Essential Literary Devices and Rhetorical Terms

Literary Devices and Figures of Speech

• Allegory: A story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
• Alliteration: The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.
• Allusion: An indirect reference to a person, place, event, or literary work.
• Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds within non-rhyming words.
• Consonance: The repetition of consonant sounds within and at the end of words.
• Irony: The expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
• Metaphor: A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things.

Character Types and Development

• Flat Character: Two-dimensional in that they are relatively uncomplicated and do not change throughout the course of a work.
• Static Character: A literary or dramatic character who undergoes little or no inner change; a character who does not grow or develop.
• Round Character: Extremely realistic, behaving and speaking in a real-life manner. The character is complex and increases in complexity throughout the story.
• Epic Hero: A brave and noble character in an epic poem, admired for great achievements or affected by grand events.

Grammar and Punctuation Rules

• Capitalization: The action of writing or printing in capital letters or with an initial capital.
• Colon: A punctuation mark used to precede a list of items, a quotation, or an expansion or explanation.
• Comma: A punctuation mark indicating a pause between parts of a sentence. It is also used to separate items in a list and to mark the place of thousands in a large numeral.

Rhetorical Appeals and Logic

• Ethos: An appeal to ethics; it is a means of convincing someone of the character or credibility of the persuader.
• Logos: An appeal to logic; a way of persuading an audience by reason.
• Inference: A conclusion reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning.

Narrative Elements and Communication

• Conflict: A literary element that involves a struggle between two opposing forces, usually a protagonist and an antagonist.
• Dialect: The language used by the people of a specific area, class, district, or any other group of people.
• Epic Poem: A long, narrative poem that is usually about heroic deeds and events that are significant to the culture of the poet.
• Interview: A meeting of people face-to-face, especially for consultation.
• Main Idea: The point of the paragraph; it is the most important thought about the topic.
• Mood: The feeling or atmosphere a writer creates for the reader.