Literary Devices

Metaphor Saying one thing through another, without a word of comparison: instead of saying that something is like another thing, one says that it is. The image transfers to the subject the qualities of the thing with which it was identified. Dramatic irony The reader or the audience knows something that the character ignores, and so the character's words and acts take on a meaning that he himself does not perceive. Antithesis Setting ideas or opposing words side by side, so that one illuminates the other through contrast. Repetition Returning to the same word, the same phrase or the same construction, at the beginning of successive verses or sentences (anaphora) or throughout the text, to give rhythm, emphasis or insistence. Foreshadowing Sign, statement or image that anticipates, sometimes only for those who reread, something that will happen later in the work. Soliloquy In the theater, a speech of a character alone on stage, who thinks aloud and shows the audience what he does not say to the others. Leitmotiv A word, phrase or image that returns several times throughout the work, tied to a character or an idea, and gaining meaning with each return. Pun Play on words with similar sounds or with the several meanings of a single word, to be funny or to say two things at once. Rhyming couplet In verse drama, two consecutive lines that rhyme with each other, usually at the end of a scene or a speech, like a closing phrase that lodges in the memory. Comparison Bringing two different things together with an explicit word, such as "like", "just as" or "seems". Unlike metaphor, comparison makes plain that these are two things. Personification Giving a thing, an animal or an abstract idea the actions, feelings or speech of a person. Hyperbole Deliberate exaggeration, which nobody takes literally, used to emphasize a feeling or a situation. Irony Saying one thing while meaning another, often the opposite. The true meaning is left to the reader or the listener. Situational irony What happens is the opposite of what was expected, or of what someone planned, in a way that reveals something about the characters or the world of the work. Paradox A statement that seems to contradict itself or common sense, but which, on reflection, reveals a truth. Aside In the theater, a short speech that the character addresses to the audience, or to himself, without the others on stage hearing it. Apostrophe The speaker addresses someone absent or dead, a thing, a place or an idea, as if they could hear. Parallelism Consecutive phrases or verses with the same construction, so that the reader compares what changes from one to the next. Story within a story A story told, staged or written within the work itself, which mirrors or comments on the main story.