Usad - Amy - Literary Devices

Front 1

Define "allegory."

Back 1

a narrative in which the characters, the action, and sometimes the setting itself are contrived not only to make sense in themselves, but also to signify a second meaning; a story told in symbols

Front 2

Define "allusion."

Back 2

a reference to an important event or person from the Bible, mythology, history, or literature.

Front 3

Define "anaphora."

Back 3

repetition of beginnings

ex. Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!

Front 4

Define "antithesis."

Back 4

opposite ideas, often sharpened and empahsized by parallel structure;

ex. Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

Front 5

Define "apostrophe."

Back 5

when a character addresses an absent or nonexistent person as if present and capable of understanding, or addresses some abstract quality as if it were alive and capable of understanding; (talking to things that aren't really there, or to things that can't talk back)

Front 6

Define "asyndeton."

Back 6

the omission of a conjunction--speeds up the passage;

ex. I came, I saw, I conquered.

Front 7

Define "ellipsis."

Back 7

omission;

ex. Everybody's friend is nobody's. (nobody's friend)

Front 8

Define "epanados."

Back 8

repetition in the opposite order;

ex. Fair is foul, and foul is fair.

Front 9

Define "hyperbole."

Back 9

a great exaggeration, used either for serious emphasis or for comic effect;

Front 10

Define "irony."

Back 10

saying one thing and meaning another

Front 11

Define "litotes."

Back 11

a special form of understatement, which is the assertion of an affirmative by negating its contrary;

ex. He's not the brightest man in the world.

Front 12

Define "metaphor."

Back 12

an implied comparison between two unlike items

Front 13

Define "oxymoron."

Back 13

a condensed paradox expressed by two contradictory terms, especially frequent in Petrarchan and Elizabethan love poetry;

ex. pleasing pains, loving hate, etc.

Front 14

Define "paradox."

Back 14

statement which at first seems untrue but proves valid upon colose inspection

Front 15

Define "personification."

Back 15

giving life, human attributes, or feelings to animals or to inanimate objects; something already human cannot be personified;

Front 16

Define "pun."

Back 16

a play on words

ex. It was a fowl act to steal my chickens.

Front 17

Define "simile."

Back 17

an expressed comparison between two distinctly different things, especially using "like" or "as";

Front 18

Define "symbol."

Back 18

words that refer to something which suggests a range of reference beyond itself;

Front 19

Define "synecdoche."

Back 19

a specific type of metonymy wherein a part is substituted for the whole or vice versa;

ex. head of cattle; he lent a hand;

Front 20

Define "alliteration."

Back 20

series of words beginning with the same sound

Front 21

Define "assonance."

Back 21

repetition of the same vowel sound(s)

Front 22

Define "blank verse."

Back 22

unrhymed iambic pentameter

Front 23

Define "consonance."

Back 23

repetition of consonant sounds; not limited to first consonant sounds like alliteration is;

Front 24

Define "free verse."

Back 24

neither regular meter nor rhyme