Senior English Literary Devices

Note: This is partial list only. For more extensive lists, please go to the following sites:

For the BC Ministry of Education list of terms:

https://www.bced.gov.bc.ca/exams/specs/grade12/en/14_literary_terms.pdf

For the terms and definitions:

http://www.eop.sd83.bc.ca/English12/Terms%20to%20Know.pdf

For detailed examples:

http://literarydevices.net/paradox/

Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds; e.g. “scuttling across the floors of silent seas” from

the Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.

Allusion: indirect or passing reference to a person, place, or event; can be biblical, mythological,

historical, literary, artistic, etc.; the nature of the reference is not explained because the author relies on

the reader's familiarity with it; e.g. “Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour/England hath need of

thee” from London, 1802 by William Wordsworth.

Apostrophe - the addressing of words to an absent person as if he or she were not present or to a thing

or ideas as if it could understand and appreciate the words. "Twinkle, twinkle, little star/How I wonder

what you are" from The Star by Jane Taylor is an example.

Assonance: repetition of similar or identical vowel sounds (a, e, i, o, u) in a line or a series of lines in a

poem; e.g. “Hear the mellow wedding bells, Golden bells!” from The Bells by Edgar Allen Poe.

Atmosphere: the mood or feeling of a poem; described with an adjective (e.g. happy, sad, eerie,

nostalgic, etc.)

Ballad: a poem that tells a story (narrative), often in a straightforward and dramatic manner and often

about such universal themes as love, honour, and courage; ballads were once songs, and literary ballads

often have a strong rhythm and plain rhyme schemes of songs; the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by

Samuel Taylor Coleridge is an example of a literary ballad.

Ballad Stanza: generally found as a quatrain, or four-line stanza, within a ballad.

Blank Verse: lines in poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter (light beat followed by a heavy

beat, five times per line); of all the English verse forms, it is the most fluid and comes the closest to the

natural rhythms of English speech; e.g. “with some uncertain notice, as might seem/of vagrant dwellers

in the houseless woods” from Tintern Abbey by William Wordsworth.

Cacophony: the use of harsh or unmusical sounds, like truncheon and cataract.

Chorus: a part of a poem that is repeated

Consonance: repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words; alliteration is a form of

consonance; e.g. “Now the water's low. The weeds exceed me” from Praise to the End by Theodore

Roethke.

Couplet: two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme; e.g. “then brook abridgment, and your eyes

advance/after your thoughts, straight back to France” from King Henry V by William Shakespeare.

Dissonance: harsh sound; can be emotional or intellectual; e.g. “thy ponderous side-bars, parallel and

connecting rods, gyrating, shuttling at thy sides” from To a Locomotive in Winter by Walt Whitman.

Elegy: a poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual; A Grammarian's Funeral by

Robert Browning and Elegy by Dylan Thomas are examples of elegy poems.

Epic: a long poem, often about a heroic character; the writing is elevated and often represents religious

and cultural ideals; Beowulf and the Odyssey of Homer are examples of epics.

Euphemism: the use of a mild or indirect expression instead of one that is harsh or unpleasantly direct.

"Pass away" is a common euphemism for "die"; "I'm not fond of her" is an euphemism for "I hate her".

Euphony: sounds pleasing to the ear; To Autumn by John Keats employs euphony.

Extended Metaphor: a metaphor that is extended throughout most of or all of a poem; Shakespeare's

Sonnet 18 “Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?” is an example of an extended metaphor as a

person is compared to a summer day throughout the whole poem.

Free Verse: a type of poem with no discernible or set rhythm, rhyme, or rules; can be rhymed or

unrhymed, but where there are rhymes they are usually irregular and may not occur at the end of lines.

The poem Apocalypse by D. J. Enright is a free verse poem.

Hyperbole: a figure of speech that uses deliberate exaggeration for effect; e.g. “An hundred years

should go to praise/Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze” from To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvel.

Image: a word or series of words that refers to a sensory experience

Imagery: words or phrases that create pictures or images in the reader's mind, through an appeal to the

five senses; e.g. “the apparition of these of these faces in the crowd/petals on a wet, black bough” from

In a Station of a Metro by Ezra Pound.

Irony: when the actual meaning is the opposite of the stated meaning; can be serious or humorous;

often a technique used in narratives that indicates the writer's attitude to some element of the story; e.g.

The Unknown Citizen is an elegy celebrating the life of a citizen, yet the state does not know the citizen

at all.

Juxtaposition: the deliberate contrast of elements in a poem for effect. Some common elements that

are juxtaposed are light/dark, good/evil, love/hate, etc.

Lyric: short poem that expresses the private thoughts and emotions of the poet; originally they were

poems that were intended to be sung; retain their melodic and musical qualities; Sonnets, Odes, and

Elegies are examples of Lyrics.

Metaphor: a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two fundamentally dissimilar things;

e.g. “All the world's a stage/and all the men and women merely players” from As You Like It by

William Shakespeare is a metaphor.

Metonymy: figure of speech that replaces the name of one thing with the name of something closely

associated with it; e.g. using the phrase “the White House” to refer to the United States government.

Metre: a generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

Metrical Poetry: poetry written in regular, repeating rhythms; rhymes are also regular and are often

found at the end of lines.

Mood: the atmosphere of a poem; the way the poet orders the elements of the poem, like symbol and

imagery to create a dominant emotion or pattern of emotions

Motif: a recurring theme, idea, incident, image, symbol etc. found in poems.

Narrative: a poem that tells a story

Octave: an eight-line poem or stanza; can also refer to the first eight lines in an Italian (Petrarchian)

sonnet.

Ode: a poem expressing lofty emotion; often celebrate an event or are addressed to nature, a person,

place, or thing; e.g. Ode to a Grecian Urn by John Keats.

Onomatopoeia: words that imitate the sounds they refer to, such as buzz, bang, or hiss.

Oxymoron: a combination of two contradictory terms, usually expressed as a paradox, like living dead;

an oxymoron is like a metaphor that expresses some truth in words that cannot be understood literally.

Paradox: a statement in which there is an apparent contradiction which is actually true; often used to make

the reader think over an idea in an innovative way. Examples: a “wise fool”; “I can resist anything but

temptation” (Oscar Wilde).

Parallelism: making two or more lines of poetry similar in form to create a pattern and suggest

corresponding meaning between them.

Pastoral: a type of poem that deals in an idealized way with shepherds and rustic lives; e.g. The

Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe.

Personification: attributing human qualities to inanimate objects; e.g. “When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils” from I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud by William Wordsworth.

Pun: a humorous expression that depends on a double meaning, either between different senses of the

same word or between two similar sounding words; e.g. “Santa's helpers are sub-ordinate clauses.”

Quatrain: a stanza of four lines, usually with alternating rhymes.

Refrain: a word, line, phrase, or group of lines repeated regularly throughout the poem, usually at the

end of each stanza; e.g. And Death Shall Have No Dominion by Dylan Thomas.

Repetition: the act of repeating something that has already been written; used for emphasis.

Rhyme: the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear closely to one another in a

poem; e.g. “there's a girl who'll push but not shove/And she's desperate for her father's love from

Vicious Cabaret by Alan Moore.

Rhyme Scheme: the pattern of rhyme in a poem.

Sarcasm: the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.

Satire: a literary form of writing which uses humour to provoke change (usually socio-political).

Sestet: a six line poem or stanza; can also refer to the last six lines in an Italian (Petrarchian) sonnet.

Simile: a comparison between two things using like, as, or than; e.g. “my luve's like a red, red rose”

from A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns.

Sonnet: a lyric poem of fourteen lines in iambic pentameter; the English (Shakespearean) sonnet

traditionally consists of three quatrains and a couplet all written to a strict end rhyme scheme of abab

cdcd efef gg. The development of the poet's thoughts are also highly structured, with each quatrain

expressing a different point and the couplet being the resolution; see Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.

Stanza: a stanza is a segment within the formal pattern of a poem, can consist of any groupings of

numbers of lines, and is distinguished from other stanzas by clearly indicated divisions.

Style: a poet's characteristic way of writing determined by their choice of words (diction), the

arrangement of words n lines, and the relationship between the lines.

Synecdoche: when part of something is used to represent the whole, e.g. “many hands make light

work” where hands represent people.

Symbol: anything that stands for or represents something else other than itself; in poetry it is commonly

a word, object, place, or person that has some further significance associated with it; a common

example is a red rose representing love. Symbols can be universally recognized, like flags or corporate

logos, but they can also be more complicated and may suggest more than one meaning; e.g. snow can

symbolize goodness because of its cleanliness, but it can also symbolize cruelty because of its coldness.

Symbols are often contained in titles, in characters, places, classical, literary, and historical allusions,

and in images or motifs.

Symbolism: the use of symbols to represent ideas and create meaning in poems.

Theme: a general idea or insight about life in general the poet wishes to express in a poem.

Tone: a particular way of speaking or writing, but can also describe the general feeling of a piece of

work, or the attitude the poet takes to the subject of the poem; tone can include thoughtful, formal,

morose, tragic, or silly; tone can also be a complex mixture of attitudes; different tones can leave

readers with such varying emotions as pity, fear, horror, or humour.

Understatement: the presentation of something as being smaller, less good, or of less importance than

it really is; opposite of hyperbole.

Wit: the capacity for inventive thought and quick, keen understanding – often with the intent of

producing humorous responses; cleverness.