Literary Devices and Rhetorical Terms with Examples

Literary Devices and Rhetorical Terms

Alliteration

Definition: Repetition of the initial consonant sound.

Examples: Careless cutting cars; wonderfully whistling woods

Anaphora

Definition: Repetition of the first part of the sentence.

Examples: In every cry of every man, In every infant's cry of fear, In every voice, in every ban,

Allusion

Definition: Indirect reference to a person, event, or piece of literature; used to explain or clarify a complex problem.

Enumeration

Definition: Used for listing details or a process of mentioning words or phrases step by step.

Examples: They are going to recognize my eyes, my eyes, my hair, my teeth, my boobs, my nose.

Irony

Definition: The expression of ideas that are exactly opposite to the implied meaning.

Examples: "A student of psychology going insane"; "A bank lends you money provided you show that it's not needed"

Metaphor

Definition: Compares two different things in a figurative sense. Unlike a simile (A is like B), the word "like" is not used in a metaphor.

Examples: Truths are first clouds, then rain, then harvest and food.

Onomatopoeia

Definition: A word imitating a sound.

Example: The lion roared. The bomb went off with a bang.

Oxymoron

Definition: Words or ideas opposite in meaning placed together.

Examples: True lies; Open secret; Feeling alone in a crowd

Points of View

Definition: Narrative perspective: first- or third-person narration.

• First-person: The narrator tells the story from his/her point of view.
• Third-person: The narrator is not part of the plot and tells the story using third-person pronouns (he, she). Usually the narrator is omniscient.

Repetition

Definition: Repeating words or phrases.

Examples: Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end!

Rhetorical Question

Definition: A speaker raises a question but does not answer it directly because the speaker assumes the audience knows or accepts the answer.

Example: Did my heart love till now? (Romeo, when he first sees Juliet)

Simile

Definition: Two things are compared directly by using "like" or "as" (A is like B).

Example: My friend is as good as gold.

Synecdoche

Definition: Representation of a whole by a part or a part by the whole.

Example: "Hands" to refer to workers; "He has several mouths to feed." (Here, "mouths" represents people.)

Metonymy

Definition: A thing or concept is called not by its own name but by the name of something associated with it.

Example: For instance, "Wall Street" is often used metonymously to describe the U.S. financial and corporate sector.