Handbook of Literary Terms

Handbook of Literary Terms • 6th Grade Reading • Seth

Alliteration • Peter piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. • The repetition of the same of very similar consonant sounds in world that are close together.

Dialect • “ Wese skeered to walk de earth.” from How The Snake Got Poison. • A way of speaking that is characteristic of a particular region or of a particular group of people

Imagery The Man stood 6 ft. 5 with a musky smell and wild hair like bed-head. His skin was wrinkly like an old man. Language that appeals to the senses-sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell

Metaphor • My family is as tight as a pack of wolves. • A comparison between two unlike things in which one thing becomes another thing

Onomatopoeia • “Boom!” the gun sounded as the bullet hit the target. • The use of a word whose sound imitates or suggest its meaning

Personification • The trees whispered amongst themselves. • A special kind of metaphor which a nonhuman or quality is talked about as if it were human or alive

Simile • McDonalds is like Burger King. • A comparison between two unlike thins using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles

Stanza Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, I like this poem. and so should you • In a poem, a group of lines that form a unit

Symbol • Batman signal’s two meanings are a bat and a call for Batman. • A person, a place, a thing, or as event that has its own meaning and stands for something beyond itself as well

Theme • The theme on page 422 is “This is a life story of Hans Christian Anderson.” • A truth about life revealed in a work of literature.

Myth • Zeus is a Greek Myth. • A story that usually explains something about the world and involves gods and superheroes.

Handbook of Literary Terms