Literary Terms Review Round 2

1. Literary Terms ReviewRound 2

2. epistrophe “Chinatown is ghetto, my friends are ghetto, I am ghetto.” Henry Han Xi Lau “I was a Member of the Kung Fu Crew” the repetition of a group of words at the end of successive clauses

3. syntax “The way they tumble carelessly from their golden wrapper. Playful. Abundant. Incriminating.” Allison Silverman – “Have Fun” the order of words in a sentence

4. metaphor “Life is our dictionary.” ~Ralph Waldo Emerson “The American Scholar” a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things that have something in common without the use of the words "like" or "as."

5. polysyndeton Shannon Green has excellent organizational skills, and superb interpersonal skills, and outstanding written communication skills, and she cares about each one of her students. the repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words, phrases, or clauses

6. parallelism “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nations wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan— to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.” ~ Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address” a set of similarly structured words phrases or clauses

7. personification “The woods became our savior, and each day I went a bit farther into its arms.” ~ Suzanne Collins the giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects

8. onomatopoeia “Every crevice became alive with hissing things.” Abraham Joshua Heschel, “The Meaning of this Hour” a literary device in which the sound of a word is related to its meaning

9. hyperbole “My kids talk a great game of ecology. Yet, they harbor the No. 1 cause of pollution in this country: gym clothes.” ~ Erma Bombeck, “Warning: Families May Be Dangerous” deliberate exaggeration for emphasis

10. paradox “The weather was both cloudy and intolerably sunny at the same time.” ~ Bjorn Skogquist, “Tiffany Stephenson—An Aplology” a statement that appears to be contradictory but, in fact, has some truth

11. syllogism “Natalie only dates artistic boys.Boys from Florence are artistic.Therefore, Natalie will date boys from Florence.” a form of reasoning in which two statements are made and a conclusion is drawn from them

12. apostrophe Busy old fool, unruly sun,Why dost thou thus,Through windows, and through curtains call on us?~ John Donne “The Sun Rising” an address to the dead as if living; to the inanimate as if animate; to the absent as if present; to the unborn as if alive

13. malapropism “A witness shall not bear falsies against thy neighbor.” ~Archie Bunker All in the Family absurd or humorous misuse of a word, especially by confusion with one of similar sound

14. antithesis “I lived rough, that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work.” ~ Charles Dickens, Great Expectations the placing of opposing words within the same sentence to emphasize their disparity

15. synecdoche Twenty sails came into the harbor. using part of a thing to represent the whole thing

16. oxymoron “I understand you bake an awfully good pie Mrs. Smith.” a figure of speech composed of contradictory words or phrases: a contradiction in terms

17. periodic sentence Before she entered the pantry, upon discovering the shortage, Amy was on a fervent quest; she needed more salt or the soup would be ruined. a long sentence where your main point is at the end

18. anadiplosis “In a simple style I write about simple people, people born before the first infinitive was split and the wrath of grammarians fell upon mankind.” ~ Sam Pickering “Composing a Life” repeats the last word of one phrase, clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next

19. chiasmus “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” ~ George Orwell a verbal pattern (a type of antithesis) in which the second half of an expression is balanced against the first with the parts reversed – an ABBA Pattern

20. simile “Apart from that, it seems to me, moreover, objectionable to treat the individual like a dead tool.” ~Albert Einstein “On Education” an explicit comparison between two unlike things with the use of “like” or “as”

21. asyndeton “An empty stream, a great silence, an impenetrable forest. The air was thick, warm, heavy, sluggish.” ~Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness the omission of conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses

22. metonymy The suits on Wall Street walked off with most of our savings. a figure of speech that uses the name of an object, person, or idea to represent something with which it is associated, such as using “the crown” to refer to a monarch

23. euphemism “I’m afraid she had a bit of a wardrobe malfunction” ~Justin Timberlake post a half-time performance at Super Bowl XXXVIII an inoffensive expression that is substituted for one that is considered offensive or harsh

24. anaphora “There are pale-faced nerds who study all the time to get into the Ivies. There are the recent immigrants with uncombed hair and crooked teeth who sing karaoke in bars. There are the punks with highlighted hair who cut school, and the gangsters, whom everyone else avoids.” Henry Han Xi Lau “I was a Member of the Kung Fu Crew” repetition of a word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of two or more sentences in a row: this is a deliberate form of repetition and helps make the writer’s point more coherent

25. litotes “The grave's a fine a private place, But none, I think, do there embrace.” Andrew Marvell, “To His Coy Mistress” understatement

26. irony A man who is a traffic cop gets his license suspended for unpaid parking tickets. a situation or statement in which the actual outcome or meaning is opposite to what was expected

27. allusion “I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the Planet Earth.”~ Barack Obama a reference to another text or assumed knowledge of a reference

28. alliteration “Let’s leave all that littleness and look higher.” W.E.B. Dubois, “The Coming of John” the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words