Literary Devices Personal Poetry Glossary

Refrain  A regularly repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song, usually at the end of a stanza "Do you believe in life after love I can feel something inside me say I really don't think you're strong enough, no.“ “Believe” -Cher

Tone  A writer’s or speaker’s attitude towards a subject "I shall be telling this with a sigh/Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,/I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.“ “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

Imagery  The verbal expression of sensory experience; descriptive or figurative language used to create word pictures; imagery is created by details that appeal to one or more of the five senses. "His skin shined and sparkled like thousands of diamonds, as shiny and smooth as marble.”skin Twilight What other literary device is used beautifully in this excerpt?

Diction  The writer’s choice of words; a stylistic element that conveys voice and tone. Example: ominous glow vs. beaming light They both pertain to light, but create a different feeling due to the choice of words.

Hyberbole  Exaggeration used to suggest strong emotion or create a comic effect. What Am I? I’m bigger than the entire earth More powerful than the sea Though a million, billion have tried Not one could ever stop me. I control each person with my hand and hold up fleets of ships. I can make them bend to my will with one word from my lips. I’m the greatest power in the world In this entire nation. No one should ever try to stop a child’s imagination.

Allusion  A reference to a well-known person, event, or place from history, music, art, another literary work.

Connotation  The associations and emotional overtones attached to a word beyond its literal definition or denotation. A connotation may positive, negative, or neutral.  negative There are over 2,000 vagrants in the city.  neutral There are over 2,000 people with no fixed address in the city.  positive There are over 2,000 homeless in the city. All three of these expressions refer to exactly the same people, but they will invoke different associations in the reader's mind: a "vagrant" is a public nuisance while a "homeless" person is a worthy object of pity and charity. Presumably, someone writing an editorial in support of a new shelter would use the positive form, while someone writing an editorial in support of antiloitering laws would use the negative form. In this case, the dry legal expression "with no fixed address" quite deliberately avoids most of the positive or negative associations of the other two terms -- a legal specialist will try to avoid connotative language altogether when writing legislation, often resorting to archaic Latin or French terms which are not a part of ordinary spoken English, and thus, relatively free of strong emotional associations.

Extended Metaphor  A metaphor extended over several lines or throughout an entire poem or piece of literature. Will Ferrell's Extended Metaphor: The University of Life "I graduated from the University of Life. All right? I received a degree from the School of Hard Knocks. And our colors were black and blue, baby. I had office hours with the Dean of Bloody Noses. All right? I borrowed my class notes from Professor Knuckle Sandwich and his Teaching Assistant, Ms. Fat Lip Thon Nyun. That’s the kind of school I went to for real, okay?" (Will Ferrell, Commencement Address at Harvard University, 2003)

Symbol  Anything (object, animal, event, person, or place) that represent itself but also stands for something else on a figurative level.

Onomatopoeia  Words whose sound suggest their meaning. Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard, He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred... 'The Highwayman' by Alfred Noyes

Alliteration  The repetition of initial consonant sounds in words that are close together. Betty Botter by Mother Goose Betty Botter bought some butter, but, she said, the butter’s bitter; if I put it in my batter it will make my batter bitter, but a bit of better butter will make my batter better.

Rhyme  The repetition of sounds at the ends of words. Mary Mary quite contrary, How does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells And pretty maids all in a row. Does any one know the history of this Nursery Rhyme?

Theme  A writer’s central idea or main message about life. What would be a theme of The Odyssey?

Anaphora  The repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginnings of two or more clauses or lines. “I go back to December, turn around and make it alright I go back to December, turn around and change my own mind I go back to December all the time, all the time” “Back to December” Taylor Swift

Assonance  The repetition of similar vowel sounds in accented syllables, followed by different consonant sounds, in words that are together. And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride --Edgar Allan Poe, "Annabel Lee"

Consonance  The repetition of final consonant sounds in stressed syllables with different vowels sounds. Consonance... is quite often employed in rap, whether to underscore rhyme or to offer a kind of rhyme substitute. Lauryn Hill's lines from the Fugees 'Zealots' show consonance at work alongside rhyme:rhyme Rap rejects my tape deck, ejects projectile Whether Jew or Gentile, I rank top percentile, Many styles, More powerful than gamma rays My grammar pays, like Carlos Santana plays