4/12/13 Claude
Literary Devices: Terms You Should Know (Fill in the definitions)
Alliteration
a grammatical term meaning two or more words in a row starting with the same sounds.
Example:
"Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary."
Allusion
An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.
The practice of making such references, esp. as an artistic device.
Example:
“Chocolate was her Achilles’ heel.”
Figurative Language
a distinction within some fields of language analysis.
Example: "Alright, the sky misses the sun at night."
Free Verse
Poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter.
Example:
After the Sea-Ship by Walt Whitman
After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;
Hyperbole
Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Example: "I am so hungry I could eat a horse."
Imagery
Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson was another poet who made use of imagery. See if you can get a clear picture of the summer night he describes in this poem Summer Night:
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,And slips into the bosom of the lake
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
Lyric
the word of a song.
Example:
James DeFord
Italian Sonnet by James DeFord, written in 1997:
Turn back the heart you've turned away
Give back your kissing breath
Leave not my love as you have left
The broken hearts of yesterday
But wait, be still, don't lose this way
Affection now, for what you guess
May be something more, could be less
Accept my love, live for today.
Metaphor
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
Example:
He has a heart of gold.
Mood
distinction of form or a particular set of inflectional forms of a verb to express whether the action or state it denotes is conceived as fact or in some other manner (as command, possibility, or wish)
Example:
Onomatopoeia
the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by orassociated with its referent.
Example: "On my first morning on the farm, I was awoken suddenly by the cock-a-doodle-do of the resident rooster."
Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side; a compressed paradox.
Example:
Paradox
a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possibletruth.
Example: "I can resist anything but temptation."
Personification
A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form, as in Hunger sat shivering on the road or Flowers danced about the lawn. Also called prosopopeia.
Example: "The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky."
Repetition
An instance of using a word, phrase, or clause more than once in a short passage--dwelling on a point.
Example:
O Captain! My Captain!, by Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Rhyme Scheme
a specific pattern used in a poem that determines which lines rhyme.
Example:
F is for Familiar... there is no place like home.
A is for always welcome, no matter how far you roam.
M is for memories, more cherished each day.
I is for inspiration given along the way.
L is for Love you feel each time you get together.
Y is for the years to come for family lasts forever.
The Grumpy Guy was feeling blue; the Grumpy Guy was glum;
The Grumpy Guy with baleful eye took Misery for a chum.
He hailed misfortunes as his pals, and murmured, "Let 'em come!"
It's fun to hold and cuddle them
It's fun to watch them grow
And to dress them up & show them off
To everyone you know
So it isn't hard to understand
How happy you must be
With darling little baby twins
Added to your family!
Rhythm
the measured flow of words and phrases in verse or prose as determined by the relation of long and short or stressed and unstressed syllables
Example:
Simile
A figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by like or as.
Example:
an arrangement of a certain number of lines, usually four or more, sometimes having a fixed length, meter,or rhyme scheme, forming a division of a poem.
Example:
I Love To Write Poems
(First Stanza)
I love to write
Day and night
What would my heart do
But cry, sigh and be blue
If I could not write
(Second Stanza)
Writing feels good
And I know it should
Who could have knew
That what I do
Is write, write, write
- Unknown Author
Symbol
an arbitrary or conventional sign used in writing or printing relating to a particular field to represent operations, quantities, elements, relations, or qualities
Example:
Excerpts from "More Poems"
by A. E. Housman
XXIII
Crossing alone the nighted ferry
With the one coin for fee,
Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,
Count you to find? Not me.
The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,
The true, sick-hearted slave,
Expect him not in the just city
And free land of the grave.
Charon's ferry is a symbol of the transition from life to death, or dying. The coin or obulus is a symbol of the price of life, which is dying. The river Lethe is a symbol of memory, or the loss of memory. The grave is a symbol of death.
Tone
a sound in terms of its quality, pitch, origin or power.
Example:
"Goddamn money. It always ends up making you blue as hell."
Understatement
the act or an instance of understating, or representing in a weak or restrained way that is not borne outby the facts: The journalist wrote that the earthquake had caused some damage. This turned out to be a massiveunderstatement of the devastation.
Example:
Literary Devices: Terms You Should Know (Fill in the definitions)
Alliteration
a grammatical term meaning two or more words in a row starting with the same sounds.
Example:
"Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered weak and weary."
Allusion
An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.
The practice of making such references, esp. as an artistic device.
Example:
“Chocolate was her Achilles’ heel.”
Figurative Language
a distinction within some fields of language analysis.
Example: "Alright, the sky misses the sun at night."
Free Verse
Poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter.
Example:
After the Sea-Ship by Walt Whitman
After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;
Hyperbole
Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Example: "I am so hungry I could eat a horse."
Imagery
- Visually descriptive or figurative language, esp. in a literary work: "Tennyson uses imagery to create a lyrical emotion".
- Visual images collectively: "computer-generated imagery".
Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson was another poet who made use of imagery. See if you can get a clear picture of the summer night he describes in this poem Summer Night:
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cypress in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font:
The firefly wakens: waken thou with me.
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danaë to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,And slips into the bosom of the lake
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
Lyric
the word of a song.
Example:
James DeFord
Italian Sonnet by James DeFord, written in 1997:
Turn back the heart you've turned away
Give back your kissing breath
Leave not my love as you have left
The broken hearts of yesterday
But wait, be still, don't lose this way
Affection now, for what you guess
May be something more, could be less
Accept my love, live for today.
Metaphor
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
Example:
He has a heart of gold.
Mood
distinction of form or a particular set of inflectional forms of a verb to express whether the action or state it denotes is conceived as fact or in some other manner (as command, possibility, or wish)
Example:
- Aggravated
- Amused
- Angry
- Annoyed
Onomatopoeia
the formation of a word, as cuckoo, meow, honk, or boom, by imitation of a sound made by orassociated with its referent.
Example: "On my first morning on the farm, I was awoken suddenly by the cock-a-doodle-do of the resident rooster."
Oxymoron
A figure of speech in which incongruous or seemingly contradictory terms appear side by side; a compressed paradox.
Example:
- Great Depression
- Jumbo shrimp
- Cruel to be kind
- Pain for pleasure
Paradox
a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possibletruth.
Example: "I can resist anything but temptation."
Personification
A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or abstractions are endowed with human qualities or are represented as possessing human form, as in Hunger sat shivering on the road or Flowers danced about the lawn. Also called prosopopeia.
Example: "The stars danced playfully in the moonlit sky."
Repetition
An instance of using a word, phrase, or clause more than once in a short passage--dwelling on a point.
Example:
O Captain! My Captain!, by Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Rhyme Scheme
a specific pattern used in a poem that determines which lines rhyme.
Example:
F is for Familiar... there is no place like home.
A is for always welcome, no matter how far you roam.
M is for memories, more cherished each day.
I is for inspiration given along the way.
L is for Love you feel each time you get together.
Y is for the years to come for family lasts forever.
The Grumpy Guy was feeling blue; the Grumpy Guy was glum;
The Grumpy Guy with baleful eye took Misery for a chum.
He hailed misfortunes as his pals, and murmured, "Let 'em come!"
It's fun to hold and cuddle them
It's fun to watch them grow
And to dress them up & show them off
To everyone you know
So it isn't hard to understand
How happy you must be
With darling little baby twins
Added to your family!
Rhythm
the measured flow of words and phrases in verse or prose as determined by the relation of long and short or stressed and unstressed syllables
Example:
- One, two,
Buckle my shoe.
Three, four,
Shut the door.They know the days of the month by memorizing:
Thirty days hath September,
April, June, and November....
They even pick up bits of history by remembering such simple rhymes as:
Columbus sailed the ocean blue
In fourteen-hundred-ninety-two
Simile
A figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by like or as.
Example:
- My love is like a red, red rose.
- You were as brave as a lion.
- They fought like cats and dogs.
an arrangement of a certain number of lines, usually four or more, sometimes having a fixed length, meter,or rhyme scheme, forming a division of a poem.
Example:
I Love To Write Poems
(First Stanza)
I love to write
Day and night
What would my heart do
But cry, sigh and be blue
If I could not write
(Second Stanza)
Writing feels good
And I know it should
Who could have knew
That what I do
Is write, write, write
- Unknown Author
Symbol
an arbitrary or conventional sign used in writing or printing relating to a particular field to represent operations, quantities, elements, relations, or qualities
Example:
Excerpts from "More Poems"
by A. E. Housman
XXIII
Crossing alone the nighted ferry
With the one coin for fee,
Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,
Count you to find? Not me.
The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,
The true, sick-hearted slave,
Expect him not in the just city
And free land of the grave.
Charon's ferry is a symbol of the transition from life to death, or dying. The coin or obulus is a symbol of the price of life, which is dying. The river Lethe is a symbol of memory, or the loss of memory. The grave is a symbol of death.
Tone
a sound in terms of its quality, pitch, origin or power.
Example:
"Goddamn money. It always ends up making you blue as hell."
Understatement
the act or an instance of understating, or representing in a weak or restrained way that is not borne outby the facts: The journalist wrote that the earthquake had caused some damage. This turned out to be a massiveunderstatement of the devastation.
Example:
- "It's a bit yellow" - while describing a very yellow canary.
- "There is some music by Beethoven in his Ninth Symphony" - while describing Beethoven's famous work.
- "The desert is sometimes dry and sandy" - While describing the driest desert in the world.