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The best-selling Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (formerly the Concise dictionary) provides clear, concise, and often witty definitions of the most troublesome literary terms from abjection to zeugma.
- Action
- Ad Hominen
- AdAge
- Adventure
- Allegory
- Alliteration
- Allusion
- Ambiguity
- Amplification
- Anagram
Also called “action-adventure,” action is a genre of film, TV, literature, etc., in which the primary feature is the constant slam-bang of fights, chases, explosions, and clever one-liners. Action stories typically do not explore complex relationships between human beings or the subtleties of psychology and philosophy.
Ad hominem is Latin for “against the man,” and refers to the logical fallacy(error) of arguing that someone is incorrect because they are unattractive, immoral, weird, or any other bad thing you could say about them as a person.
An adage is a brief piece of wisdom in the form of short, philosophical, and memorable sayings. The adage expresses a well-known and simple truth in a few words.
Adventure (pronounced ad-ven-cher) was originally a Middle English word derived from the Old French aventure meaning “destiny,” “fate,” or “chance event.” Today, we define adventure as a remarkable or unexpected journey, experience, or event that a person participates in as a result of chance. This last detail, a result of chance, is a key element ...
An allegory is a story within a story. It has a “surface story” and another story hidden underneath. For example, the surface story might be about two neighbors throwing rocks at each other’s homes, but the hidden story would be about war between countries.
In alliteration, words that begin with the same sound are placed close together. Although alliteration often involves repetition of letters, most importantly, it is a repetition of sounds.
Allusion is basically a reference to something else. It’s when a writer mentions some other work, or refers to an earlier part of the current work. In literature, it’s frequently used to reference cultural works (e.g. by alluding to a Bible story or Greek myth).
Ambiguity is an idea or situation that can be understood in more than one way. This extends from ambiguous sentences (which could mean one thing or another) up to ambiguous storylines and ambiguous arguments.
Amplification involves extending a sentence or phrase in order to further explain, emphasize, or exaggerate certain points of a definition, description, or argument.
An anagram is a type of word play in which the letters of a word or phrase are rearranged to create new words and phrases.
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Literary terms refer to the technique, style, and formatting used by writers and speakers to masterfully emphasize, embellish, or strengthen their compositions
Included below is a list of literary terms that can help you interpret, critique, and respond to a variety of different written works. This list is by no means comprehensive, but instead offers a primer to the language frequently used by scholars and students researching literary works.
- 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.
Browse through our list of literary devices and literary terms with definitions, examples, and usage tips. Explore each device in depth through literature.
I. J. K. L. M. N. O. P. Q. R. S. T. U. V. W. X. Y. Z. Acrostic. An acrostic is a piece of writing in which a particular set of letters—typically the first letter of each line, word, or paragraph—spells out a word or phrase with special significance to the text. Acrostics... (read full acrostic explanation with examples) Allegory.
