Mastering Literary Techniques: A Comprehensive Resource

Literary Devices: A Comprehensive List

Explore a variety of literary devices used to enhance writing and speech:

• Alliteration: Repetition of sounds in different words close together. Example: Aleve under the wing of the mild range.
• Anaphora: Repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive sentences or verses. Example: Was longer... fattest...
• Anadiplosis: Repetition of the last part of a verse at the beginning of the following verse. Example: To get dressed in yellow... yellow...
• Antithesis: Juxtaposition of two words or ideas with opposite meanings. Example: Went out... I went on.
• Pun: A play on words using syllables that resemble each other. Example: Diamonds are a lover's best friend.
• Comparison (Simile): Union of two concepts through a link, highlighting a similarity. Example: Poetry necessary as...
• Derivation: Words derived from the same root. Example: Bags, pockets, and purses.
• Dilogy: Playing with the two meanings of a word within a sentence, often used in jokes.
• Enumeration: A sequence of elements belonging to the same grammatical class and serving the same syntactic function. Example: He defined sincere, noble, active...
• Epanadiplosis: Starting and finishing a sentence or verse with the same word. Example: I want you green green.
• Epithet: An adjective indicating a quality of the noun it qualifies. Example: Snow White.
• Hyperbaton: Alteration of the word order in a sentence.
• Irony: Saying the opposite of what is meant. Example: A sentence backwards to understand the opposite of what is said.
• Litotes: Understatement, implying much by saying little. Example: Is not very graceful.
• Metaphor: Identification of one term with another, based on resemblance. Example: His mouth, a bright pearl.
• Metonymy: Substituting the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant. Example: Drink a bottle.
• Parallelism: Repeating the word order of elements in two or more lines. Example: Me and my shadow... me and my shadow.
• Paronomasia: A play on words using words that sound similar but have different meanings. Example: Thorns or spikes.
• Periphrasis: Using several words instead of one. Example: The city of light = Paris.
• Personification: Attribution of human qualities to inanimate objects or beings.
• Poliptoton: Repeating a noun or verb in different forms or tenses. Example: I am, I was, I will be tired.
• Synesthesia: Attributing qualities to words that do not correspond. Example: Citrus fields.