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Ninety Literary Techniques and Devices
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Allegory – A story with a hidden or additional meaning.
Alliteration – Repetition of the same letter or sound at the start of successive words.
Allusion – Making reference to some known text or entity.
Amplification – The practice wherein the writer embellishes the sentence by adding more information to it in order to increase its worth and understandability.
Anaphora – Repetition of the first part of a phrase for emphasis or effect.
Anadiplosis – ‘Doubling up or folding together’. Where the last word of a sentence, and the first word of the next are the same.
Anagnorisis – The moment in a play or novel when a character makes a critical discovery.
Anastrophe – The inversion of the normal order of words.
Antithesis – The direct opposite.
Aposiopesis – The deliberate breaking off in the middle of a sentence to indicate hesitation or an unwillingness to continue.
Apostrophe – Addressing someone absent or not physically present like God or Death.
Archetype – Original version or model. Like Beowulf was the original version of the hero character.
Aside – Dramatic device whereupon the character speaks to the audience, unheard by other characters. This is unlike a soliloquy in that it is normally short, and may be said with other characters on stage though without them hearing.
Assonance – The repetition of vowel sounds within neighbouring words.
Asyndeton – When an author deliberately leaves out the conjunctions in a sentence to sharpen the meaning of a phrase or to create impact.
Authorial intrusion – Where the author’s voice emerges from the narrative, and speaks directly to the reader. Sometimes done more indirectly through certain characters.
Bildungsroman – A coming of age tale.
Black verse – Verse written in the same metre, (having the same number of beats per line), but without rhyme.
Biblical allusion – Allusion to the Bible either directly or indirectly.
Cacophony – Harsh or discordant sounds.
Caesura – A formal or complete pause in a line of verse.
Catalectic – An incomplete line of metrical verse.
Catharsis – A purging or release of emotions by an audience.
Characterisation – The process wherein a character is built, created or described for the reader.
Circumlocution – Using sentences that are unnecessarily long and complex, when the same meaning could be conveyed much more simply.
Climax – The turning point in a story, or the highest point of tension in a dramatic text.
Colloquialism – An informal, non-literary or overly familiar term.
Conceit – A poetic device in which two VERY dissimilar objects are compared in a unique fashion, so as to draw a connection between the two, or to highlight a similarity.
Consonance – The repetition on the same consonant sound in quick succussion.
Deus Ex Machina – ‘God in the Machine’. When an unsolvable problem is suddenly solved by magical forces.
Dialogue – a conversation between two or more characters.
Diction – Words or phrases chosen to create meaning.
Direct speech – Words that display speech as phrased or spoken by the speaker. When a character breaks away from a third person narrative and is given a voice.
Double entendre – A phrase designed to be understood in multiple ways.
Dramatic irony – When the reader/viewer possesses information that the character does not.
Ellipsis – A series of dots which indicates the omission of a word or phrase.
Emotive language – Words or phrases that evoke or indicate emotion from a character or narrator.
Enjambment – Where one line of poetry runs directly into the next without pause.
Epithet – Word or phrase added to one’s name, used to indicate the character of that person e.g. Ivan the Terrible OR an abusive or derogatory phrase.
Epizeuxis – The repetition of a word in immediate succession to create emphasis.
Euphemism – Replacing a negative term, phrase or description with a more positive one.
Euphony – Sweet or melodious sounds used to create a positive tone.
Exposition – Information used to provide depth to a story, or to fill in the back story for an audience.
Extended metaphor – A metaphor which is developed across multiple lines or sections of a work.
Flashback – The depiction of something that happened prior to that point in the narrative
Foil – A character who works as a contrast to the protagonist in order to highlight. Certain characteristics or traits.
Foreshadowing – The presentation of details or clues by an author to prepare an audience for coming events.
Free verse – Poetic verse without consistent metre or rhyme.
Hamartia – A fatal flaw.
Heptameter – A line of verse with seven metrical feet.
Hexameter – A line of verse with six metrical feet.
Hyperbole – Where exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect.
Iamb – One metrical foot, or two beats in a line of poetry.
Imagery – The use of vivid description to build a scene, or to paint a picture in the reader’s mind.
Irony – The use of words to express something different to their literal meaning.
Jargon – Technical terminology, or language belonging to a particular group or profession.
Juxtaposition – Placing two opposites side by side.
Katabasis – Descent by a hero into the Underworld.
Leit motif – A recurring image or event within the text.
Listing – When a list is made for effect, or to emphasise accumulation.
Metaphor – A figure of speech in which two dissimilar things are compared to each other for effect.
Mood – How the author intends their audience to feel while experiencing the work.
Motif – A recurring theme or idea within a work.
Narrator – Person or voice who tells the story and who provides the perspective on the story.
Neologism – A new word, or an old word used in a new way.
Onomatopoeia – Sound words, or words used to describe or imitate natural sounds.
Oxymoron – The positioning of two words together to create a contradictory effect.
Paradox – A statement that seems contradictory, but which may be true.
Pentametre – A line of verse with five metrical feet.
Personification – Human characteristics given to animals or inanimate objects.
Pathetic fallacy – Human emotions given to animals or inanimate objects.
Portmanteau – Joining two words together to create an entirely new word.
Pun – A humorous play on words based on a word’s multiple meanings.
Repetition – The repeating of a word or phrase for power or effect.
Rhetorical question – A question which does not require a response.
Rhyme – The repetition of similar sounds in two or more words.
Sibilance – The repetition of S sounds to create a hissing effect.
Simile – A figure of speech in which two similar things are compared through the use of ‘like’ or ‘as’.
Symbolism – The use of an object or action to represent something else.
Synecdoche – Figure of speech in which a part of something represents the whole, or where the whole can represent a part.
Synaesthesia – Mixing the senses or representing an idea through sensory imagery.
Syntax – Refers to the order in which words are placed to create meaning.
Themes – Enduring patterns or motifs of literary work. They can be the focus of the work, or some of the main ideas.
Tone – how the composer feels about the situation in his work.
Understatement – The deliberate action of making a situation seem less important than it really is.
Verisimilitude – The appearance of realism or truth.
Vernacular – Language of a specific population.
Verse – A single line of poetry.
Volta – A change in the tone of a poem, so that a new direction is taken. Normally indicated in sonnets by the use of ‘But’.
