Literary Devices
Literary devices are techniques that writers use to create specific effects in their writing. They can be used to add interest, clarity, and depth to a piece of literature. Some common literary devices include:
- Alliteration: The repetition of initial consonant sounds, often used in poetry to emphasize words and create musical sounds. For example, “the fair breeze blew, the white foam flew.”
- Allusion: A reference to well-known people, places, events, literary works, or art to enhance the reading experience and add depth to the text.
- Characterization: Techniques employed by writers to create and develop characters through their actions, dialogue, other characters’ opinions, and direct or narrator-driven revelations.
- Dialect: Speech reflecting the pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar typical of a specific geographic region.
- Flashback: An interruption of the chronological order to present events that occurred before the story’s beginning.
- Figurative Language: Language with meanings beyond the literal, including figures of speech like simile (comparing using “like” or “as”) and metaphor (comparison without “like” or “as”).
- Hyperbole: Purposeful exaggeration for emphasis or humor.
- Personification: Attributing human qualities to animals, objects, or ideas. For instance, “The wind exhaled.”
- Free Verse: Poetry that doesn’t adhere to a regular meter or rhyme scheme, aiming to mirror natural spoken language rhythms.
- Foreshadowing: Key hints dropped by the author to prepare readers for what’s to come and build anticipation.
- Imagery: Words or phrases that appeal to the reader’s senses.
- Humor: A quality that makes characters or situations in a literary work seem funny, amusing, or ludicrous.
- Irony: A technique involving contradictions or contrasts, with verbal irony suggesting the opposite of words’ usual meanings and situational irony when events contradict expectations.
- Onomatopoeia: Using words that imitate sounds, such as hiss, buzz, swish, and crunch.
- Point of View: The perspective from which a story is told, including first-person and third-person viewpoints.
- Satire: Writing that humorously comments on human flaws, ideas, social customs, or institutions with the aim of provoking change.
- Style: A writer’s unique use of language, encompassing word choice, sentence structure, complexity, figurative language, and imagery.
- Suspense: The feeling of excitement, curiosity, or expectation regarding future events.
- Symbol: A person, place, or thing that represents an abstract idea or concept beyond its concrete form.
Literary Forms
Literary devices are techniques that writers use to create specific effects in their writing. They can be used to add interest, clarity, and depth to a piece of literature. Some common literary devices include:
- Metaphor: A comparison between two things that are not alike in a literal sense, but that share some common quality. For example, “Her eyes were like pools of sapphire.”
- Simile: A comparison between two things using the words “like” or “as.” For example, “Her skin was as soft as silk.”
- Personification: Giving human qualities to non-human things. For example, “The wind whispered through the trees.”
- Symbolism: Using a person, place, thing, or event to represent something else. For example, the American flag is a symbol of freedom.
- Imagery: Using vivid language to create a picture in the reader’s mind. For example, “The sun beat down on the parched earth, and the air was thick with dust.”
Literary terms are words or phrases that are used to describe specific elements of literature. Some common literary terms include:
- Plot: The sequence of events in a story.
- Character: A person, animal, or other being in a story.
- Setting: The time and place in which a story takes place.
- Theme: The central message or idea of a story.
- Point of view: The perspective from which a story is told.
Literary forms are the different types of literature, such as poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.
- Autobiography: A writer’s account of their own life.
- Biography: A writer’s portrayal of another person’s life.
- Comedy: Literary works that humorously depict life and often satirize human mistakes.
- Drama: Written works meant to be performed, using dialogue to convey their message to an audience.
- Essay: A brief piece of nonfiction expressing the writer’s opinion or conveying information about a subject.
- Fable: Short stories often featuring talking animals as main characters and conveying explicit morals or lessons.
- Fantasy: Stories set in imaginary worlds with characters often possessing supernatural abilities.
- Folktale: Stories originally passed orally from one generation to another, typically with characters that are either all good or all bad and receiving rewards or punishments as they deserve.
- Historical Fiction: A fictional narrative set in a real historical context, blending fact with imagination.
- Myth: Traditional stories explaining natural phenomena, religious doctrines, or cultural beliefs. Mythological gods and goddesses often possess supernatural powers.
- Novel: A book-length fictional prose narrative, characterized by more developed characters and plots than short stories.
- Poetry: Literary works that use concise, rhythmic, and often colorful language to express ideas or emotions, encompassing various forms like ballads, blank verse, free verse, elegies, limericks, and sonnets.
- Prose: Literary works using everyday spoken language, presented in sentence form.
- Realistic Fiction: Writing that portrays life as it is.
- Science Fiction: Based on actual or imagined scientific advancements and frequently set in the future.
- Short Story: Shorter than a novel, focusing on a limited number of characters and a single problem or conflict.
- Tall Tale: Exaggerated, humorous stories often inspired by real individuals, where exaggerations lead to characters achieving impossible feats.
Literary elements are the basic building blocks of literature. Some common literary elements include:
- Action: The entire sequence of events in a story.
- Antagonist: The individual or force opposing the story’s hero or protagonist.
- Character: A person or animal appearing in the story.
- Climax: The story’s highest point of action and tension.
- Conflict: A problem or struggle involving opposing forces in the story, such as person vs. person, person vs. self, person vs. society, or person vs. nature.
- Dialogue: Conversations between characters.
- Exposition: The story’s initial section introducing characters, explaining the background, and describing the setting.
- Falling Action: The events following the climax that lead to the story’s conclusion.
- Mood: The emotional atmosphere a piece of literature intends to evoke in readers.
- Moral: The lesson imparted by a story.
- Narrator: The person or character conveying the story, bridging gaps between dialogue and providing background information (point of view).
- Plot: The story’s unfolding events.
- Plot Line: The planned series of events in a story, encompassing exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution.
- Protagonist: The primary character, often portraying a heroic or virtuous role.
- Resolution: The story’s section in which issues are resolved and the narrative reaches a satisfying conclusion.
- Rising Action: The central portion of the story in which various conflicts arise following the introduction.
- Setting: The place and time in which the story occurs.
- Style: The distinct way in which an author employs language, encompassing word choice, sentence structure, complexity, and the use of figurative language and imagery.
- Theme: The story’s central focus conveying a message about life or human nature.
Additional Vocabulary
- Article: A complete written piece found in newspapers, magazines, or books.
- Atlas: A book containing maps.
- Encyclopedia: A reference book with information on various subjects, often arranged alphabetically.
- Fiction: Literary works based on imagination, not fact.
- Glossary: An alphabetical list of challenging, technical, or foreign terms with definitions, usually found at the end of a book.
- Index: An alphabetical listing providing page references for finding information.
- Mystery: A novel, story, or play centered around a crime or secret and its gradual resolution.
- Nonfiction: Writing based on factual information.
- Periodical: Another term for a magazine.
- Reference: A book type offering information for easy access.
- Series: Several books related by subject or common characters.
- Table of Contents:A book section listing its chapters or contents.