Terms for Literary Stylistics

Alliteration – A figure of speech in which the consonants, especially at the

beginning of words, or stressed syllables, are repeated. Tends to be used for
the achievement of the special effect.
Sally sells seashells by the sea shore.

Allusion - An allusion is when we hint at something and expect the

other person to understand what we are referencing. For example:
Chocolate is his Kryptonite. In the this example, the word “kryptonite”
alludes to, or hints at, the hero Superman.

Anecdote – A brief account of or a story about an individual or an incident.

For example, if a group of coworkers are discussing pets, and one
coworker tells a story about how her cat comes downstairs at only a
certain time of the night, then that one coworker has just told an
anecdote.

Allegory –a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a

hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
One of the most famous examples of allegory is Animal Farm, by
George Orwell.
Assonance – Sometimes called “vocalic rhyme”, it consists of the repetition
of similar vowel sounds, usually close together, to achieve a particular effect
of euphony.
Examples of assonance across words include: crying time; hop-
scotch; great flakes; between trees; and, the kind knight rides by.

Asyntactic –Grammar (of compounds) consisting of morphemes that

are combined differently from their mode of combination as separate
words in a phrase, as bookstore, which is an asyntactic compound,
while the same elements are combined syntactically in store for
books.

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 Cacophony – The opposite of euphony. Harsh sounds are used deliberately
by the writer, especially the poet, to achieve a particular effect.
dishes crashing on the floor, or horns blaring and people yelling in a
traffic accident.

Caesura – A break or pause in a line of poetry, dictated, usually, by the

natural rhythm of the language.
1. The headphone explodes, || breaking the mold

1. Chiasmus – a rhetorical or literary figure in which

words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order.
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going” is a simple example of this literary device.

Consonance – The close repetition of identical consonant sounds before and

after different vowels. Hickory dickory dock

Ellipsis – (Greek – “leaving out”) A figurative device where a word (or

several words) is left out in order to achieve more compact expression.
(Modern poets like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden use the device
frequently.) I want to go but I can't' instead of `I want to go but I can't go.

Emotive language – Language intended to express or arouse

emotional reactions towards the subject.
Adjectives - appalling, wonderful, magical, and tragic.
Abstract Nouns - freedom, pride, justice, love, and terror.
Empathy – the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. For example, you likely smile
and take the trouble to remember people's names: that's empathy in action.

Enjambement – Enjambment,is a poetic term for the continuation of a

sentence or phrase from one line of poetry to the next. T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land
(1922) April is the cruelest month, breeding. Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing.

Foot – A poetic foot is “a unit of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line

of poetry.” Poetic feet are based on the number of syllables in each
foot. Examples include amuse, portray, and return.

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Foreshadowing – The technique of arranging events and information in a
narrative in such a way that later events are prepared for or shadowed forth
beforehand. For example, if a character mentions offhandedly that bad things always happen to them in
autumn, then the observant reader will be alert when the leaves in the story begin to fall.

Free verse – Has no regular meter or line length and depends on natural
speech rhythms and the counterpoint of stressed and unstressed syllables. Or
poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular rhythm. William Carlos Williams's short poem “The Red
Wheelbarrow” is written in free verse.

Iambic pentameter – Denotes a line of five feet, arranged as unstressed,

followed by stressed syllables. (Shakes. Sonnet)

Illusion – The semblance of reality and verisimilitude in art which most

writers create in order to enable the reader to think that he is seeing, feeling,
hearing, tasting and smelling, or having some extra-sensory or kinesthetic
experience.

Imagery – As a general term covers the use of language to represent objects,

actions, feelings, thoughts, ideas, states of mind and any sensory or extra-
sensory experience. Many images are conveyed by figurative language.

Irony – Most forms of irony involve the perception or awareness of a

discrepancy or incongruity between words and their meanings, or between
actions and their results, or between appearance and reality. In all cases there
may be elements of the absurd or the paradoxical. The two basic kinds are
verbal (saying what one does not mean) and situational irony.

Metaphor – A figure of speech in which one thing is described in terms of

another. A comparison is usually implict.

Meter – (Greek: “Measure”) Refers to the pattern of stressed and unstressed

syllables in verse.

Onomatopoeia – (Greek: “Name-making”) The formation and use of words

to imitate sounds. Used for a special effect.

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Oxymoron – A figure of speech which combines incongruous and apparently
contradictory words and meanings for a special effect. Closely related to
antithesis and paradox.

Paradox – An apparently self-contradictory (even absurd) statement which,

on closer inspection is found to contain a truth reconciling the conflicting
opposites.

Parallelism – Common device in poetry, consisting of phrases or sentences

of similar construction and meaning placed side by side, balancing each
other. (See T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Walt Whitman, Beowulf, etc.)

Persona – (Latin: “Mask”) From it derives the term dramatis personae.

Denotes the “person” who speaks in a poem or novel or other form of
literature.

Personification – The impersonation or embodiment of some quality of

abstraction; the attribution of human qualities to inanimate objects. Appears
frequently, especially in poetry.

Pun – A figure of speech, which involves a play upon words. Gives rise to a
fairly universal form of humor.

Rhyme - Rhyme has two main functions: it echoes sounds and is thus a
source of aesthetic satisfaction, and rhyme assists in the actual structure of
verse.

Rhythm – In verse or prose, the movement or sense of movement

communicated by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables and by
the duration of the syllables. In verse the rhythm depends on the metrical
pattern.

Simile – A figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, ins such
a way as to clarify and enhance an image. It is an explicit comparison
recognized by the use of the words “like” or “as”.

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Soliloquy – A soliloquy is a speech, often of some length, in which a
character, alone on stage, expresses his thought and feelings. It is an accepted
dramatic convention of great importance. Shows a character’s intentions,
motives, feelings, etc.

Sonnet – A poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter with considerable

variation in rhyme scheme.

Stanza – A group of lines of verse. The stanza is the unit of structure in a

poem.

Symbol - Is an object, animate or inanimate, which represents or “stands

for” something else. Actions and gestures can be symbolic, too. A literary
symbol combines an image with a concept, and it may be universal or local.

Synonym – A word similar in meaning to another.

Verse – Three meanings: (a) a line of metrical writing; (b) a stanza; (c)
poetry in general.

Viewpoint – The position of the narrator in relation to his story; thus the
outlook from which the events are related. The omniscient: the author moves
from character to character, place to place, and episode to episode with
complete freedom, giving himself access to his characters’ thoughts and
feelings whenever he chooses and providing information whenever he
wishes. Third person limited: The author chooses a character and the story is
related in terms of that character in such a way that the field of vision
confined to him or her alone. First person narrative: here he story is told in
the first person by one of the characters.