Literary Terms for Poetry | Tallman’s
Top Twenty-Five
Alliteration—is the repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words (or the repeating of the same letter (or sound) at the beginning of words following each other immediately or at short intervals).
The moan of doves in immemorial
elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.—Tennyson
Assonance—is the repetition of vowel sounds but not consonant sounds.
Consonance—is the repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels.
Allusion—is a brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art. Casual reference to a famous historical or literary figure or event. An allusion may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion.
Connotation—is an implied meaning of a word. Opposite of denotation.
Denotation—is the literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning. Opposite of connotation.
Diction—is a writer’s choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning. Diction can be elevated, formal, informal, complex, lofty, idiomatic, etc.
Hyperbole—is exaggeration or overstatement for poetic effect, to create an image in the reader’s mind.
Imagery—is language that evokes one or all of the five senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching.
Irony—is an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant. It is the basis for most humor, most suspense, and most truths about life. Three kinds of irony:
1. verbal
irony is when an author or character says one thing, and means the
opposite.
2. dramatic irony is when an audience
perceives something that a character in the literature does not know; the character believes the situation
is the opposite of what it is.
3. irony of situation is a discrepancy
between the expected result and actual results, when something turns out the opposite of what the
character—or the reader—expects.
Metaphor—is the comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be" and not using like or as, as in a simile.
…Now the dream decays.
The props crumble. The familiar ways
Are stale with tears trodden underfoot.
The heart’s flower withers at the root.
Bury it, then, in history’s sterile dust.—R.S. Thomas, “Song at the Year’s Turning”
Motif—is a recurrent thematic element in an artistic or literary work, a dominant theme or central idea.
Mood—is the emotional attitude taken towards the subject of a literary work. Similar to tone, it can even sometimes be used interchangeably—but be careful, specific, and subtle when referring to tone and mood. The tone can be dark, while the author may be ironic, turning everything on its head. Another term that relates to this is voice.
Onomatopoeia—is a word that imitates the sound it represents. Examples: splash, murmuring, moan. Use of onomatopoeia usually is to create sound imagery.
Paradox—is a device that reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory.
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.
Personification—is giving human qualities to animals or objects. (It’s a kind of metaphor.)
I am silver and exact.
I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful—(Sylvia Plath, “The
Mirror”)
Repetition
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?—William Blake, “The Tyger”
Rhyme—is the matching of sounds in words, particularly at the ends of lines. Technically, in English, two words rhyme when their accented vowel sounds, and all following sounds, are identical. Therefore, sleeping must rhyme the -eeping sound. Sleeping rhymes with keeping and seeping, but it does not rhyme with staying, even though they both end with –ing.
Then a sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion
must excite your languid spleen,
An attachment a la Plato, for a bashful young potato,
or a not-too-French French bean!—W. S. Gilbert
Rhythm—is a recognizable pulse, or "recurrence," which gives a distinct beat to a line and also gives it a shape. You know rhythm when you hear it in a song, and poetry—language itself—has its own music, cadences, and rhythms. This can be created either with syllables and stress, or sometimes with alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia, and other sound devices:
I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!—G. M. Hopkins, “The Windhover”
Simile—is the comparison of two unlike things using like or as. Related to metaphor. “My luv is like a red, red rose,/That’s newly sprung in June.”—Robert Burns
Speaker (or Persona)—is the personage or persona responsible for the voice in a poem; like the persona, the speaker should not be confused with the poet, unless you know exactly what you’re doing, and even then, refer to the speaker.
Stanza—is a unified group of lines in poetry. Usually, they’ll be separated by spaces on the page, so you can identify it with your eye as a stanza, whether you see the unifying reason for it or not. Sometimes figuring out why a poem is broken into the stanzas it is, makes you see something you wouldn’t have seen otherwise, or stanzas emphasize certain words or phrases. (Sometimes it’s a simple matter of rhyming and rhyme scheme.)
Symbol—is an object (or action!) that means something more than its literal meaning; it represents or stands for some idea larger than itself.
Synecdoche—is when one uses a part to represent the whole. (“Lend me your ears,” for example.)
Tone—is the attitude a writer takes towards a subject or character. There are many words that can be used describe a work’s tone! Expand your vocabulary of adjectives related to tone: serious, humorous, sarcastic, ironic, satirical, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective. Tone is similar to mood, and sometimes the two can even be used interchangeably. Yet another word that creeps in here is voice.
Voice—is the dominating ethos, spirit, or tone of a literary work. The voice in a literary work is not always identifiable with the actual views of the author (cf. speaker and persona).
Credit to:
The students who maintain CyberEnglish (and Ted Nellen, their teacher)—their list of literary terms and devices can be found at <http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/lit_terms/index.html>.
Cuddon, J.A. A Dictionary of Literary Terms.
Talib, Ismail.
“A Brief List of Some Key Terms in Literature.” 2007.