English Literary Terms

the repetition of beginning consonant sounds of words close together in a line

• elegy

• counterclaim

• consonance

• alliteration

two successive rhyming lines in a verse

• metaphor

• couplet

• parallelism

• enjambment

reference to an actual person, book, or work of art in another work

• claim

• pun

• illusion

• allusion

careful evaluation and examination of details in the text

• dissection

• analysis

• perusal

• explicit

repeating the same word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses for affect

• repetition

• anaphora

• quatrain

• stanza

main statement of poem, essay, short story, or novel

• pun

• argument

• counterclaim

• evidence

repetition of vowel sounds in words close together in the same line

• repetition

• consonance

• alliteration

• assonance

a statement to support or prove an argument

• implicit

• explicit

• counterclaim

• claim

the opposing argument, the opposite of the argument in the story

• counterclaim

• antithesis

• evidence

• enjambment

word choice

• syntax

• voice

• elegy

• diction