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| A literary technique used in poetry and prose that reveals a character's unspoken thoughts and feelings. An interior monologue may be presented directly by the character, or through a narrator. | ||
| A rhyme that is within the line, rather than at the end. The rhyming may also be within two lines, but again, each rhyming word will be within its line, rather than at the beginning or end. | ||
| A switch in the normal word order, often used for emphasis or for rhyme scheme. | ||
| Fourteen-line poem divided into two parts: the first is eight lines (abbaabba) and the second is six (cdcdcd or cdecde). | ||
| Affirmation of an idea by using a negative understatement. The opposite of hyperbole. | ||
| A fairly short, emotionally expressive poem that expresses the feelings and observations of a single speaker. | ||
| A radical change in a character, either physical or emotional. | ||
| A figure of speech which compares two dissimilar things, asserting that one thing is another thing, not just that one is like another. Compare with analogy and simile. | ||
| The rhythmical pattern of a poem. Just as all words are pronounced with accented (or stressed) syllables and unaccented (or unstressed) syllables, lines of poetry are assigned similar rhythms. English poetry uses five basic metric feet. | ||
| A figure of speech that replaces the name of something with a word or phrase closely associated with it. Similar to synecdoche (many authors do not distinguish between the two). | ||
| A story, usually with supernatural significance, that explains the origins of gods, heroes, or natural phenomena. Although myths are fictional stories, they contain deeper truths, particularly about the nature of humankind. | ||
| A poem that tells a story. | ||
| A rhyme based on an imperfect or incomplete correspondence of end syllable sounds. | ||
| Words that imitate sounds | ||
| A figure of speech that combines two contradictory words, placed side by side. | ||
| A short story illustrating a moral or religious lesson | ||
| A statement or situation that at first seems impossible or oxymoronic, but which solves itself and reveals meaning. | ||
| The repeated use of the same grammatical structure in a sentence or a series of sentences. This device tends to emphasize what is said and thus underscores the meaning. Can also refer to two or more stories within a literary work that are told simultaneously and that reinforce one another. |
