Literary Terms

adjective that describes a general tone that is overly scholarly

• scholarly
• academic
• intellectual
• pedantic

presenting something as less significant than it is

• minimization
• downplay
• exaggeration
• understatement

Intellectually amusing language that surprises and delights

• Wit

• Cleverness

• Humor

• Sarcasm

rhetoric:

• describes principles governing the art of writing effectively, eloquently, and persuasively

• branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words, their history and psychological development, their connotations, their relation to one another

• the way the author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences

• presenting something as less significant than it is

a work that closely imitates the style or content of another with the specific aim or comic effect and/or ridicule

perspective from which a story is told

• angle of view
• point of view
• perspective of sight
• viewpoint

syntax

• word or phrase that links different ideas

• targets human vices and follies of social institutions and conventions for reform or ridicule

• the way the author chooses to join words into phrases, clauses, and sentences

• presenting something as less significant

figure of speech where author presents or describes concepts animals, or inanimate objects by giving them human attributes

sentence or group of sentences that directly expresses the author's opinion, purpose, meaning, or position

• conclusion

• main idea
• thesis

• argument statement

figure of speech in which part of something is used to represent the whole, or occasionally the whole is used to represent the part

• Hyperbole
• Metonymy
• Synecdoche
• Onomatopoeia