Please define and provide an example for the following literary terms:
Allusion: reference(s) to outside literary text(s).
EX: biblical allusion
Diction: word choice
EX: using the word “battered” versus “beat-up”
Figure of Speech:
EX: hyperbole, metaphor, personification, simile, and understatement
Metaphor: a comparison of two things that does not use “like” or “as”
EX: My friend Trey is such a pig.
Simile: a comparison using “like” or “as”
EX: Her makeup was like Kim Kardashian’s.
Personification: to give human characteristics to non-living things
EX: The willow wept and waved in the wind as I walked away.
(^this is also ALLITERATION.)
Imagery: where a piece of text is invoking one or more of your 5 SENSES:
(hearing, taste, touch, smell, sight).
Alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words that are near one
another in a sentence.
Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds in words that are next to one another in the sentence.
Onomatopoeia: BAM! Words that are sounds. SMACK!
Stanza: the “paragraphs” in the poem.
For a further guide on literary devices, please see the following website:
http://literary-devices.com/