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Literary Terms
1. Classical Criticism
Literary criticism is thought to have existed as long as literature. In the 4th century, BC Aristotle wrote the Poetics, a typology and description of literary forms with many specific criticisms of contemporary works of art. Poetics developed for the first time the concepts of mimesis and catharsis, which are still crucial in literary studies.
Plato's attacks on poetry as imitative, secondary, and false were formative as well. The Sanskrit Natya Shastra includes literary criticism of ancient Indian literature and Sanskrit drama. Later classical and medieval criticism often focused on religious texts, and the several long religious traditions of hermeneutics and textual exegesis have had a profound influence on the study of secular texts.
This was particularly the case for the literary traditions of the three Abrahamic religions: Jewish literature, Christian literature, and Islamic literature. Literary criticism was also employed in other forms of medieval Arabic literature and Arabic poetry from the 9th century, notably by Al-Jahiz in his al-Bayan wa-'l-tabyin and al-Hayawan, and by Abdullah ibn al-Mu'tazz in his Kitab al-Badi.
2. Neoclassical criticism
Neoclassical literature was written between 1660 and 1798. This period is broken down into three parts: the Restoration period, the Augustan period, and the Age of Johnson. Writers of the Neoclassical period tried to imitate the style of the Romans and Greeks.
Thus the combination of the terms 'neo,' which means 'new,' and 'classical,' as in the day of the Roman and Greek classics. This was also the era of The Enlightenment, which emphasized logic and reason. It was preceded by The Renaissance and followed by the Romantic era. In fact, the Neoclassical period ended in 1798 when Wordsworth published the Romantic 'Lyrical Ballads'.
3. Romantic criticism
English literary criticism of the Romantic era is most closely associated with the writings of William Wordsworth in his Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1800) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his Biographia Literaria (1817). ... Additionally, music replaced painting as the art form considered most like poetry by the Romantics.
4. Historical criticism
Historical criticism, also known as the historical-critical method or higher criticism, is a branch of literary criticism that investigates the origins of ancient text to understand "the world behind the text". The primary goal of historical criticism is to ascertain the text's primitive or original meaning in its original historical context and its literal sense or sensus literalis historicus.
The secondary goal seeks to establish a reconstruction of the historical situation of the author and recipients of the text. This may be accomplished by reconstructing the true nature of the events which the text describes.
An ancient text may also serve as a document, record, or source for reconstructing the ancient past which may also serve as a chief interest to the historical critic. In regards to Semitic biblical interpretation, the historical critic would be able to interpret "The Literature of Israel" as well as "The History of Israel".
In 18th-century Biblical criticism, the term higher criticism was commonly used in mainstream scholarship in contrast with lower criticism. In the 21st century, historical criticism is the more commonly used term for higher criticism, while textual criticism is more common than the loose expression of lower criticism.
5. Realistic criticism
Broadly defined as "the faithful representation of reality" or "verisimilitude," realism is a literary technique practiced by many schools of writing. Although strictly speaking, realism is a technique, it also denotes a particular kind of subject matter, especially the representation of middle-class life.
A reaction against romanticism, an interest in the scientific method, the systematizing of the study of documentary history, and the influence of rational philosophy all affected the rise of realism.
According to William Harmon and Hugh Holman, "Where romanticists transcend the immediate to find the ideal, and naturalists plumb the actual or superficial to find the scientific laws that control its actions, realists center their attention to a remarkable degree on the immediate, the here and now, the specific action, and the verifiable consequence" (A Handbook to Literature 428).
Many critics have suggested that there is no clear distinction between realism and its related late nineteenth-century movement, naturalism. As Donald Pizer notes in his introduction to The Cambridge Companion to American Realism and Naturalism: Howells to London, the term "realism" is difficult to define, in part because it is used differently in European contexts than in American literature.
Pizer suggests that "whatever was being produced in fiction during the 1870s and 1880s that was new, interesting, and roughly similar in several ways can be designated as realism, and that an equally new, interesting, and roughly similar body of writing produced at the turn of the century can be designated as naturalism" (5).
Put rather too simplistically, one rough distinction made by critics is that realism espousing a deterministic philosophy and focusing on the lower classes is considered naturalism. In American literature, the term "realism" encompasses the period from the Civil War to the turn of the century during which William Dean Howells, Rebecca Harding Davis, Henry James, Mark Twain, and others wrote fiction devoted to accurate representation and an exploration of American lives in various contexts.
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As the United States grew rapidly after the Civil War, the increasing rates of democracy and literacy, the rapid growth in industrialism and urbanization, an expanding population base due to immigration, and a relative rise in middle-class affluence provided a fertile literary environment for readers interested in understanding these rapid shifts in culture.
In drawing attention to this connection, Amy Kaplan has called realism a "strategy for imagining and managing the threats of social change" (Social Construction of American Realism ix).
Realism was a movement that encompassed the entire country, or at least the Midwest and South, although many of the writers and critics associated with realism (notably W. D. Howells) were based in New England. Among the Midwestern writers considered realists would be Joseph Kirkland, E. W. Howe, and Hamlin Garland; the Southern writer John W. DeForest's Miss Ravenal's Conversion from Secession to Loyalty is often considered a realist novel, too.
6. Marxist criticism
Marxist literary criticism is a loose term describing literary criticism based on socialist and dialectic theories. Marxist criticism views literary works as reflections of the social institutions from which they originate. Most Marxist critics who were writing in what could chronologically be specified as the early period of Marxist literary criticism subscribed to what has come to be called "Vulgar Marxism." In this thinking of the structure of societies, literary texts are one register of the Superstructure, which is determined by the economic base of any given society.
Therefore, literary texts are a reflection of the economic Base rather than "the social institutions from which they originate" for all social institutions, or, more precisely human social relationships, are in the final analysis determined by the economic Base.
According to Marxists, even literature itself is a social institution and has a specific ideological function, based on the background and ideology of the author. The English literary critic and cultural theorist Terry Eagleton defines Marxist criticism this way: Marxist criticism is not merely a 'sociology of literature', concerned with how novels get published and whether they mention the working class.
Its aim is to explain the literary work more fully; and this means a sensitive attention to its forms, styles and, meanings. But it also means grasping those forms, styles and meanings as the product of a particular history.[1] The simplest goals of Marxist literary criticism can include an assessment of the political 'tendency' of a literary work, determining whether its social content or its literary form are 'progressive'.
It also includes analyzing the class constructs demonstrated in the literature. Further, another of the ends of Marxist criticism is to analyze the narrative of class struggle in a given text. Does the text serve to perpetuate the ruling class ideology; to subvert that ideology, such as William Morris's News from Nowhere; or to signify both a perpetuation and subversion of the dominant ideology, such as in the works of Charles Dickens with Hard Times being the novel that most openly textualizes such a double signification as it offers a damning criticism of capitalism while also and at the same time seeking a perpetuation of a class-structured society.
7. Psychoanalytical criticism
Psychoanalytic criticism adopts the methods of "reading" employed by Freud and later theorists to interpret texts. It argues that literary texts, like dreams, express the secret unconscious desires and anxieties of the author, that a literary work is a manifestation of the author's own neuroses. One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche.
One interesting facet of this approach is that it validates the importance of literature, as it is built on a literary key for the decoding. Freud himself wrote, "The dream thoughts which we first come across as we proceed with our analysis often strike us by the unusual form in which they are expressed; they are not clothed in the prosaic language usually employed by our thoughts but are on the contrary represented symbolically utilizing similes and metaphors, in images resembling those of poetic speech" (26).
Like psychoanalysis itself, this critical endeavor seeks evidence of unresolved emotions, psychological conflicts, guilts, ambivalences, and so forth within what may well be a disunified literary work. The author's own childhood traumas, family life, sexual conflicts, fixations, and such will be traceable within the behavior of the characters in the literary work.
But psychological material will be expressed indirectly, disguised, or encoded (as in dreams) through principles such as "symbolism" (the repressed object represented in disguise), "condensation" (several thoughts or persons represented in a single image), and "displacement" (anxiety located onto another image by means of association).
Despite the importance of the author here, psychoanalytic criticism is similar to New Criticism in not concerning itself with "what the author intended." But what the author never intended (that is, repressed) is sought. The unconscious material has been distorted by the censoring conscious mind. Psychoanalytic critics will ask such questions as, "What is Hamlet's problem?" or "Why can't Brontë seem to portray any positive mother figures?"
8. Feminist Criticism
Feminist criticism is concerned with "... how literature (and other cultural productions) reinforce or undermine the economic, political, social, and psychological oppression of women" (Tyson 83). This school of theory looks at how aspects of our culture are inherently patriarchal (male-dominated) and aims to expose misogyny in writing about women, which can take explicit and implicit forms.
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This misogyny, Tyson reminds us, can extend into diverse areas of our culture: "Perhaps the most chilling example...is found in the world of modern medicine, where drugs prescribed for both sexes often have been tested on male subjects only" (85).
Feminist criticism is also concerned with less obvious forms of marginalization such as the exclusion of women writers from the traditional literary canon: "...unless the critical or historical point of view is feminist, there is a tendency to underrepresent the contribution of women writers" (Tyson 84).
9. Narratology
Narratology looks at what narratives have in common and what makes one different from another. Like structuralism and semiotics, from which it derived, narratology is based on the idea of a common literary language, or a universal pattern of codes that operates within the text of a work.
10. Structuralist Approach
A movement of thought in the humanities, widespread in anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory, and influential in the 1950s and ’60s. Based primarily on the linguistic theories of Ferdinand de Saussure, structuralism considered language as a system of signs and signification, the elements of which are understandable only with each other and to the system. In literary theory, structuralism challenged the belief that a work of literature reflected a given reality; instead, a text was constituted of linguistic conventions and situated among other texts.
Structuralist critics analyzed material by examining underlying structures, such as characterization or plot, and attempted to show how these patterns were universal and could thus be used to develop general conclusions about both individual works and the systems from which they emerged.
The anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss was an important champion of structuralism, as was Roman Jakobsen. Northrop Frye’s attempts to categorize Western literature by archetype had some basis in structuralist thought.
Structuralism regarded language as a closed, stable system, and by the late 1960s, it had given way to post-structuralism.
11. Renaissance literature
refers to European literature which was influenced by the intellectual and cultural tendencies associated with the Renaissance. ... For the writers of the Renaissance, Greco-Roman inspiration was shown both in the themes of their writing and in the literary forms they used.
12. Metacriticism
"A criticism of criticism, the goal of which is to scrutinize systematically the terminology, logic, and structure that undergird critical and theoretical discourse in general or any particular mode of such discourse" (Henderson and Brown).
13. Intimate
New Criticism was a formalist movement in literary theory that dominated American literary criticism in the middle decades of the 20th century. It emphasized close reading, particularly of poetry, to discover how a work of literature functioned as a self-contained, self-referential aesthetic object.
14. Postcolonial literature
is the literature by people from formerly colonized countries. ... It addresses the role of literature in perpetuating and challenging what postcolonial critic Edward Said refers to as cultural imperialism. Migrant literature and postcolonial literature show some considerable overlap.
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15. Post-Structuralism
Post-Structuralism is a late 20th-century movement in philosophy and literary criticism, which is difficult to summarize but which generally defines itself in its opposition to the popular Structuralism movement that preceded it in 1950s and 1960s France.
16. Ballards
A ballad is a type of poem that is sometimes set to music. Ballads have a long history and are found in many cultures. The ballad actually began as a folk song and continues today in popular music. Many love songs today can be considered ballads. A typical ballad consists of stanzas that contain a quatrain, or four poetic lines.
The meter or rhythm of each line is usually iambic, which means it has one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. In ballads, there are usually eight or six syllables in a line. Like any poem, some ballads follow this form and some don't, but almost all ballads are narrative, which means they tell a story.
Because the ballad was originally set to music, some ballads have a refrain, or a repeated chorus, just like a song does. Similarly, the rhyme scheme is often ABAB because of the musical quality of this rhyme pattern. While ballads have always been popular, it was during the Romantic movement of poetry in the late 18th century that the ballad had a resurgence and became a popular form. Many famous romantic poets, like William Wordsworth, wrote in the ballad form.
17. Allegory
An allegory is a story that is used to represent a more general message about real-life (historical) issues and/or events. It is typically an entire book, novel, play, etc. Example: George Orwell’s dystopian book Animal Farm is an allegory for the events preceding the Russian Revolution and the Stalinist era in early 20th century Russia.
In the story, animals on a farm practice animalism, which is essentially communism. Many characters correspond to actual historical figures: Old Major represents both the founder of communism Karl Marx and the Russian communist leader Vladimir Lenin; the farmer, Mr. Jones, is the Russian Czar; the boar Napoleon stands for Joseph Stalin; and the pig Snowball represents Leon Trotsky.
18. Alliteration
Alliteration is a series of words or phrases that all (or almost all) start with the same sound. These sounds are typically consonants to give more stress to that syllable. You’ll often come across alliteration in poetry, titles of books and poems (Jane Austen is a fan of this device, for example—just look at Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility), and tongue twisters. Example: "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers." In this tongue twister, the "p" sound is repeated at the beginning of all major words.
19. Allusion
Allusion is when an author makes an indirect reference to a figure, place, event, or idea originating from outside the text. Many allusions make reference to previous works of literature or art. Example: "Stop acting so smart—it’s not like you’re Einstein or something." This is an allusion to the famous real-life theoretical physicist Albert Einstein.
20. Anachronism
An anachronism occurs when there is an (intentional) error in the chronology or timeline of a text. This could be a character who appears in a different period than when he actually lived, or a technology that appears before it was invented. Anachronisms are often used for comedic effect. Example: A Renaissance king who says, "That’s dope, dude!" would be an anachronism, since this type of language is very modern and not actually from the Renaissance period.
21. Anaphora
Anaphora is when a word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of multiple sentences throughout a piece of writing. It's used to emphasize the repeated phrase and evoke strong feelings in the audience. Example: A famous example of anaphora is Winston Churchill's "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" speech.
Throughout this speech, he repeats the phrase "we shall fight" while listing numerous places where the British army will continue battling during WWII. He did this to rally both troops and the British people and to give them confidence that they would still win the war.
22. Anthropomorphism
An anthropomorphism occurs when something nonhuman, such as an animal, place, or inanimate object, behaves in a human-like way. Example: Children's cartoons have many examples of anthropomorphism. For example, Mickey and Minnie Mouse can speak, wear clothes, sing, dance, drive cars, etc. Real mice can't do any of these things, but the two mouse characters behave much more like humans than mice.
23. Asyndeton
Asyndeton is when the writer leaves out conjunctions (such as "and," "or," "but," and "for") in a group of words or phrases so that the meaning of the phrase or sentence is emphasized. It is often used for speeches since sentences containing asyndeton can have a powerful, memorable rhythm.
Example: Abraham Lincoln ends the Gettysburg Address with the phrase "...and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth." By leaving out certain conjunctions, he ends the speech on a more powerful, melodic note.
24. Colloquialism
Colloquialism is the use of informal language and slang. It's often used by authors to lend a sense of realism to their characters and dialogue. Forms of colloquialism include words, phrases, and contractions that aren't real words (such as "gonna" and "ain’t"). Example: "Hey, what’s up, man?" This piece of dialogue is an example of a colloquialism, since it uses common everyday words and phrases, namely "what’s up" and "man."
25. Epigraph
An epigraph is when an author inserts a famous quotation, poem, song, or other short passage or text at the beginning of a larger text (e.g., a book, chapter, etc.). An epigraph is typically written by a different writer (with credit given) and used as a way to introduce overarching themes or messages in the work. Some pieces of literature, such as Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby-Dick, incorporate multiple epigraphs throughout.
Example: At the beginning of Ernest Hemingway’s book The Sun Also Rises is an epigraph that consists of a quotation from poet Gertrude Stein, which reads, "You are all a lost generation," and a passage from the Bible.
26. Epistrophe
Epistrophe is similar to anaphora, but in this case, the repeated word or phrase appears at the end of successive statements. Like anaphora, it is used to evoke an emotional response from the audience. Example: In Lyndon B. Johnson's speech, "The American Promise," he repeats the word "problem" in a use of epistrophe: "There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem."
27. Euphemism
A euphemism is when a more mild or indirect word or expression is used in place of another word or phrase that is considered harsh, blunt, vulgar, or unpleasant. Example: "I’m so sorry, but he didn’t make it." The phrase "didn’t make it" is a more polite and less blunt way of saying that someone has died.
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28. Flashback
A flashback is an interruption in a narrative that depicts events that have already occurred, either before the present time or before the time at which the narration takes place. This device is often used to give the reader more background information and details about specific characters, events, plot points, and so on.
Example: Most of the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is a flashback from the point of view of the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, as she engages in a conversation with a visitor named Lockwood. In this story, Nelly narrates Catherine Earnshaw's and Heathcliff's childhoods, the pair's budding romance, and their tragic demise.
29. Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is when an author indirectly hints at—through things such as dialogue, description, or characters’ actions—what’s to come later on in the story. This device is often used to introduce tension to a narrative. Example: Say you’re reading a fictionalized account of Amelia Earhart. Before she embarks on her (what we know to be unfortunate) plane ride, a friend says to her, "Be safe. Wouldn’t want you getting lost—or worse." This line would be an example of foreshadowing because it implies that something bad ("or worse") will happen to Earhart.
30. Hyperbole
Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement that's not meant to be taken literally by the reader. It is often used for comedic effect and/or emphasis. Example: "I’m so hungry I could eat a horse." The speaker will not literally eat an entire horse (and most likely couldn’t), but this hyperbole emphasizes how starved the speaker feels.
31. Imagery
Imagery is when an author describes a scene, thing, or idea so that it appeals to our senses (taste, smell, sight, touch, or hearing). This device is often used to help the reader clearly visualize parts of the story by creating a strong mental picture. Example: Here’s an example of imagery taken from William Wordsworth’s famous poem "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud": When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden Daffodils; Beside the Lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
32. Irony
Irony is when a statement is used to express an opposite meaning than the one literally expressed by it. There are three types of irony in literature:
• Verbal irony: When someone says something but means the opposite (similar to sarcasm).
• Situational irony: When something happens that's the opposite of what was expected or intended to happen.
• Dramatic irony: When the audience is aware of the true intentions or outcomes, while the characters are not. As a result, certain actions and/or events take on different meanings for the audience than they do for the characters involved. Examples:
• Verbal irony: One example of this type of irony can be found in Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Cask of Amontillado."
In this short story, a man named Montresor plans to get revenge on another man named Fortunato. As they toast, Montresor says, "And I, Fortunato—I drink to your long life." This statement is ironic because we the readers already know by this point that Montresor plans to kill Fortunato.
• Situational irony: A girl wakes up late for school and quickly rushes to get there. As soon as she arrives, though, she realizes that it’s Saturday and there is no school.
• Dramatic irony: In William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo commits suicide in order to be with Juliet; however, the audience (unlike poor Romeo) knows that Juliet is not actually dead—just asleep.
33. Juxtaposition
Juxtaposition is the comparing and contrasting of two or more different (usually opposite) ideas, characters, objects, etc. This literary device is often used to help create a clearer picture of the characteristics of one object or idea by comparing it with those of another.
Example: One of the most famous literary examples of juxtaposition is the opening passage from Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair …"
Malapropism Malapropism happens when an incorrect word is used in place of a word that has a similar sound. This misuse of the word typically results in a statement that is both nonsensical and humorous; as a result, this device is commonly used in comedic writing. Example: "I just can't wait to dance the flamingo!" Here, a character has accidentally called the flamenco (a type of dance) the flamingo (an animal).
34. Metaphor/Simile
Metaphors are when ideas, actions, or objects are described in non-literal terms. In short, it’s when an author compares one thing to another. The two things being described usually share something in common but are unalike in all other respects.
A simile is a type of metaphor in which an object, idea, character, action, etc., is compared to another thing using the words "as" or "like." Both metaphors and similes are often used in writing for clarity or emphasis.
Examples: "What light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun." In this line from Romeo and Juliet, Romeo compares Juliet to the sun. However, because Romeo doesn’t use the words "as" or "like," it is not a simile—just a metaphor. "She is as vicious as a lion." Since this statement uses the word "as" to make a comparison between "she" and "a lion," it is a simile.
35. Metonym
A metonym is when a related word or phrase is substituted for the actual thing to which it's referring. This device is usually used for poetic or rhetorical effect. Example: "The pen is mightier than the sword." This statement, which was coined by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in 1839, contains two examples of metonymy: "the pen" refers to "the written word," and "the sword" refers to "military force/violence."
36. Mood
Mood is the general feeling the writer wants the audience to have. The writer can achieve this through description, setting, dialogue, and word choice. Example: Here's a passage from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit: "It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle.
The door opened onto a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with paneled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats -- the hobbit was fond of visitors." In this passage, Tolkien uses detailed descriptions to set create a cozy, comforting mood. From the writing, you can see that the hobbit's home is well-cared for and designed to provide comfort.
37. Onomatopoeia
Onomatopoeia is a word (or group of words) that represents a sound and actually resembles or imitates the sound it stands for. It is often used for dramatic, realistic, or poetic effect. Examples: Buzz, boom, chirp, creak, sizzle, zoom, etc.
38. Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a combination of two words that, together, express a contradictory meaning. This device is often used for emphasis, for humor, to create tension, or to illustrate a paradox (see next entry for more information on paradoxes). Examples: Deafening silence, organized chaos, cruelly kind, insanely logical, etc.
39. Paradox
A paradox is a statement that appears illogical or self-contradictory but, upon investigation, might actually be true or plausible. Note that a paradox is different from an oxymoron: a paradox is an entire phrase or sentence, whereas an oxymoron is a combination of just two words.
Example: Here's a famous paradoxical sentence: "This statement is false." If the statement is true, then it isn’t actually false (as it suggests). But if it’s false, then the statement is true! Thus, this statement is a paradox because it is both true and false at the same time.
40. Personification
Personification is when a nonhuman figure or other abstract concept or element is described as having human-like qualities or characteristics. (Unlike anthropomorphism where non-human figures become human-like characters, with personification, the object/figure is simply describedas being human-like.)
Personification is used to help the reader create a clearer mental picture of the scene or object being described. Example: "The wind moaned, beckoning me to come outside." In this example, the wind—a nonhuman element—is being described as if it is human (it "moans" and "beckons").
41. Repetition
Repetition is when a word or phrase is written multiple times, usually for the purpose of emphasis. It is often used in poetry (for purposes of rhythm as well). Example: When Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote the score for the hit musical Hamilton, gave his speech at the 2016 Tony’s, he recited a poem he’d written that included the following line: And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside.
42. Satire
Satire is genre of writing that criticizes something, such as a person, behavior, belief, government, or society. Satire often employs irony, humor, and hyperbole to make its point. Example: The Onion is a satirical newspaper and digital media company. It uses satire to parody common news features such as opinion columns, editorial cartoons, and click bait headlines.
43. Soliloquy
A type of monologue that's often used in dramas, a soliloquy is when a character speaks aloud to himself (and to the audience), thereby revealing his inner thoughts and feelings. Example: In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet’s speech on the balcony that begins with, "O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?" is a soliloquy, as she is speaking aloud to herself(remember that she doesn't realize Romeo's there listening!).
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44. Symbolism
Symbolism refers to the use of an object, figure, event, situation, or other idea in a written work to represent something else—typically a broader message or deeper meaning that differs from its literal meaning. The things used for symbolism are called "symbols," and they’ll often appear multiple times throughout a text, sometimes changing in meaning as the plot progresses. Example: In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, the green light that sits across from Gatsby’s mansion symbolizes Gatsby’s hopes and dreams.
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45. Synecdoche
A synecdoche is a literary device in which part of something is used to represent the whole, or vice versa. It's similar to a metonym (see above); however, a metonym doesn't have to represent the whole—just something associated with the word used. Example: "Help me out, I need some hands!" In this case, "hands" is being used to refer to people (the whole human, essentially).
46. Tone
While mood is what the audience is supposed to feel, tone is the writer or narrator's attitude towards a subject. A good writer will always want the audience to feel the mood they're trying to evoke, but the audience may not always agree with the narrator's tone, especially if the narrator is an unsympathetic character or has viewpoints that differ from those of the reader.
Example: In an essay disdaining Americans and some of the sites they visit as tourists, Rudyard Kipling begins with the line, "Today I am in the Yellowstone Park, and I wish I were dead." If you enjoy Yellowstone and/or national parks, you may not agree with the author's tone in this piece.
47. Anapest
Anapest is a metrical foot containing two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. It is the reverse of dactyl meter. Lord Byron provided us with a great example of anapestic tetrameter in his poem "The Destruction of Sennacherib." Here's a sample: Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown.
48. Assonance
“ is the repetition of vowel sounds within a tight group of words. This, too, is done for emphasis and can reinforce a central message. Here's a short example from Carl Sandburg's "Early Moon." Notice the repetition of the vowels O and A. "Poetry is old, ancient and goes back far."
49. Black Verse
In blank verse poetry, we usually see iambic pentameter that doesn't rhyme. We'll still enjoy a line with 10 syllables where the first syllable is unstressed and the second is stressed. There just won't be an aim to rhyme the lines. Wallace Stevens' "Sunday Morning" is an excellent example of a poem written in perfect blank verse.
50. Iambic Pentameter
Iambic pentameter describes a pattern wherein the lines in a poem consist of five iambs, making up a total of 10 syllables. This means the line reads as an unstressed syllable, then a stressed syllable, then an unstressed syllable, and then a stressed syllable for ten beats. William Shakespeare's "Sonnet 18" contains iambic pentameter. In this example, notice there are 10 syllables. The first is unstressed, the second is stressed, and so forth. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?"
51. Sonnet
A sonnet is a poem containing fourteen lines of iambic pentameter that rhyme. The best-known forms of sonnets include: the English (Shakespearean) Sonnet - Three quatrains and a couplet, usually following a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet - An octave followed by a sestet, with rhyming iambic pentameter and a volta (turning point) around the eighth line, usually following a rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA CDECDE.
