Literary devices – Notes
First set
Ambiguity: a word, phrase or statement which can be interpreted with more than one
meaning
Pun: a play on words, often achieved with homophonic, homographic, homonymic
words, or compound and recursive structures
Anaphora: the repetition of the first part of a sentence to achieve and artistic effect
Understatement: saying less than one means
Antithesis: a rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together in a
sentence for a contrasting effect
Apostrophe: an arrangement of words addressing a non-existent person or an abstract
idea in such a way as if it were present and capable of understanding feelings.
Appeal: to make a serious, urgent, or heartfelt request
Assonance/Consonance: repetition of vowel sounds/consonant sounds
Asyndeton/Polysyndeton: omission of conjunctions/use of conjunctions in close
succession
Atmosphere: emotional mood created by a literary work
Chiasmus: a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrase
Second set
Paradox: an apparently contradictory statement that contains some truth
Cacophony: loud or harsh sound
Euphony: an agreeable sound
Colloquialism: informal language; language that is “conversational”
Epiphany: a moment of sudden realization or insight point out turning point for
character
Enjambement: sentences being carried over from one line to the next without a pause
can either emphasize a point or create a dual meaning
Caesura: rhythmical pause in a line or sentence, usually in the middle of a line
Diction: a writer’s or speaker’s choice of words
Foil: a character with characteristics opposite to another character that are mean to
highlight those of the other character
Idiom: an accepted phrase or expression having a meaning different from the literal
help convey subtle messages
P.O.V: someone’s angle of considering things; tells us their opinion or feelings
can be: 1st person
2nd person
3rd person
Third set
Rhetorical question: a question that does not require an answer
Connotation and denotation: second meaning to a word; the actual definition of a
word
Metonymy: replacing a word with another hat has an associated meaning
Synecdoche: a part of something represents the whole
Characterization: step by step presentation of characters in a book
Epitaph: inscription on a tombstone in memory of the person
Flashback/flashforward: interruptions that writers do to insert past events in order to
provide background or context to the current events of a narrative
Juxtaposition: two or more ideas, places, characters or their actions are placed side by
side and compared
Parallelism: the use of components in a sentence that are grammatically the same; or
similar in their construction, sound, meaning, or meter.
Wit: intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights
