IWSG & Blogging News
7 months ago
D is for Devices, as in Literary Devices
First off, I apologize if I didn't get to a lot of your blogs yesterday. My Internet was verrrrry spotty, something to do with my Wi-Fi router going bonkers, but as I'm not tech-savvy it was rather like wrestling a gorilla for a measly banana. Not worth it. So I gave up and did productive things instead, like buying groceries (lots of bananas!) and cleaning the house. Someone's got to do it, right?
Anyway, (I'm totally jumping in without transitions here) how well-versed are you in literary devices? Do you even know what they are? Here's a quick rundown to refresh your college-day memories.
- ALLEGORY: A visible symbol representing an abstract idea. It's also generally an extension of a metaphor. For instance, the grim reaper is a symbol of death, and everyone knows it. So if you have this:
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| From Wikimedia Commons |
You immediately know and understand that the skeleton with the scythe is really death coming for the man in the picture. (And not just a zombified skeleton who looks like he's asking the man for a dance, or telling him to cut the super long grass in his backyard. Er...)
- ALLITERATION: The use of the same consonant at the beginning of each stressed syllable in a line of verse.
E.g. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
- ALLUSION: Passing reference or indirect mention; Also, a reference to a famous person or even in life or literature.
- ANALOGY: Drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect.
- ASSONANCE: The repetition of similar vowels in the stressed syllables of successive words. Mostly used in verse, not prose.
- CLIMAX: The decisive moment in a novel or play; it represents the point of greatest tension in the work.
- FORESHADOWING: The act of providing vague advance indications; hints of what is to come in an action of a play or story.
- HYPERBOLE: Extravagant exaggeration.
When told to clean up his toys: "Mom! It's gonna take me forever and ever!"
When told to pick up her backpack from the floor: "It's so heavy, my arm's gonna fall off!"
When they're eager to go outside and play, but Mom says to wait for her: "Mom, you're taking bajillion years!"
- METAPHOR: A figure of speech in which an expression is used to refer to something that it does not literally denote in order to suggest a similarity.
- ONOMATOPEIA: Using words that imitate the sound they denote.
- OXYMORON: Conjoining contradictory terms. Another excellent example of how we can play with our words!
clearly confused
constant variable
defeaning silence
act naturally
- PERSONIFICATION: The act of attributing human characteristics to abstract ideas, etc.
- PUN: A humorous play on words.
- SIMILE: A figure of speech that expresses a resemblance between things of different kinds (usually formed with "like" or "as").
Okay, class dismissed!
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- Precy Larkins
- I'm a YA writer who loves to read. Also a mom of 3. My life is crazy but always fun. :) I'm a member of The YA Club, a group blog about YA books. You can also find me blogging at: http://precylarkins.wordpress.com Represented by the lovely Julia A. Weber of J. A. Weber Literaturagentur GmbH. Thanks for stopping by! Email me: writercherie@gmail.com
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15 comments:
AWESOME LIST! Thanks! I'm going to be linking back to this on my blog!
I love literary terms. Sometimes I page through Abrams' A Glossary of Literary Terms just for fun.
Oooh, writing lessons! So glad you've joined the A to Z! I did mine on writing last year. I really wanted to do it on writing again, but oh well--I have you!
Elizabeth
A to Z co-host
These are great reminders of things all writers should use in their "toolbox."
I'm gonna show this post to my 11 year old daughter as she is in AP English and last night she had to use literary devices in an assignment.
Great post!
Aww! Your kids sound so adorable!
Great list! Thanks :)
Love this! I think my favorite is alliteration, even though I rarely use it.
This is a great list. There's also using repetition to stress a point. I think Charles Dickens did that a lot.
Last year I used this theme for my A to Z Challenge posts. It was a great refresher course for me. Enjoyed your L- post!
Thank you for this post! This was such a great list :) I'm not a fan of alliteration, I don't know why, but even if I use it accidently in a normal sentence, it kind of makes me shudder! Weird thing I have :) I didn't know what Hyperbole meant but that is such a cool word!
Nikki – inspire nordic
Hi, Cherie! This post brought me back to my English classes, which I always loved, so thanks for the blast from the past! :)
Happy A to Z!!
Loved the hyperbole examples, too cute. This was a great refresher course for me, I admit I was totally blank on a few of them. I think I am going to save this list.
Also had to laugh as it really does look like the Grim Reaper is asking that man for a dance in that pic LOL.
Always love posts like this. I think I got them all!
I like post like this also. I can always use a refresher course in the writing. I learn best by example so thanks for the helpful and demonstrative examples.
This is a cool list. I like that I'm doing more of this stuff than I realised. Maybe I'm getting better :-)
Check. Check. Check.
I feel very smart. I knew them all! (which is probably because I just took a literature CLEP...)
Thanks for stopping by (and following) my blog! :)
- Lauren @Word Art
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