Literary Devices

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in which the same first consonant sound is repeated in several words Examples: Common in tongue twisters (Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked? ASSONANCE The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating the consonants : vowel rhyme. Examples: Chips and dips (vowel i)/ "And Shout into the ridges of the wind" ONOMATOPOEIA A literary device where words mimic the actual sounds we hear Examples: Boom/ Meow/ Splash/ Gulp/ Beep... III- DRAMATISATION 2 RHETORICAL QUESTION A question asked just for the effect, or to emphasize some point being discussed. No real answer is expected. Example: In Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare: "What's Montague? It is nor hand nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O be some other name. What's in a name ?" PUN A play on words that produces a humorous effect by using a word that suggest two or more meanings. Examples: She had a photographic memory, but she didn't develop it/" OMG, I've been bitten by a wolf" "Oh, where ?" "No, the normal kind" (dur à comprendre celle-là, faut prendre son temps) APOPHASIS Mentioning something while denying it, or denying that it should be mentioned. It helps create irony. Also call "denial" or "omission" Examples: " I won't mention your bad grammar" / Donald Trump tweet about a journalist, 2016: "I refuse to call her a bimbo, because that would not be politically correct" IV-AMPLIFICATION ANAPHORA The deliberate repetition of the first part of a sentence to achieve an artistic effect Examples: I have a Dream, Martin Luther.K: "Let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania” 3 ACCUMULATION A list of words which have similar abstract or physical qualities or meanings Examples: "Itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny yellow polka-dot bikini" / "The sun rises and the sun sets, and rushes back again to the place from which it rises. The wind blows south, the returns to the north, round and round goes the wind, on its round it circulates” GRADATION An ascending series of words or phrases in which intensity or significance increases step by step. Examples: "At the restaurant, I sat, ordered, ate, paid." / "On earth, in smoke, in dust, in shadow, in nothing" (Luis de Gongora, spanish poet) PARALLELISM Parts of the sentence are grammatically the same, or are similar in construction. Examples: "Veni, Vidi, Vici" : I came, I saw, I conquered. / "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" Neil Armstrong. HYPERBOLE Deliberate exaggeration of a person, thing, quality, event to emphasize a point or for rhetorical effect. Examples: Cry me a river/ "The skin on her face was as thin and drawn as tight the skin of onion and her eyes were gray and sharp like the points of two picks" Parker's Back, Flannery O'Connor. EUPHEMISM Using an innocuous, appropriate expression or word, instead of one that is/ may be found inappropriate, offensive. 4 Examples: "Passed away" instead of "died"/ "Don't ever call me mad, Mycroft. I'm not mad. I'm just...well, differently moraled, that's all" in The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde. LITOTES A form of understatement by using negation to express the contrary meaning Examples: "This food is not bad" meaning the food is the opposite of bad, which is good. / In Aladdin, when they say: "This is no ordinary lamp" what they mean is that it's a magical lamp. IRONY Uses of words to express something that is the opposite of the literal meaning. There is a contrast between expectation and reality. ( 3 types of irony: verbal, dramatic or situational) Examples: If it's raining, gloomy and you say "Yay! Great weather", you're using irony (verbal) / If a fire station were to burn down, this would be a situational irony... V-OPPOSITION ANTIPHRASIS The use words or phrases to convey the opposite sense of their real meanings, which creates irony or a comic effect. Examples: "Take your time, we've got all day" meaning we don't really have all day, you need to hurry up. / "He's only a child; 60 years old after all!" ANTITHESIS Two contrasting/ opposing ideas are intentionally juxtaposed in adjacent phrases or sentences Examples: Keep your mouth closed and your eyes open / A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times". 5 CHIASMUS A two-part sentence or phrase where the second part is a mirror structure of the first Examples: "And these tend inward to me, and I tend to outward to them" (Walt Whitman, Song of Myself) / "Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate" (John.F. Kennedy) OXYMORON A two-word paradox. Two words with contradictory meanings are joined. Examples: "Awfully good"/ "Silent Scream"/ "Hateful Love" 6