Literary Devices: A Comprehensive Guide to Rhetorical Figures

Posted on Feb 12, 2025 in Modern Philology. English

Literary Devices and Rhetorical Figures

This document provides a comprehensive overview of various literary devices and rhetorical figures used in writing and speech.

Sound-Based Devices

  • Alliteration: Repetition of the same sound in two or more words.
  • Paronomasia: Words with similar sounds and different meanings (a pun).

Repetition-Based Devices

  • Similicadencia: Use, at the end of verses, of words with the same grammatical accident or similar sounds.
  • Bimembration: A period is divided into two members with the same grammatical structure. When divided by three, it’s called Threefolding.
  • Parallelism: Two periods have the same syntactic structure.
  • Pleonasm: Incorporation of words that are not necessary for understanding an idea, but enhance the expressiveness of a phrase.
  • Poliptoton: Using a word with different inflections.
  • Manholes: Use of two or more words next to each other with the same root.
  • Anafora and Epiphora: Repeating a word at the beginning (anafora) or end (epiphora) of subsequent periods.
  • Polysyndeton: Repetition of conjunctions to accentuate the expression.
  • Anadiplosis: The final word of a verse begins the next.
  • Enumeration: Series of words or constructions in the same category or type. When it amounts or descends, it is called gradation.

Omission-Based Devices

  • Ellipsis: Suppression of elements in the sentence if it doesn’t alter comprehension.
  • Asyndeton: Suppression of conjunctions.

Meaning-Based Devices

  • Allusion: Reference to a person or thing without naming it directly.
  • Antithesis: Contraposition of two words or sentences with opposite meanings.
  • Paradox: Using phrases or words that are contradictory.
  • Oxymoron: Juxtaposition of two opposites.
  • Irony: The implication is the opposite of what is said.

Figurative Language

  • Simile: An explicit comparison of one thing with another.
  • Metaphor: Identity between two realities: real terms (A) and the term evoked (B). May be A is B, B is A, A, B, B of A, A, B.
  • Metonymy: Designating one thing with the name of another, based on contiguous meanings. The relationship between the real and the figurative term is cause-effect, product, place of origin, etc.
  • Synecdoche: It means one thing with another name with which there is a relation of inclusion: the part for the whole, the genus for the species, the container for the content.
  • Allegory: Series of metaphors that connects the elements of a reality with elements evoked.
  • Symbol: Element perceived by the senses that suggests something different from its usual meaning.

Other Devices

  • Onomatopoeia
  • Dilogia: Using the same word with two different meanings.
  • Exclamation
  • Rhetorical Question: Question that is not intended to express doubt or request a response.
  • Apostrophe: Interruption of spoken discourse with vehemence, in the second person, to someone or something, or even further.
  • Hyperbole: Exaggeration.
  • Prosopopeia (Personification): Attribution of actions and qualities to inanimate objects or animate beings; considered impersonation if attributable to irrational human characteristics.
  • Enjambment: A syntactic unit that does not end at the end of the line, but is completed in the next.
  • Pun
  • Hyperbaton

Descriptive Devices

  • Portrait: Description of physical and moral qualities of someone.
  • Prosopography: Description of physical qualities only.
  • Etopeya: Description of moral qualities only.

Verse Forms

  • Verse
  • Studio
  • Trio
  • Quartet
  • Serventesio: Four *versos de arte mayor* ABAB
  • Redondilla: Four lines of minor art ABBA
  • Quartet: Four *versos de arte menor* ABAB
  • Quintilla: Five *versos de arte menor* (if more, call it quintet) ABABA, ABAAB, AABBA, AABAB, AABBA
  • Lira: Hendecasyllable combination of (2nd and 5th) and heptasyllables aBabB
  • Sextuplet: Six *versos de arte menor* with rhyme: AABAAB, ABCABC, ABABAB, etc. Tetrasilabos (3rd and 6th) and the other eight syllables.
  • Mayor Art Copla: ABBAACCA
  • Eight Real: Hendecasyllable ABABABCC
  • Tenth: Ten *versos* octosyllable, and two *versos* see you two *redondillas* liaison ABBAACCDDC
  • Villancico: Octosyllables and six syllables, with chorus, repeated and one or several feet.
  • Zejel: Second stanza call *estribillo* two *versos* move, formed by three *versos* monorrimos + one *verso* returned
  • Sonnet: Fourteen hendecasyllables: ABBA ABBA CDC DCD
  • Romance: Unlimited series of poems, eight syllables. Assonance rhyme in verse pairs.
  • Silva: Unlimited series in which the poet will combine hepta and heroic verse poems with rhyme and may have loose verses.