Literary Terms
Project
Elizabeth Schnolis
AP Language and Composition – A4
Imagery
• The use of vivid or figurative language to represent
objects, actions, or ideas.
• “There is a willow grows askant the brook, That shows
his hoar leaves in the glassy stream…” (4.7.165-166)
• “…It was a nasty place, There was a mess wherever
you stepped. Where chaos reigned and earthquakes
and volcanoes never slept. And
then along came Zeus. He hurled
his thunderbolt, He zapped,
Locked those suckers in a vault;
They're trapped. And on his own
stopped chaos in its tracks And
that's the gospel truth.” (The
Muses from Hercules)
Simile
• A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike
things are compared, often in a phrase using like
or as
• “Make thy two eyes, like stars, start from their
spheres…” (1.5.17)
• “We must be swift as a coursing
river, With all the force of a
great typhoon, With all the
strength of a raging fire,
Mysterious as the dark side of
the moon!” (Be a Man from
Mulan)
Metaphor
• A figure of speech in which a word or phrase
that ordinarily describes one thing is used to
describe another; making a comparison
• “…’tis an unweeded garden that grows
to seed: things rank and gross in nature
possess it merely…” (1.2.135-136)
• “This vampire bat, this inhuman beast..”
(Cruella De Vil
in 101 Dalmatians
Personification
• A figure of speech in which inanimate objects or
abstractions are endowed with human qualities
• “Haste me to know it, that with wings a swift as
meditation or the thoughts of love may sweep to my
revenge” (1.5.29-31)
• “Don't believe me? Ask the
dishes! They can sing, they
can dance, After all, Miss,
this is France…” (Lumiere
from Beauty and the Beast)
Apostrophe
• the act of addressing some abstraction or
personification that is not physically present
• “Frailty, thy name is woman!” (1.2.146)
• “Fate! Why have you forsaken me?” (Frollo
from the Hunchback of Notre Dame)
Symbol
• A word, place, character, or object that means
something beyond what it is on a literal level
• “Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know
not how oft…” (Yorick’s Skull symbolizes that
everyone must die) (5.1.178-179)
• Books are used as a symbol in
Beauty and the Beast; they
represent a way to escape from
the lives Belle and Beast do not
want.
Allegory
• Any writing in verse or prose that has a double
meaning
• “There's rosemary, that's for remembrance;
pray, love, remember, and there is pansies.
That's for thoughts” (4.5.174-176)
• Lion King is an allegory for
Hamlet
Paradox
• The use of a contradiction in a manner that
oddly makes sense on a deeper level
• “A little more than kin, and less than kind.”
(1.2.65)
• “Why is my reflection someone
I don’t know…” (Mulan from
Disney’s Mulan)
Hyperbole
• An extreme exaggeration or overstatement
• “O, my offence is rank, it smells to heaven..”
(3.3.36)
• “I’m so hungry I could eat a whole elephant”
(Rolly from 101
Dalmatians)
Understatement
• The opposite of exaggeration
• In comparison to the rest of Hamlet’s Soliloquy
these lines are an understatement, “It is not
nor it cannot come to good. But break, my
heart; for I must hold my tongue” (1.2.158-159)
• “I don’t know, he looks kind
of hairy and slobbery to me.”
(Scuttle from The Little
Mermaid)
Irony
• One thing that means another; a situation in which
the audience knows something that the
characters don’t; events that accidentally occur,
but turn out to be appropriate
• “…I am too much i’ the
(1.2.67)
• Prince Phillip and Briar Rose
meet in the forest and fall in
love, but neither one of them
knows that they were set
to be married to each other
sun.”
Chiasmus
• A literary scheme in which the author
introduces words or concepts in a particular
order, then later repeats those terms in
reversed or backwards order
• “The body is with the King, but the
King is not with the body...” (4.2.26-27)
• “I’m bad, and that’s good. I will never
be good, and that’s not bad.”
(Ralph from Wreck-it Ralph)
Metonymy
• Using a vaguely suggestive, physical object to
embody a more general idea
• “My crown, my own ambition, and my
queen…” (3.3.55)
• “I’m all ears…” (Meg in
Disney’s Hercules)
Synecdoche
• A rhetorical trope involving a part of an object
representing the whole, or the whole of an
object representing a part
• “O, that this is too too solid flesh
would melt…” (1.2.129)
• “All hands on Deck!” (Mr. Smee
from Peter Pan)
Repartee
• A number of plays an acting company had
prepared for performance at any given time
• The Murder of Gonzago is an example of a
Repartee that the Players knew in Hamlet
• In Disney’s Tangled, directly before a
song starts a character summons
another to start playing music.
Because the character playing the
music is playing by memory, the song
they are about to sing must be
a repartee. (can be viewed at this address within the
first 20 seconds of the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=KuD8z
5AatN8
Stichomythia
• Dialogue consisting of one-line speeches designed for
rapid delivery and snappy exchanges
• “Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.” “Go,
go, you question with a wicked tongue.” (3.4.11-12)
• “It’s Pink!”
“Oh, lovely shade, isn’t it.”
“But I wanted it blue.”
“Now, dear, we decided pink.”,
“You decided!”
(Argument between Flora and
Merryweather in Sleeping Beauty)
Stock Characters
• A character type that appears repeatedly in a
particular literary genre, one which has certain
conventional attributes or attitudes.
• Horatio is a Stock Character in
Hamlet because his actions and
character are related to that of
a sidekick
• Mike Wazowski is a classic Stock
character of sidekick as well
Alliteration
• Repeating a consonant sound in close
proximity to others, or beginning several
words with the same vowel sound.
• “With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous
gifts…” (1.5.43)
• “I can show you the world,
Shining, shimmering,
splendid…” (Aladdin
from Disney’s Aladdin)
Assonance
• Repeating identical or similar vowels in nearby
words
• “Doubt thou the stars are fire; Doubt that the
sun doth move; Doubt truth to be a liar…”
(2.2.115-117)
• “Reminiscin’, this ‘n’ thatn’
Havin’ such a good time
Oo-de-lally, Oo-de-lally
Golly what a day.”
(Oo-de-lally from Disney’s Robin Hood)
Consonance
• The recurrence or repetition of consonants
especially at the end of stressed syllables
without the similar correspondence of vowels
• “Till then sit still, my soul: foul deeds will rise
though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's
eyes.” (1.2.227-228)
• “Flotsam, Jetsam, now I've
got her, boys…” (Ursula
from the Little Mermaid)
Rhyme
• Correspondence of sound between words or
the endings of words
• "The time is out of joint, O cursed spite That
ever I was born to set it right!” (1.5.190-191)
• “No matter how your heart is
grieving, If you keep on
believing, the dream that you
will come true” (Cinderella in
Disney’s Cinderella)
wish
Rhythm
• A strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement
or sound.
• “…And lose the name of action”
/
/
- / • “Like a bolt out of the blue
Fate steps in and sees you through
When you wish upon a star
Your dreams come true”
(When you Wish Upon a Star
from Disney’s Pinocchio)
(3.1.88)
Meter
• A recognizable though varying pattern of stressed
syllables alternating with syllables of less stress.
• “O that this too too solid flesh would melt, Thaw, and
resolve itself into a dew!
Or that
the Everlasting had not fix’d
His
canon ’gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!” (1.2.129-132)
• “This heart of mine is in the heart of Dixie That's where
I belong Singing a song, a Song of the South.”
(Song of the South from Disney’s Song
of the South)
End-Stopped Line
• A line ending in a full pause, often indicated by appropriate
punctuation such as a period or semicolon
• “I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow-student. I think it was to
see my mother’s wedding.” (1.2.177-178)
• “Alice in Wonderland, how do you get to Wonderland? Over the
hill or underland, or just behind the tree? When clouds go rolling
by, they roll away and leave the sky. Where is the land beyond the
eye, that people can not see, where can it be? Where do stars go,
where is the crescent moon? They must be somewhere in the
sunny afternoon. Alice in Wonderland, where is the path to
Wonderland? Over the hill or here or there, I wonder where.”
(From Disney’s Alice in Wonderland)
Run-on-line
• A line having no pause or end punctuation but having
uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into
the next line
• “This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.” (1.3.78-80)
• “And ready to know what the people know,
Ask 'em my questions,
And get some answers,
What's a fire and why does it,
(What's the word?) burn?” (Ariel
from the Little Mermaid)
Caesura
• A pause separating phrases within lines of
poetry
• “The Heart-ache, and the thousand Natural shocks
That Flesh is heir to? 'Tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die to sleep…” (3.1.62-64)
• “Look there he goes! Isn’t he dreamy?
Monsieur Gaston! Oh, he’s so cute!
Bestill my heart! I’m hardly breathing!”
(Trio of girls from Beauty and the Beast)
Free Verse
• Poetry based on the natural rhythms of phrases and normal
pauses rather than the artificial constraints of metrical feet
• But, woe is me, you are so sick of late, So far from cheer
and from your former state, That I distrust you. Yet,
though I distrust, Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must.
(3.2.152-155)
• “It started with a dream.
A dream to make dreams.
It’s a tale as old as time.
A magic place where pirates and
princesses stand side by side.” (A Free
Verse Poem by Rachel E.)
Iambic Pentameter
• A recognizable pattern of a lightly stressed
syllable followed by a heavily stressed syllable. (A
basic measure of English poetry, five iambic feet in
each line)
• “O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!”
(1.2.129-130)
• “Take the straight and narrow path
and if you start to slide…” (Jiminy
Cricket from Disney’s Pinocchio)
Grammatical/Rhetorical
Pauses
• A natural pause, unmarked by punctuation,
introduced into the reading of a line by its
phrasing or syntax
• “Save me and hover o'er me with your wings,
You heavenly guards!” (3.4.103-104)
• “Sweet princess if through this
wicked witch's trick, a spindle
should your finger prick... a ray of
hope there still may be in this, the
gift I give to thee.” (Merryweather
from Sleeping Beauty) (the pause
is marked with ellipsis)
Concluding Couplet
• Two successive lines, usually in a verse of a poem
or a song, that are rhymed and have the same
meter.
• “But I have that within which passeth show; These
but the trappings and the suits of woe.” (1.2.8586)
• “And when our journey is through Each time we
say "Goodnight" We'll thank the little star that
shines The second from the right” (Second
Star from the Right from Disney’s
Peter Pan)
The End!