Gone Geek, Literary Devices

Geek With Exploding Brain

Literary Devices 101

Resource: www.literaryterms.net

The Big Four:

Metaphor – conditional equivalence. Henry II was a mighty lion.

Simile – so, as, like, than

Aphorism – a concise, terse, laconic, or memorable expression of a general truth or principle

Analogy – Peter De Vries, comparing the unknowable universe to a safe, wrote, “The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the combination is locked up in the safe."

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Alliteration – the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words

Anadiplosis – "a doubling, folding up". Anadiplosis is the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause. The word is used at the end of a sentence and then used again at the beginning of the next sentence.

Anaphora – the use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence, to avoid repetition

Anastrophe – (a turning back or about) Anastrope is a figure of speech in which the normal word order of the subject, the verb, and the object is changed. Anastrophe only transposes one word in a sentence. For example, subject–verb–object ("I like potatoes") might be changed to object–subject–verb ("potatoes I like")

Antimetabole In rhetoric, antimetabole is the repetition of words in successive clauses, but in transposed order; for example, "I know what I like, and I like what I know". "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

Euphemism – a mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing

Hyperbole – exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally

Meiosis – In rhetoric, meiosis is a euphemistic figure of speech that intentionally understates something or implies thatit is lesser insignificance or size than it really is.

Polysyndeton – a stylistic scheme. Polysyndeeton is the deliberate insertion of conjunctions into a sentence for the purpose of slowing up the rhythm of the prose so as to produce an impressively solemn note. See Cormac McCarthy.

Anagnorisis | ˌaˌnaɡˈnôrəsəs | noun (plural anagnorises)

the point in a play, novel, etc., in which a principal character recognizes or discovers another character's true identity or the true nature of their own circumstances: we see the tormented figure of Oedipus come to recognize the truth in a classical moment of anagnorisis. ORIGIN

late 18th century: Greek, literally ‘recognition’, from ana- ‘back’ + gnorisis ‘making known’.