Essential Literary Terms
Alliteration: the repetition of sounds in nearby words or stressed syllables. Usually the term applies to consonants that appear at the beginnings of words: We/ Lurk late. We / Strike straight.
Assonance:the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in nearby words or stressed syllables: right / time, sad / fact, seven / elves.It differs from rhyme, in which both the vowels and the consonants of nearby words match.
Consonance:the repetition of consonant soundsin two or more successive words or stressed syllables that contain different vowel sounds: has / hid, wonder / wander, haven / heaven.
Rhyme:the repetition in two or more nearby words of the last stressed vowel and all the syllables that follow it. Rhyme may be used to create unity, link or contrast ideas, or rhyme may be used to lighten the tone, especially if the rhymes are exaggerated or ingenious.
Onomatopoeiaits most common definition is using a word or phrase that seems to imitate the sound it denotes: bang, creak, murmur, ding-dong, plop. The effect cannot come from the sound of the word alone: its meaning is involved as well. For example the words bank, creek, and plot, although similar in sound to those above are not onomatopoeic.
EXERCISEFor each of the following passages
- Name the predominant sound pattern: alliteration, assonance, consonance, or onomatopoeia
- Underline the letters or words that display that sound pattern
- Describe the effects of the sound pattern(s) on the meaning and the tone of the passage
- NOTE : Some passages may contain more than one sound pattern; in those cases, identify each kind and describe its effects
- He clasps the crags with crooked hands,
Close to the sun in lonely lands.
--- Tennyson, “The Eagle”
- A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match . . .
--- Robert Browning, “Meeting at Night”
- In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
--- Shakespeare, Sonnet 73
- The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys & girls raising their innocent hands.
--- William Blake, “Holy Thursday [1]”
- And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain
Thrilled me – filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before.
--- Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven”
Apostrophean address to a dead or absent person or to an inanimate object or abstract
concept: “Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour: / England hath need of thee.” In this example William Wordsworth bemoans the lack of spirituality in England. He calls on the author of Paradise Lostfor guidance.
Similea figure of thought in which one kind of thing is compared to a markedly different object, concept, or experience; the comparison is made explicit by the word “like” or “as”: “Jen’s room is like a pig sty.”
MetaphorIn a metaphor, a word or phrase that in literal use designates one kind of thing is applied to a conspicuouslydifferent object, concept, or experience, without exerting an explicit comparison. . In the last point, it differs from a simile. For example, In “Jen’s room is a pig sty,” the metaphorical word “sty” is applied to the literal subject, “room,” without using “like” or “as.”
Synecdochea figure of thought in which the term for part of something is used to represent the whole, or, less commonly, the term for the whole is used to represent the part. For example, manual laborers are called “blue-collar” workers; food needed for sustenance as “daily bread.”
Metonymysubstitutes the name of an entity with something else that is closely associated with it. For example, “the throne” is a metynomic synonym for “the king”; “Shakespeare” for the works of the playwright; “the Kremlin” for the ruling body of modern Russia.
Oxymoron a compressed paradox that closely links two seemingly contrary elements in a way that, on further consideration, turns out to make good sense. For example, “bittersweet,’ “a living death,” and “passive aggressive.”
Paradoxa statement that appears on the surface to be contradictory or impossible turns out to express an often striking truth. For example, the paradoxical slogan of the Bauhaus School of artand architecture, “Less is more,” suggests that spareness and selectivity are more important in achieving aesthetic beauty than expansiveness and inclusiveness.
Personification a figure of thought in which an abstract concept, animal, or inanimate object is treated as though it were alive or had human attributes. For example in Romeo and Juliet, Lord Capulet uses personification to express despair at finding Juliet supposedly dead on the morning of her wedding day: “Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir; / My daughter he has wedded.”
Puna figure of thought that plays on words that have the same sound (homonyms), or closely similar sounds, but have sharply contrasted meanings. For example, in Hamlet, when the prince answers his despised uncle’s public enquiry about his continued melancholy – “How is it that the clouds still hang on you?” with a pun: “Not so, my lord. I am too much in the sun.” Hamlet’s use of sun/son is both ingenious and ominous.