Essential Literary Devices and Poetic Terms
Sound Devices
Alliteration
Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. A somewhat looser definition is the use of the same consonant in any part of adjacent words.
Assonance
Repeated vowel sounds in words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented or stressed, rather than in unaccented vowel sounds.
Consonance
Repeated consonant sounds at the ending of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented or stressed, rather than in unaccented sounds. This produces a pleasing kind of near-rhyme.
Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like their meanings. For example, in “Hear the steady tick of the old hall clock,” the word tick sounds like the action of the clock. If assonance or alliteration can be onomatopoeic (like the ‘ck’ sound repeated in tick and clock), it enhances the effect.
Figurative Language
Allegory
A representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning. Sometimes it can be a single word or phrase, such as the name of a character or place. Often, it is a symbolic narrative that has not only a literal meaning but a larger one understood only after reading the entire story or poem.
Allusion
A brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological situation or character.
Ambiguity
A word or phrase that can mean more than one thing, even in its context. Poets often seek out such words to add richness to their work. Often, one meaning seems readily apparent, but other, deeper meanings may await contemplation.
Analogy
A comparison, usually comparing something unfamiliar with something familiar.
Euphemism
An understatement used to lessen the effect of a statement; substituting something innocuous for something that might be offensive or hurtful.
Hyperbole
An outrageous exaggeration used for effect.
Irony
A contradictory statement or situation used to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true.
Metaphor
A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one is the other or does the action of the other.
Oxymoron
A combination of two words that appear to contradict each other (e.g., jumbo shrimp).
Paradox
A statement in which a seeming contradiction may reveal an unexpected truth.
Personification
Attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, animal, or abstract idea.
Simile
A direct comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as.”
Synecdoche
Indicating a person, object, etc., by letting only a certain part represent the whole. Example: “All hands on deck.”
Imagery and Senses
Imagery
The use of vivid language to generate ideas and/or evoke mental images, appealing not only to the visual sense but to sensation and emotion as well.
Synesthesia
An attempt to fuse different senses by describing one kind of sense impression in words normally used to describe another. Example: “The sound of her voice was sweet.”
Poetic Structure
Stanza
A division of a poem created by arranging lines into a unit, often repeated in the same pattern of meter and rhyme throughout the poem; a unit of poetic lines (like a paragraph within the poem). Stanzas within a poem are typically separated by blank lines.