Literary Terms: Tier 3
These are advanced terms which would be wonderful for everyone to know. They are the icing on the cake of your analysis (sweet, but not necessary in order to have good cake). Enjoy!
Terms
undefined, object
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- malapropism
- an unconscious error in speech or writing on a part of a character which is deliberate on the part of the author; result from substituting one word for another with a similar sound but entirely different meaning
- polyptoton
- repetition of words from the same root in different forms, cases, numbers, genders, etc.
- bombast
- boastful or ranting language (adj. form: bombastic)
- apposition
- pairs of complementary ideas
- epizeuxis
- immediately repeating a word to give it greater impact
- caesura
- a midline pause in a line of verse
- litotes
- esp. important in satire; a figure of speech consisting of an understatement in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite
- asyndeton
- omission of conjunctions in a series
- apostrophe
- the direct address to a deceased or absent person as if he or she were present, to an animal or thing, or an artistic idea or quality
- plosive
- consonant produced by stopping the airflow using lips, teeth, or palate, followed by a sudden release of air (voiceless--t, k, p; voiced--d, g, b
- ploce
- repeating words in a line or clause
- antithesis
- pairs of contrasting ideas
- ellipsis
- omission (done deliberately, for effect)
- epanalepsis
- use of the same word at the start and the end of a clause
- polysyndeton
- use of multiple conjunctions in a series
- antimetabole
- repetition of words in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order
- anaphora
- repetition of word(s) at the beginning of several successive verses, clauses, or paragraphs
- atanaclasis
- punning on a repeated word to obtain different meanings
- fricative
- consonant made by the friction of breath in a narrow opening, producing a turbulent airflow (f, th)
- parison
- repeating an entire sentence or clause almost exactly
- anadiplosis
- use of the last word on one clause for the start of the next clause
- chiasmus
- reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases or clauses
- parataxis
- placing of phrases/clauses, one after another, without words to indicate coordination or subordination
- hypotaxis
- the subordination of one clause to another
- epistrophe
- repetition of the same word(s) at the end of successive clauses