Literary Devices (Advanced)

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines

• Anaphora

• Stanza

• Alliteration

• Meter

A reference to another person, place, thing, event, or text, with which the reader is presumably familiar

• Irony

• Antithesis

• Hyperbole

• Allusion

A situation in which there are two contradicting meanings of the same event, image, words, or story, often referring to the difference between expectation and reality

• Paradox

• Diction

• Irony

• Oxymoron

A contrast or opposition between two different ideas or phrases

• Antithesis

• Parallelism

• Ambiguity

• Metonymy

The metaphorical substitution of a related idea or characteristic for a larger concept (e.g., "Boot on the ground" to represent soldiers)

• Metonymy

• Personification

• Imagery

• Chiasmus

A rhetorical or literary construction in which words or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or modified form (e.g., "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.")

• Metonymy

• Anaphora

• Juxtaposition

• Chiasmus

The writer, speaker, or narrator's attitude toward their subject.

• Mood

• Tone

• Persona

• Register

A type of metaphor in which a non-human thing is talked about as though it is a person.

• Metonymy

• Chiasmus

• Irony

• Personification

The pairing of two ideas, images, concepts, or styles to create an effect

• Juxtaposition

• Allusion

• Onomatopoeia

• Alliteration

An arrangement of a certain number of lines forming a division in a poem

• Sentence

• Stanza

• Paragraph

• Clause