Ad
related to: What are literary terms?Browse & Discover Thousands of Book Titles, for Less.
Search results
People also ask
What are literary devices and terms?
What is a glossary of literary terms?
What are literary terms?
Why are literary terms important?
Literary terms refer to the technique, style, and formatting used by writers and speakers to masterfully emphasize, embellish, or strengthen their compositions
- Essay Guide
Essay Introduction 1. Mastering the Introduction. An...
- Flashcards
Instructions: Click on a deck name to use the flaschards;...
- Glossary
F . Fairy Tale. A fairy tale is a story, often intended for...
- Allusion
Clear Allusion examples and definition. This article will...
- Flashback
VI. Related Terms: Flashback vs. Flashforward....
- Soliloquy
VII. Related Terms Monologue. Any time a character speaks at...
- Alliteration
VI. Related Terms (Terms: assonance and consonance)...
- Analogy
VII. Related Terms. People often confuse analogies with...
- Connotation
Now, apply these two terms to a table—a “strong table” and a...
- Essay Guide
Definitions and examples of 136 literary terms and devices. Instant PDF downloads. Refine any search. Find related themes, quotes, symbols, characters, and more.
Browse through our list of literary devices and literary terms with definitions, examples, and usage tips. Explore each device in depth through literature.
- The Basics
- Types of Prose Texts
- Terms For Interpreting Authorial Voice
- Terms For Interpreting Characters
- Terms For Interpreting Word Choice, Dialogue, and Speech
- Terms For Interpreting Plot
- Terms For Interpreting Layers of Meaning
- Works Cited
Characterization: The ways individual characters are represented by the narrator or author of a text. This includes descriptions of the characters’ physical appearances, personalities, actions, int...Dialogue: Spoken exchanges between characters in a dramatic or literary work, usually between two or more speakers.Genre: A kind of literature. For instance, comedy, mystery, tragedy, satire, elegy, romance, and epic are all genres. Texts frequently draw elements from multiple genres to create dynamic narrative...Imagery: A term used to describe an author’s use of vivid descriptions “that evoke sense-impressions by literal or figurative reference to perceptible or ‘concrete’ objects, scenes, actions, or sta...Bildungsroman: This is typically a type of novel that depicts an individual’s coming-of-age through self-discovery and personal knowledge. Such stories often explore the protagonists’ psychological...Epistolary: A novel composed primarily of letters sent and received by its principal characters. This type of novel was particularly popular during the eighteenth century.Essay: According to Baldick, “a short written composition in prose that discusses a subject or proposes an argument without claiming to be a complete or thorough exposition” (Baldick 87). A notable...Novella: An intermediate-length (between a novel and a short story) fictional narrative.Apology: Often at the beginning or conclusion of a text, the term “apology” refers to an instance in which the author or narrator justifies his or her goals in producing the text.Irony: Typically refers to saying one thing and meaning the opposite, often to shock audiences and emphasize the importance of the truth.Satire: A style of writing that mocks, ridicules, or pokes fun at a person, belief, or group of people in order to challenge them. Often, texts employing satire use sarcasm, irony, or exaggeration...Stream of consciousness: A mode of writing in which the author traces his or her thoughts verbatim into the text. Typically, this style offers a representation of the author’s exact thoughts throug...Antagonist: A character in a text who the protagonist opposes. The antagonist is often (though not always) the villain of a story.Anti-hero: A protagonist of a story who embodies none of the qualities typically assigned to traditional heroes and heroines. Not to be confused with the antagonist of a story, the anti-hero is a p...Archetype: “a resonant figure of mythic importance, whether a personality, place, or situation, found in diverse cultures and different historical periods” (Mickics 24). Archetypes differ from alle...Epithet: According to Taafe, “An adjective, noun, or phase expressing some characteristic quality of a thing or person or a descriptive name applied to a person, as Richard the Lion-Hearted” (Taafe...Alliteration: According to Baldick, “The repetition of the same sounds—usually initial consonants of words or of stressed syllabus—in any sequence of neighboring words” (Baldick 6). Alliteration is...Apostrophe: This figure of speech refers to an address to “a dead or absent person, or an abstraction or inanimate object” and is “usually employed for emotional emphasis, can become ridiculous [or...Diction: Word choice, or the specific language an author, narrator, or speaker uses to describe events and interact with other characters.Climax: The height of conflict and intrigue in a narrative. This is when events in the narrative and characters’ destinies are most unclear; the climax often appears as a decision the protagonist m...Denouement: The “falling action” of a narrative, when the climax and central conflicts are resolved and a resolution is found. In a play, this is typically the last act and in a novel it might incl...Deus Ex Machina: According to Taafe, “Literally, in Latin, the ‘god from the machine’; a deity in Greek and Roman drama who was brought in by stage machinery to intervene in the action; hence, any...Exposition: Usually located at the beginning of a text, this is a detailed discussion introducing characters, setting, background information, etc. readers might need to know in order to understand...Allegory: A literary mode that attempts to convert abstract concepts, values, beliefs, or historical events into characters or other tangible elements in a narrative. Examples include, Gulliver’s T...Allusion: When a text references, incorporates, or responds to an earlier piece (including literature, art, music, film, event, etc). T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land(1922) offers an extensive example o...Hyperbole: exaggerated language, description, or speech that is not meant to be taken literally, but is used for emphasis. For instance, “I’ve been waiting here for ages” or “This bag weighs a ton.”Metaphor: a figure of speech that refers to one thing by another in order to identify similarities between the two (and therefore define each in relation to one another).For more information or to read about other literary terms, please see the following texts: Baldick, Chris. Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press, 2001. Mikics, David. A New Handbook of Literary Terms. Yale University Press, 2007. Taafe, James G. A Student’s Guide to Literary Terms. The World Publishing Company, 1967.
- Allegory. A literary work in which nearly all of the characters, events, settings, and other literal elements of the story have a second, symbolic meaning.
- Alliteration. The repetition of an initial consonant sound in words that are close together, such as within a single sentence or line of poetry. The third stanza of Emily Dickinson’s “A narrow Fellow in the Grass” uses alliteration in both the second and third lines
- Allusion. An indirect reference to something outside the text, usually a person, place, thing, or idea that is generally familiar to the intended audience.
- Anachronism. An historically inaccurate detail in a literary work, included by the author either unintentionally or deliberately. In Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, the characters refer to a clock striking three.
A literary device is a writing technique that writers use to express ideas, convey meaning, and highlight important themes in a piece of text. A metaphor, like we mentioned earlier, is a famous example of a literary device. These devices serve a wide range of purposes in literature.
This glossary of literary terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts used in the discussion, classification, analysis, and criticism of all types of literature, such as poetry, novels, and picture books, as well as of grammar, syntax, and language techniques.
