Literary Terms
rhetorical devices
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| incongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs | ||
| an exaggeration used deliberately for emphasis. "Four hostile newspapers are to be more feared than a thousand bayonets." | ||
| opposite of hyperbole, meant to intensify an affirmative idea by negative understatement, "It wasnt my best moment" | ||
| a statement that appears to be contradictory, but, in fact, has some truth. "he worked hard at being lazy" | ||
| substitution less pungent words for harsh ones with excellent ironic effect. "the schoolmaster corrected the slightest fault with his birch reminder" | ||
| a temporary departure from the main subject in speaking and writing. | ||
| a literary compostion that imitates the characteristic style of a serious work or writer and uses its features to treat trivial, nonsensical material in an attempt at humor or satire | ||
| deliberately representing something as much less that it really is. "last week i saw a women flayed, and you would hardly believe how much it altered her apperance" | ||
| a narrative in which the agents and action and sometimes the setting are contrived so as to make sense on the literal level and to signify a second, correlated level of meaning | ||
| the name of a thing is applied to another thing or person with which it is closely associated. "kneel to the crown, the white house announced" | ||
| a form of metonymy in which a part is used to symbolize the whole. "i give you my hear. lend me your hand. lend me your ears." | ||
| speaking to an imaginary or absent person, thing or abstract idea. "oh muse! visit me with thy divine inspiration." | ||
| a reference without explanation to another book, political occurence, poem, myth, etc | ||
| a metaphor which extends the comparison over several phrases or sentences. "o captain! my Captain.'' | ||
| an elaborate or exaggerated metaphor |