RHETORICAL TERMS

ALLEGORY The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning. In some allegories, an author may intend the characters to personify an abstraction like hope or freedom. Example: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

ALLITERATION The repetition of sounds, especially initial consonant sounds in two or more neighboring words. Example: “Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.”

ALLUSION A direct or indirect reference to something which is presumable commonly known, such as a book, character, work of art, myth, place, etc. Example: Sam had been betrayed by a kiss.

AMBIGUITY The multiple meanings, either intentional or unintentional, of a word, phrase, sentence, or passage Example: “Not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need…” JFK

ANALOGY A similarity or comparison between two different things or the relationship between them. Example: “Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never well mended.” Benjamin Franklin

ANTECEDENT The word of phrase referred to by a pronoun. Example: “But it is the grandeur of all truth which can occupy a very high place in human interests that is never absolutely novel to the meanest of minds; it exists eternally, by was of germ of latent principle, in the lowest as in the highest, needing to be developed but never to be planted.” “it” = “all truth”

ANTITHESIS The opposition or contrast of ideas; the direct opposite Example: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way.“ Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

APHORISM A terse statement of known authorship which expresses a general truth or a moral principle. Example: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Benjamin Franklin

APOSTROPHE A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction, such as liberty or love. Example: William Wordsworth addresses John Milton: “Milton, thou shouldest be living at this hour; England hath need of thee.”

ATMOSPHERE The emotion created by the entire work, established partly by setting and partly by the author’s choice of objects that are described. Example: Night had an atmosphere of oppression.

CLAUSE A grammatical unit that contains both a subject and a verb. Independent clauses can stand alone and are called sentences. Dependent clauses cannot stand alone and are called fragments. Example: She cried. (Independent) Because she lost her cat. (Dependent)

COLLOQUIAL The use of slang or informalities in speech or writing. This includes regional dialects. Example: “You don’t know about me, without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter.” Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huck Finn

CONCEIT A fanciful expression, usually in the form of an extended metaphor or surprising analogy between seemingly dissimilar objects; displays intellectual cleverness as a result of the unusual comparison being made. Example: An often-cited example of the metaphysical conceit is the metaphor from John Donne's "The Flea," in which a flea that bites both the speaker and his lover becomes a conceit arguing that his lover has no reason to deny him sexually, although they are not married: Oh stay! three lives in one flea spare Where we almost, yea more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is.