English 8/9
GUIDE TO EXAMINABLE TERMS AND DEVICES IN LITERATURE
ALLITERATION: it is a repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.
Example: I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas
(“The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, T.S. Eliot)
ALLUSION: a reference to a person, place or event outside of the work in which it appears. We
recognize such types as literary allusion , historical allusion, political allusion, biblical allusion.
Example: in Romeo and Juliet, Juliet remarks that “nimble-pinioned doves draw Love. . .” (II, v,
7-8) (Venus, goddess of Love)
ANTAGONIST: a person or force against the protagonist.
Example: In the novel, Fahrenheit 451, the antagonist is the government.
ASIDE: in drama, lines spoken by a character directed only to the audience.
Example: Romeo and Juliet, Juliet forgives Romeo for the murder of her cousin and whispers to
the audience: “Villain and he be many miles asunder.--/God pardon him!” (III, iv, 81-83)
ATMOSPHERE: the emotional climate established usually at the start of a literary work
AUDIENCE: a group of listeners, readers or spectators
BALLAD: a narrative poem, usually simple and meant to be sung
BIAS: a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgement
BLANK VERSE: verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Example: Shakespearean plays are all written in blank verse.
CHARACTER: one of the persons of a drama, novel or poem
CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER: arranged in, or according to, the order of time.
CLICHÉ: an overly used phrase. Example: ‘Last, but not least’
CLIMAX: the point of greatest intensity or suspense in a story.
NDEnglish Department
1
2005
COLLOQUIAL: a conversational expression.
Example: “the boss” instead of “the employer”; “the kid” instead of “the child”
COMEDY: a literary work that ends happily.
Example: Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
COMPARE/CONTRAST: To compare two things means to offer points of similarity and
differences; to contrast means to discuss ONLY the differences between things, people or ideas
CONFLICT: (internal/external) the struggle between two opposing forces or characters in a
literary work
CONNOTATION/DENOTATION: Connotation is considered the emotions and/or associations
aroused by the word; denotation is the literary or dictionary definition of the word. Example: the
colour red may connote anger or passion
DENOUMENT: the outcome of plot when conflicts are resolved and mysteries and secrets are
connected.
DESCRIPTION: writing intended to allow a reader to picture the scene or setting in which the
action of a story takes place. The form this description takes often evokes an intended emotional
response, utilizes one or more of the senses and leaves the reader with a dominant impression.
DIALOGUE: conversation between two or more people or characters
DICTION: choice of words such as formal English, colloquial, or slang.
DIRECT PRESENTATION: an author tells his reader directly about something or someone.
Example: “His wife looked at his astonished and panic-stricken face, and realized that he was not
joking.” (“The Lottery Ticket” by Anton Chekhov)
DRAMA: plays as a branch of literature and as a performing art
DRAMATIC IRONY: the reader or audience perceives something that a character is unaware of
(in a story or a play). Example: a person watches TV while an axe murderer is behind the door.
The reader or audience is aware of the imminent danger, but the person watching is not.
DYNAMIC CHARACTER: a character who, by the end of the story, has changed
(also termed as a “developing” character.)
ELEGY: a poem that mourns the death of an individual or the deaths of many people.
EXPOSITION/EXPOSITORY: an essay which explains something
FABLE: a brief story told to explain a moral or a lesson using animals who speak and act as
human beings
FALLING ACTION: what happens after the peak/climax of a story
NDEnglish Department
2
2005
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: language not meant to be taken literally.
Example: Kate is a tiger.
Both Kate and tiger have a common trait – fierceness – but the comparison is not literal.
FIRST PERSON POINT OF VIEW: a story told in the first person using “I” or “we”
FLASHBACK: when a story goes back to relate an event which took place before the beginning
of the story
FLAT CHARACTER: a character with only one or two character traits (usually a minor
character in the piece of literature) Example: Martha in Kurt Vonnegut’s story ‘Harrison
Bergeron’. She is “dim-witted” in all she does in the story.
FOIL: A character used to ‘show up” or highlight some feature of the main character. The
character foil is the exact opposite of the main character and therefore serves to magnify
certain characteristics of the main character. Example: In Romeo and Juliet, Mercutio is a foil to
Benvolio. Mercutio's violent, self centered stature highlights/reveals how peaceful and unselfish
Benvolio is.
FORESHADOWING: hints/clues in a narrative to suggest what will happen later
FREE VERSE: poetry without a regular pattern of rhyme or rhythm.
GENRE: a kind or style of literature. Example: science fiction, satire, romance, adventure
HYPERBOLE: the use of exaggeration. Example: in Macbeth, Macbeth wonders whether
“all great Neptune’s oceans” will wash away the killing of King Duncan. (II, iii, 61-63)
IMAGE/IMAGERY: words that create pictures/images in a reader’s mind.
Example: a fly trapped in a spider’s web
INDIRECT PRESENTATION: the reader has to draw his/her own conclusions about a
character in a literary work;
IRONY: the recognition of incongruity between reality and appearance. Situational irony is the
difference between what is intended and what actually occurs; verbal irony is the difference
between what is meant and what is said; dramatic irony is when a character in a play unwittingly
makes a remark which the audience/reader knows to be fateful (ill-fated) or true.
JARGON: words or expressions used by a particular group or profession.
Example: a teacher talking about having a “learned focused conversation”; a police
officer saying “Code 11, take a code 7"; a lawyer talking about “a writ or a motion”
LIMITED OMNISCIENT POINT OF VIEW: a story told from the point of view of one
character in the third person (he/she/it) The reader is given insights into the thoughts of only one
or two of the characters in the story.
LYRIC: a type of poetry that presents a personal, often intense display of thoughts or emotions
NDEnglish Department
3
2005
METAPHOR: a figure of speech that states a direct comparison between two dissimilar things.
Example: But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou her maid are far more fair than she.
(Romeo and Juliet: II.2. 2-6)
Romeo, seeing Juliet at her window compares her to the sun, light that brightens his dark world.
MOOD: the feeling or emotional state created in the reader’s mind by an author’s descriptive
details
NARRATION/NARRATIVE: telling a story
NARRATOR: the person who tells the story
OBJECTIVE POINT OF VIEW/aka CAMERA VIEW: like a camera that can only observe,
but is unable to hear a person’s thoughts, a reader does not have any insight into characters’
thoughts and feelings; it is a neutral point of view and not from any individual’s point of view; the
story is developed mostly through dialogue.
OMNISCIENT POINT OF VIEW: a point of view seen from two or more characters’ minds.
The reader is given insight into the thoughts and feelings of several of the characters in the piece
of literature.
ONOMATOPOEIA: use of words whose sounds seem to imitate the sounds of the
environment and action involved. Example: the buzzing bees
PARADOX: A statement which is an apparent contradiction.
Example: The novel A Tale of Two Cities opens with the line:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”
PERSONIFICATION: a figure of speech in which inanimate (non-living) objects, animals or
abstract ideas are given human qualities: Example: “The wind whispered the day’s memories”
PERSUASION/PERSUASIVE: a forceful argument which attempts to convince the audience
about a particular topic
PLOT: the sequence of events or actions in a literary work.
POINT OF VIEW: the perspective from which a story is told
PROPAGANDA: ideas spread deliberately to further one’s own cause
PROTAGONIST: the central or main character of a literary work.
Example: Romeo in Romeo and Juliet
QUATRAIN: in poetry, a stanza (verse) of four lines.
NDEnglish Department
4
2005
REFRAIN: a word, phrase or line repeated regularly in a poem
Example: Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven” the line “Quoth the Raven, nevermore”
RESOLUTION: the final working out of a story’s problems or conflicts
RHYME: the repetition of sounds in two or more words that appear close to each other; used
for effect (such as end rhyme, internal rhyme)
RHYME SCHEME: a particular pattern of rhyme in a poem. Example: Shakespearean sonnets
have the same rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg
RHYTHM: the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Example: - / - /- /- /- / A-RISE, fair SUN, and KILL the EN-vious MOON.
This is an example of the rhythm of week-STRONG syllables in a line know as IAMBIC rhythm.
RISING ACTION: a set of conflicts and crises that constitute the part of the play’s or story’s
plot leading up to the climax
ROUND CHARACTER: a character whose various traits contribute to a “complexity” of
character; Too rich to be reduced to a simple formula, these characters are often more difficult to
figure out.
SARCASM: bitter remarks intended to hurt
SATIRE: a blend of wit, irony and humour to reveal and criticize a person, idea, or subject
SETTING: the time and place of a literary work. Setting serves to establish the physical
background and atmosphere or theme of the work.
SIMILE: a comparison between two dissimilar things using the words “like” or “as”
Example: “My love is like a red, red rose”. (Robert Burns)
SLANG: language which is inappropriate for formal writing
Example: ‘That’s cool’.
SONNET: a fourteen line lyric poem, with a particular rhyme scheme
Example: The Prologue to Romeo and Juliet is an Elizabethan/Shakespearean sonnet.
SPEAKER: the person from whose point of view the poem or story is told
STANZA: a group of lines in a poem
STATIC CHARACTER: a character who does not change during the events of the plot
STEREOTYPE/STOCK CHARACTER: an easily recognizable character; a character that
evokes a fixed mental picture in the reader’s mind.
NDEnglish Department
5
2005
Example: the wicked witch – the reader has a fixed image of a witch, her warts, her
belligerent attitude, etc., instead of taking a fresh, open-minded approach to what she might be.
STYLE: an author’s particular or unique way of writing. Style is determined by word choice,
use of figurative language etc.
SUSPENSE: the quality in the piece of literature which arouses excitement, curiosity or
expectation in the reader. Suspense is created by making the reader wonder what will happen
next; how the conflict will be resolved, or what will happen to the protagonist.
SYMBOL/SYMBOLISM: the use of something concrete (tangible, visible) such as an object,
person, place, event) to stand for an abstraction or a more complicated idea.
Example: in Romeo and Juliet, the lark symbolizes the approaching morning, and the
nightingale symbolizes the past evening.
THEME: a general insight about life that a writer wishes to express. It is a generalization
abstracted from a literary work’s details, language, characters and action.
Example: Appearances can be very different from reality.
THIRD PERSON NARRATIVE: the point of view in which the writer is not one of the
characters in the story: he/she/it,
Example: “He entered the room and was surprised by what he saw.”
TONE: the attitude a writer takes toward his/her subject. This is conveyed through the
language in the selection.
TRAGEDY: a play in which the protagonist meets an unhappy or disastrous end.
Example: Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy.
UNDERSTATEMENT: a phrase or statement which expresses an idea in mild or restrained
terms.
Example: Lady Macbeth counters Macbeth’s worry about the murder of Duncan,
they both committed, by stating that “A little water clears us of this deed” (II, iii, 67).
NDEnglish Department
6
2005
English 8/9 Examinable Terms – continued:
SOUND DEVICES
ALLITERATION: a repetition of consonant SOUNDS at the beginning of words.
Example: I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas (repeats /s/ consonant sound)
(“The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, T.S. Eliot)
ASSONANCE: repetition of vowel SOUNDS in two or more words in the same line of poetry.
Example: "The spider skins lie on their sides…” Notice that “skin” has a different sound.
CONSONANCE: in the same line of poetry, a repetition of final consonant SOUNDS found in
two or more words, while their vowels are different.
Example: “kiss on the bus” repeats /s/ sound
“east…west” repeats /st/ sound cluster
“laughed… deft”; repeats /ft/ sound cluster
Also, combination of alliteration and consonance is called rich consonance (half
rhyme). Example: “flip-flop” or “black book.”
COUPLET: two consecutive lines that rhyme (have end rhyme).
Example:
“Tiger, tiger burning bright
In the forest of the night.” (Blake)
DICTION: choice of words such as formal English, colloquial, or slang.
FREE VERSE: poetry without a regular pattern of rhyme or rhythm.
LYRIC: a type of poetry that presents a personal, often intense display of thoughts or emotions
QUATRAIN: in poetry, a stanza (verse) of four lines.
RHYME: the repetition of sounds in two or more words that appear close to each other; used
for effect (such as end rhyme, internal rhyme)
Example: Twinkle, twinkle little star,
How I wonder what you are.
RHYME SCHEME: a particular pattern of rhyme in a poem. Example: Shakespearean
sonnets have the same rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg
RHYTHM: the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Example: - / - /- /- /- / A-RISE, fair SUN, and KILL the EN-vious MOON.
This is an example of the rhythm of week-STRONG syllables in a line know as IAMBIC rhythm
or beat.
SONNET: a fourteen line lyric poem, with a particular rhyme scheme
Example: The Prologue to Romeo and Juliet is an Elizabethan/Shakespearean sonnet.
STANZA: a group of lines in a poem
Please avoid:
CLICHÉ: an overly used phrase. EXAMPLE: ‘Last, but not least’
NDEnglish Department
7
2005
FIGURATIVE DEVICES
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE: language not meant to be taken literally.
HYPERBOLE: the use of exaggeration. Example: in Macbeth, Macbeth wonders whether
“all great Neptune’s oceans” will wash away the killing of King Duncan. (II, iii, 61-63)
IMAGE/IMAGERY: words that create pictures/images in a reader’s mind.
Example: a fly trapped in a spider’s web
METAPHOR: a figure of speech that states a direct comparison between two dissimilar things.
EXAMPLE: But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the East, and Juliet is the sun! (Shakespeare’s Romeo and
Juliet, II, ii, 2-4)
SIMILE: a comparison between two dissimilar things using the words “like” or “as”
EXAMPLE: “My love is like a red, red rose”. (Robert Burns)
PERSONIFICATION: a figure of speech in which inanimate (non-living) objects, animals or
abstract ideas are given human qualities:
EXAMPLE: “The wind whispered the day’s memories”
SPEAKER: the person from whose point of view the poem or story is told
NDEnglish Department
8
2005