Literary Analysis Terms

literary device that allows writers to show their audience specific events that happened before the current action of the story.

• flashback
• climax
• subplot
• refrain

category system that literature falls into based on specific conventions that develop to characterize the differences.

• tone
• genre
• mood
• allusion

can be verbal, situational, or dramatic and has the result of the meaning, situation or action being one thing but meaning something different.

• satire
• metaphor
• parody
• irony

a type of literary work that satirizes another work, its author, or the ideas presented.

• parody
• irony
• allusion
• genre

a type of literary device where an author ridicules specific people, groups or some aspect of society.

• irony
• imagery
• satire
• personification

where a story takes place.

• setting
• tone
• mood
• climax

a type of poem that has a specific rhyme and meter.

• genre
• subplot
• onomatopoeia 
• sonnet

a minor story that runs inside the main story.

• subplot
• narrator
• foreshadowing
• theme

a concrete or physical object that represents an abstract concept.

• metaphor
• symbol
• tone
• refrain

how the writer feels about his subject that comes through based upon the types of words chosen.

• tone
• symbol
• theme
• satire