A Comprehensive Glossary of Literary Devices

Essential Literary Terms and Definitions

• Allegory: A story or poem in which moral lessons are conveyed through the actions of fictional characters that serve as symbols.
• Alliteration: The repetition of the same initial sound or sounds in two or more word groups.
• Anapest: A three-syllable foot in poetry having two unaccented syllables (short beats) followed by one accented syllable (long beat).
• Aside: Something spoken by an actor to or for the audience, supposedly not heard by others on stage.
• Ballad: A simple poem that tells a story and is adapted for singing.
• Blank Verse: Poetry lacking rhyme, especially verses having five stressed syllables.
• Cacophony: A harsh sound or mixture of sounds.
• Caesura: A break or pause in a line of poetry.
• Catharsis: The relieving of emotional tensions, especially through a work of art, such as a tragedy.
• Character: A person represented in a drama, story, or other literary work.
• Comic Relief: Relief from tension caused by the introduction of a comic element, such as an amusing human foible.
• Conflict: A struggle or disagreement between opposing forces.
• Connotation: A secondary meaning of a word or expression suggested in addition to its primary meaning.
• Convention: A formal meeting or established practice used to discuss or address matters of concern.
• Couplet: A pair of lines of poetry or verse, especially a pair of the same length that rhyme and appear consecutively.
• Dactyl: A foot of three syllables, one long followed by two short in quantitative meter, or one stressed followed by two unstressed in accentual meter (e.g., "gently" and "humanly").
• Diction: The style of speaking or writing.
• Dramatic Monologue: A poetic form in which a single character, addressing a silent auditor at a critical moment, reveals themselves and the dramatic situation.
• Elegy: A mournful, melancholy, or sad poem, especially one written for the dead.
• Enjambment: The running on of thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break.
• Epic: A long poem in a formal style, usually concerning heroic events or great adventure.
• Epigram: A short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject, usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought.
• Euphony: The agreeableness or pleasantness of sound.
• Exposition: Description that provides the audience or reader with the background of the characters and the present situation.
• Fable: A short tale used to teach a moral lesson, often featuring animals as characters.
• Free Verse: Verse with no fixed metrical pattern.
• Iamb: A foot of two syllables, a short followed by a long in quantitative meter, or an unstressed followed by a stressed in accentual meter.
• Idyll: A poem or prose composition describing country scenes or any charmingly simple episode.
• Image: A figure of speech used to describe something vividly.
• Impressionism: A style of literature or musical composition that emphasizes mood and sensory impressions.