Literary Terms - Part 1

A narrative in which the characters, actions, and sometimes the setting, symbolically represent an idea, moral, or political or religious principles.

• Metaphor
• Simile
• Allegory

Repetition of the same consonant sounds in two or more words (usually at the beginning of the words, but sometimes on the stressed syllables)

• Rhyme

• Assonance

• Alliteration

A figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

• Metaphor

• Simile

• Personification

The use of words that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

• Onomatopoeia

• Hyperbole

• Irony

A play on words in which a humorous effect is produced by using a word that suggests two or more meanings.

• Pun

• Oxymoron

• Paradox

A direct or indirect reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature.

• Allusion
• Reference
• Illusion

A balanced statement; a figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other.

• antithesis

• juxtaposition
• paradox

The repetition of vowel sounds in stressed syllables.

• Consonance
• Metaphor
• Assonance

A pause occurring in a line of poetry, either due to sense or to natural speech rhythm.

• Caesura
• Alliteration
• Enjambment

An inversion of the second of two parallel phrases (e.g. do not live to eat but eat to live).

• chiasmus

• paradox

• oxymoron