Terms for Literary Stylistics
Alliteration – A figure of speech in which the consonants, especially at the beginning of words, or
stressed syllables, are repeated. Tends to be used for the achievement of the special effect.
Allusion - Usually an implicit reference, perhaps to another work of literature or art, to a person or an
event. It is often a kind of appeal to a reader to share some experience with the writer. An allusion may
enrich the work by association and give it depth. When using an allusion the writer tends to assume an
established literary tradition, a body of common knowledge with an audience sharing that tradition and
an ability on the part of the audience to “pick up” the reference. Roughly, we can distinguish: (a) a
reference to events and people, (b) reference to facts about the author himself, (c) a metaphoric
allusion, and (d) an imitative allusion.
Anecdote – A brief account of or a story about an individual or an incident.
Allegory – A story in verse or prose with a double meaning: a primary or surface meaning; and a
secondary or under-the-surface meaning. Closely related to the fable and parable. Can be read on two
or more levels.
Assonance – Sometimes called “vocalic rhyme”, it consists of the repetition of similar vowel sounds,
usually close together, to achieve a particular effect of euphony.
Asyntactic – (from the Greek “not arranged”) Applied to prose or verse which is loose, ungrammatical
in structure and therefore which breaks the normal conventions governing word order.
Cacophony – The opposite of euphony. Harsh sounds are used deliberately by the writer, especially the
poet, to achieve a particular effect.
Caesura – A break or pause in a line of poetry, dictated, usually, by the natural rhythm of the language.
Chiasmus – (Greek – “placing crosswise”) A reversal of grammatical structures in successive phrases
or clauses.
Cliché – A trite, over-used expression which is lifeless. Many idioms have become cliches through
excessive use.
Connotation – The suggestion or implication evoked by a word or phrase, over and above what it
means or actually denotes. May be personal and individual, or general and universal.
Consonance – The close repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after different vowels.
Denotation – The most literal and limited meaning of a word, regardless of what one may feel about it
or the suggestions and ideas it connotes.
Diction – Diction denotes the vocabulary used by a writer. Poetic diction usually refers to that rather
particular kind of language and artificial arrangement employed by many poets. (Especially Neoclassic
poets.)
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Ellipsis – (Greek – “leaving out”) A figurative device where a word (or several words) is left out in
order to achieve more compact expression. (Modern poets like Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden
use the device frequently.)
Emotive language – Language intended to express or arouse emotional reactions towards the subject.
Empathy – When we experience empathy we identify ourselves, up to a point, with an animate or
inanimate object. The experience might even be an involuntary projection of ourselves into an object.
End-rhyme – This occurs at the end of a line or verse. Distinguished from head-rhyme or alliteration &
internal rhyme.
Enjambement – Running on of the sense beyond the second line of one couplet into the first line of the
next.
Epithet
- Usually an adjective or phrase expressing some quality or attribute which is
characteristic of a person or thing.
Euphony – The terms denotes pleasing, mellifluous sounds, usually produced by long vowels rather
than consonants.
Fiction- A vague and general term for an imaginative work, usually in prose.
Figurative language – Language which uses figures of speech; for example, metaphor, simile,
alliteration, etc.
Flashback – A term which describes any scene or episode in a play, novel, story or poem which is
inserted to show events that happened at an earlier time. (Frequently used in modern fiction.)
Foot – A group of syllables forming a metrical unit; a unit of rhythm. We measure feet in terms of
syllable variation: long and short syllables, stressed and unstressed. (Common feet = iamb, trochee,
dactyl, anapest and spondee.)
Foreshadowing – The technique of arranging events and information in a narrative in such a way that
later events are prepared for or shadowed forth beforehand.
Free verse – Has no regular meter or line length and depends on natural speech rhythms and the
counterpoint of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Homonym – (Greek: “Same name”) A word having the same sound and spelling as another, but a
different meaning.
Homophone – (Greek: “Same sound”) A word which is pronounced the same as another, but has a
different spelling and meaning.
Hyperbole – A figure of speech which contains an exaggeration for emphasis.
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Iambic pentameter – Denotes a line of five feet, arranged as unstressed, followed by stressed
syllables. (Shakes. Sonnet)
Idyll – (Greek: “Little form”) It can refer to either a poem or an episode which describes some episode
or scene in rural life, or a description of any scene of tranquil happiness.
Illusion – The semblance of reality and verisimilitude in art which most writers create in order to
enable the reader to think that he is seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting and smelling, or having some extrasensory or kinesthetic experience.
Imagery – As a general term covers the use of language to represent objects, actions, feelings,
thoughts, ideas, states of mind and any sensory or extra-sensory experience. Many images are
conveyed by figurative language.
Irony – Most forms of irony involve the perception or awareness of a discrepancy or incongruity
between words and their meanings, or between actions and their results, or between appearance and
reality. In all cases there may be elements of the absurd or the paradoxical. The two basic kinds are
verbal (saying what one does not mean) and situational irony.
Lyric – From Greeks – a song to be sung to the accompaniment of the lyre, but also the term used to
describe a particular kind of poem in order to distinguish it from narrative or dramatic verse of any
kind. Usually fairly short and personal.
Metaphor – A figure of speech in which one thing is described in terms of another. A comparison is
usually implict.
Meter – (Greek: “Measure”) Refers to the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse.
Metonymy – (“Name change”) Figure of speech in which name of an attribute or a thing is substituted
for the thing itself.
Monologue – A single person speaking alone – with or without an audience.
Motif – One of the dominant ideas in a work of literature; a part of the main theme. It may consist of a
character, a reurrent image or a verbal pattern.
Octave – Also known as an octet. A group of 8 lines – either in stanza form or as the first 8 lines of a
sonnet. (abbaabba)
Ode – (Greek: “song”) A lyric poem, usually of some length. Contains an elaborate stanza structure, a
marked formality and stateliness in tone and style, and lofty sentiments and thoughts. Public ode is
ceremonious, while private ode is personal.
Onomatopoeia – (Greek: “Name-making”) The formation and use of words to imitate sounds. Used
for a special effect.
Oxymoron – A figure of speech which combines incongruous and apparently contradictory words and
meanings for a special effect. Closely related to antithesis and paradox.
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Paradox – An apparently self-contradictory (even absurd) statement which, on closer inspection is
found to contain a truth reconciling the conflicting opposites.
Parallelism – Common device in poetry, consisting of phrases or sentences of similar construction and
meaning placed side by side, balancing each other. (See T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, Walt Whitman,
Beowulf, etc.)
Pathos – (Greek: “suffering; feeling”) That quality of art which evokes feelings of tenderness, pity or
sorrow.
Pentameter – The five-foot line and the basic line in English verse; especially in blank verse and the
heroic couplet.
Persona – (Latin: “Mask”) From it derives the term dramatis personae. Denotes the “person” who
speaks in a poem or novel or other form of literature.
Personification – The impersonation or embodiment of some quality of abstraction; the attribution of
human qualities to inanimate objects. Appears frequently, especially in poetry.
Pun – A figure of speech, which involves a play upon words. Gives rise to a fairly universal form of
humor.
Quatrain – A stanza of four lines, rhymed or unrhymed. It lends itself to a wide variation in meter and
rhyme.
Refrain – A phrase, line or lines repeated at intervals during a poem and especially at the end of a
stanza.
Rhyme
- Rhyme has two main functions: it echoes sounds and is thus a source of aesthetic
satisfaction, and rhyme assists in the actual structure of verse.
Rhythm – In verse or prose, the movement or sense of movement communicated by the arrangement
of stressed and unstressed syllables and by the duration of the syllables. In verse the rhythm depends on
the metrical pattern.
Sestet – The sub-division or last six lines of the Italian sonnet following the octave.
Simile – A figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another, ins such a way as to clarify and
enhance an image. It is an explicit comparison recognized by the use of the words “like” or “as”.
Soliloquy – A soliloquy is a speech, often of some length, in which a character, alone on stage,
expresses his thought and feelings. It is an accepted dramatic convention of great importance. Shows a
character’s intentions, motives, feelings, etc.
Sonnet – A poem of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter with considerable variation in rhyme
scheme.
Stanza – A group of lines of verse. The stanza is the unit of structure in a poem.
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Stress – As a metrical term, stress is interchangeable with accent. A metrical foot usually comprises
one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables.
Style – The characteristic manner of expression in prose or verse; how a particular writer says things.
To analyze a writer’s style, look at the writer’s choice of words, his figures of speech, the rhetorical and
other devices, the shape of his sentences, the shape of his paragraphs, etc.
Symbol
- Is an object, animate or inanimate, which represents or “stands for” something else.
Actions and gestures can be symbolic, too. A literary symbol combines an image with a concept, and it
may be universal or local.
Synaesthesia – (Greek: “Perceiving together”) The mixing of sensations; the concurrent appeal to more
than one sense; the response through several senses to the stimulation of one.
Synechdoche – (Greek: “Taking up together”) A figure of speech in which the part stands for the
whole, and thus something else is understood within the thing mentioned.
Synonym – A word similar in meaning to another.
Tercet – A stanza of three lines linked by rhyme. Also as one of a pair of triplets which makes up the
sestet of a sonnet.
Theme – The theme of a work is not its subject but rather its central idea, which may be stated directly
or indirectly.
Triad – (Greek: “Three”) In Classical Greek poetry a group of 3 lyric stanzas: strophe, antistrophe and
epode.
Verisimilitude – Likeness to the truth, and therefore the appearance of being true or real even when
fantastic. When the writer does this well, the reader finds the result an acceptable presentation of
reality. (As in fantasy.)
Verse – Three meanings: (a) a line of metrical writing; (b) a stanza; (c) poetry in general.
Viewpoint – The position of the narrator in relation to his story; thus the outlook from which the events
are related. The omniscient: the author moves from character to character, place to place, and episode to
episode with complete freedom, giving himself access to his characters’ thoughts and feelings
whenever he chooses and providing information whenever he wishes. Third person limited: The author
chooses a character and the story is related in terms of that character in such a way that the field of
vision confined to him or her alone. First person narrative: here he story is told in the first person by
one of the characters.
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