AP English
Lit. Terms 3
Rhetorical
Devices
Hilltop High School
Mrs. Demangos
Diction
 Word
choice.
 A writer’s choice of words, phrases,
sentence structures, and figurative
language, which combine to help create
meaning.
 Formal
 Middle Diction
 Informal
 Poetic
Formal Diction
 Formal
diction consists of a dignified,
impersonal, and elevated use of
language; it follows the rules of syntax
exactly and is often characterized by
complex words and lofty tone.
Middle Diction
 Middle
diction maintains correct
language usage, but is less elevated than
formal diction; it reflects the way most
educated people speak.
Informal Diction
 Informal
diction represents the plain
language of everyday use, and often
includes idiomatic expressions, slang,
contractions, and many simple, common
words.
Poetic Diction
 Poetic
diction refers to the way poets
sometimes employ an elevated diction
that deviates significantly from the
common speech and writing of their time,
choosing words for their supposedly
inherent poetic qualities.
 Since the eighteenth century, however,
poets have been incorporating all kinds of
diction in their work and so there is no
longer an automatic distinction between
the language of a poet and the language
of everyday speech.
Syntax
Sentence
and phrase structure
The ordering of words into
meaningful verbal patterns such
as phrases, clauses, and
sentences.
Syntax
 Poets
often manipulate syntax, changing
conventional word order, to place certain
emphasis on particular words.
 Emily Dickinson, for instance, writes about being
surprised by a snake in her poem “A narrow
Fellow in the Grass,” and includes this line:
 “His notice sudden is.” In addition to the
alliterative hissing s-sounds here, Dickinson also
effectively manipulates the line’s syntax so that
the verb is appears unexpectedly at the end,
making the snake’s hissing presence all the more
“sudden.”
Point of View
Narrative
Perspective.
First Person: “I”
1. relates the thoughts and
feelings of one character
2.
Intimate: reader feels as if
they are “in their brain”
Point of View
Second
1.
2.
Person: “you”
Used when giving advice
Can sound didactic
Point of View
Third
Person: “he, she, it…”
Third
person objective
Third person limited
Third person omniscient
Point of View
Third
1.
2.
person objective:
“he, she, it…”
Reported by a seemingly
neutral/impersonal observer
Third Person Objective
 Example:
At the pizza place, Tony the baker was getting
the pizzas ready for baking. He flattened out a
ball of dough into a large pancake and tossed it
in the air. He spread sauce on it, sprinkled it with
cheese, and shoved it in the oven. Then the
telephone rang. “A fellow from the factory
wants a large pizza delivered in a hurry,” Tony’s
wife called. “Ok, I’ll get my coat,” said Tony.
Curious George and the Pizza by Margret Rey
Point of View
Third
1.
2.
person limited:
“he, she, it…”
Reports and interprets thought
and feelings of a single
character
Third Person Limited
 Example:
After dropping her son off at school, Sara sat at
a traffic light and waited. She was on her way
to her office job as a secretary in a law office.
It was mainly paperwork with very little time to
interact with other people, but Sara had gotten
used to that. It also gave her plenty of time to
daydream, something she had also gotten
quite used to. She was a woman in her mid30’s, married 13 years, with one child.
The Ninja Housewife by Deborah Hamlin
Point of View
Third
1.
2.
person omniscient
“he, she, it…”
All knowing, relates and
interprets thoughts and
feelings of more than one
character
Third Person Omniscient
 Example:
At dawn, Mae Tuck set out on her horse for the
wood at the edge of the village of Treegap.
She was going there, as she did once every ten
years, to meet her two sons, Miles and Jesse, and
she was feeling at ease. At noon time, Winnie
Foster, whose family owned the Treegap wood,
lost her patience at last and decided to think
about running away.
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Antithesis
Balancing
of contrasting ideas
From the Greek, "opposition“
Example:
Love is an ideal thing,
marriage a real thing.
--Goethe
Antithesis
 "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, we had everything before us, we
had nothing before us, we were all going
direct to Heaven, we were all going direct
the other way."
Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
Antithesis
 "I
would rather be ashes than dust! I would
rather that my spark should burn out in a
brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by
dryrot. I would rather be a superb meteor,
every atom of me in magnificent glow, than
a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper
function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall
not waste my days in trying to prolong
them. I shall use my time."
Jack London
Polysyndeton
Stringing
a sentence out with
conjunctions
From the Greek, "bound
together". A style that employs
many conjunctions.
Polysyndeton
 Example:
 “Let
the whitefolks have their money and power
and segregation and sarcasm and big houses
and schools and lawns like carpets, and books,
and mostly--mostly--let them have their
whiteness. It was better to be meek and lowly,
spat upon and abused for this little time than to
spend eternity frying in the fires of hell."
Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Polysyndeton
Milton’s Satan
“. . .pursues his way,
and swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”

Example:
“I said, "Who killed him?" and he said, "I don't know who
killed him but he's dead all right," and it was dark and
there was water standing in the street and no lights and
windows broke and boats all up in the town and trees
blown down and everything all blown and I got a skiff
and went out and found my boat where I had her inside
Mango Key and she was all right only she was full of
water.”
Ernest Hemingway, "After the Storm."

Anacoluthon
 Breaking
off a sentence…
 The failure, accidental or deliberate,
to complete a sentence according
to the structural plan on which it was
started.
 That is, beginning a sentence in a
way that implies a certain logical
resolution, but concluding it
differently than the grammar leads
one to expect. Anacoluthon can be
either a grammatical fault or a stylistic
virtue, depending on its use.
Anacoluthon
 For
example, the device can work as a powerful
index of anxiety or disturbed coherence.
“It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race . . .”
Tennyson “Ulysses”
Anacoluthon
Athletes convicted of drug-related crimes —are
they to be forgiven with just a slap on the wrist?
“The darkness drops again; but now I know
that twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
and what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?”
Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Parallelism
The
use of similar grammatical
structures or word order in two
sentences or phrases to suggest a
comparison or contrast between
them.
Parallelism
Example:
In
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 129
“Before, a joy proposed;
behind, a dream”
Parallelism
Can
also refer to parallels
between larger elements in a
narrative.
Two characters
Two plot lines
Parallelism
Example:
In Shakespeare’s King Lear,
both Lear and Gloucester suffer at
the hands of their own children
because of their blindness to
children who are goodhearted
and which are evil.
Apostrophe
An
address, either to someone who
is absent and therefore cannot hear
the speaker or to something
nonhuman that cannot
comprehend.
Apostrophe often provides a
speaker the opportunity to think
aloud.
Apostrophe
Examples:
John
Milton’s “To Mr. Lawrence”
Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous
son,/Now that the fields are dank, and
ways are mire,/ Where shall we
sometimes meet, and by the fire/ Help
waste a sullen day…
Analogy
Extended comparison of similar
things.
The term comes from the Greek
analogia, meaning “proportion.”
Example: the classic analogy
between the heart and a pump.

Analogy
In
Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
describes the societies of the
Lilliputians and the Brobdingrags in
such a way as to make their
characteristics and weaknesses
analogous to human society.
Colloquialism
Informal
diction.
An informal expression or slang,
especially in the context of formal
writing.
Example: Larkin’s “Send No Money”
“All the other lads there
Were itching to have a bash.”