/ Trope/ Conceit
Allegory: Saying one thing and meaning another. Allegories may be momentary aspects of a work as in a metaphor, or through an extended metaphor may constitute the basis of a narrative
Antithesis: Juxtaposition of opposed terms in clauses or sentences that are next to or near each other.
Emblem: A picture allegorically expressing a moral or a verbal picture open to such interpretation.
Euphemism: The figure by which something distasteful is described in alternative, less repugnant terms.
Hyperbole: Overstatement, Exaggeration
Irony: Saying one thing and meaning its opposite/ the opposite of what is stated.
Litotes: Understatement by denying the contrary
Metaphor: The identification or implicit identification of one thing with another