Literary techniques: devices authors use to create meaning (theme).

Most of these should be review, but some may be new. Not every work of literature will use every technique; think, did the author intend to use the technique, or are you finding techniques that aren’t actually there?

The skill is not merely to find the literary technique (look, there it is!), but to explain why and how the author used it to create theme.

Figurative language: Writers use it to go beyond the literal meanings of the words to make a comparison that gives the readers a new insight into the content; it also appeals to the senses of the readers.

Simile: a comparison using the words like or as The concert was so loud it sounded like a freight train, horn blaring and wheels clacking.

Metaphor: A comparison without using like or as: pretending one thing is another thing to emphasize a characteristic. She is the sun, the moon, and the stars.

Extended metaphor: a metaphor that continues through a stanza, a poem, or a text (also knows as a conceit or sustained metaphor). Shakespeare loves them.

From “Romeo and Juliet”: It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief, That thou her maid art far more fair than she: Be not her maid, since she is envious; Her vestal livery is but sick and green And none but fools do wear it; cast it off.

Imagery: language that appeals to the senses: auditory olfactory visual tactile gustatory

John Keats: “To the Autumn” “Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft, And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

Personification: attributing human characteristics to inanimate objects or idea A.H. Houseman: “Loveliest of Trees the Cherry Now” “Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide.”

Alliteration: repetition of consonant sounds for emphasis Samuel Taylor Coleridge: “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” “The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.”

Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds for emphasis: Carl Sandburg: Early Moon: “Poetry is old, ancient, goes back far. It is among the oldest of living things. So old it is that no man knows how and why the first poems came.”

Onomatopoeia: language in which the sound echoes the sense whisper meow boom

Hyperbole: exaggeration to create emphasis: William Shakespeare “Macbeth” “Neptune’s ocean wash this blood Clean from my hand? No. This my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red.”

Symbol: An object that represents a larger idea: Shakespeare As you Like It: “All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts,”

Motif: a recurrent image, idea or a symbol that develops or explains an idea: Shakespeare’s Hamlet: a recurring motif of incest: Laertes speaks to his sister Ophelia in a way that is sexually explicit. Hamlet shows obsession for Gertrude’s sexual life with Claudius has an underlying tone of an incestuous desire. plains a theme

Anaphora (parallelism): the deliberate repetition of the first part of the sentence in order to achieve an effect: A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens: “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.”

Understatement: describing something as less than what is intended for effect: upon collecting 125 research papers: “I have a little bit of work to do this weekend.”

Enjambment: in poetry, ending a line mid-sentence without a pause to emphasize a word: The Waste Land by T.S Eliot “April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. Winter kept us warm, covering Earth in forgetful snow, feeding A little life with dried tubers.”

Litotes: Describing something by what it is not: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass “Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative goodness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of the others.”

Mood vs tone: tone is the attitude the author expresses in a piece of writing: mood the atmosphere; a feeling the reader experiences while reading.

Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights “There was no moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness: not a light gleamed from any house, far or near all had been extinguished long ago: and those at Wuthering Heights were never visible…”

“The School” : Donald Barthelme: “And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Something wrong with the soil possibly or maybe the stuff we got from the nursery wasn’t the best. We complained about it. So we’ve got thirty kids there, each kid had his or her own little tree to plant and we’ve got these thirty dead trees. All these kids looking at these little brown sticks, it was depressing.”

Allusion: a reference to something from history, literature, or religion. Marlowe: “Doctor Faustus” “Learnèd Faustus, to find the secrets of astronomy Graven in the book of Jove’s high firmament, Did mount him up to scale Olympus’ top, Where, sitting in a chariot burning bright, Drawn by the strength of yokèd dragons’ necks, He views the clouds, the planets, and the stars.”

Diction: specific word choices to create effect. Never say, “the author used diction.” What is the difference between grass, lawn, turf, sod, emerald field of softness, pennisetum alopecuroides, etc…

Paradox: an apparent contradiction used to convey truth: George Orwell: Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others”.

Oxymoron: two opposite ideas joined to convey truth: government intelligence jumbo shrimp loud silence

Juxtaposition: placing two or more things or ideas next to each other to provide contrast. In Macbeth, Shakespeare juxtaposes Macbeth and Macduff to show different values of loyalty.