By Lauren nolan

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Literary Terms

• By Lauren nolan

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Imagery

• Imagery is an authors use of vivid and
  descriptive language to add depth to their work.
• Example A host, of golden daffodils Beside the
  lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing
  in the breeze. continuous as the stars that shine
  and twinkle on the Milky Way- Daffodils
  William Wordsworth
• Example in Hamlet O, that this too too solid
  flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a
  dew. Act I scene ii

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Simile

• A simile is a comparison of two things using
  words such as like or as.
• Example She floats down the aisle like a
  pageant queen Speak Now- Taylor Swift
• Example in Hamlet "Make thy two eyes, like
  stars, start from their spheres Act II scene ii

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Metaphor

• A metaphor is a figure of speech in which a term
  or phrase is applied to something to which it is
  not literally applicable in order to suggest a
  resemblance.
• Example Love is a Temple One by U2
• Example in Hamlet "This is th' impostume of much
  wealth and peace, that inward breaks and shows no
  cause without why the man dies. Act IV scene iv

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Personification

• Personification is the attribution of human
  nature or character to inanimate objects.
• Example Pocketful of sunshine Natasha
  Bedingfield- Pocketful of Sunshine
• Example in Hamlet So full of artless jealousy is
  guilt, it spills itself in fearing to be spilt.
  Act IV scene iii

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Apostrophe

• Apostrophe is the addressing of a usually absent
  person or a usually personified thing
  rhetorically.
• Example Tom Hanks referring to the volleyball,
  an inanimate object, in the movie Castaway.
• Example in Hamlet Let me not think ont
  frailty, thy name is women Act I scene ii

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Symbol

• A symbol is an action, object, or event that
  expresses or represents a particular idea or
  quality.
• Example The green light in The Great Gatsby
  symbolizes new life.
• Example in Hamlet Yoricks skull in Act V scene
  i. The skull is a symbol of death, an important
  motif throughout the play.

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Allegory

• Allegory is a story in which the characters and
  events are symbols that stand for ideas about
  human life or for a political or historical
  situation.
• Example The Truman Show is an example of
  allegory. Truman makes the decision to get out of
  the town and not be tied to their private system
  of merchant law.
• Example in Hamlet The ghost in Act I represents
  Hamlets father and forces Hamlet to think about
  death more in depth.

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Paradox

• A paradox is a statement that apparently
  contradicts itself and yet might be true.
• Example Everyone can be super. And when
  everyones superno one will be The Incredibles
• Example in Hamlet You are the queen, your
  husbands brothers wife. Act III scene iv

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Hyperbole

• Hyperbole is the use of exaggeration as a
  rhetorical device or figure of speech.
• Example "It seems to me you lived your life like
  a candle in the wind "Candle In the Wind" Elton
  John
• Example in Hamlet O that this too too solid
  flesh would melt, thaw and resolve into a dew.
  Act I scene ii

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Understatement

• An understatement is the presentation of
  something as being smaller, worse, or less
  important than it actually is.
• Example Cannibalism is frowned upon in most
  societies. 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• Example in Hamlet With such dexterity to
  incestuous sheets! It is not nor it cannot come
  to good Act I scene ii

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Irony

• Irony is a situation that is strange or funny
  because things happen in a way that seems to be
  the opposite of what you expected.
• Example It's like rain on your weddin' day It's
  a free ride when you've already paid. It's the
  good advice that you just didn't take, And who
  would've thought, it figures Ironic Alanis
  Morissette
• Example in Hamlet I am too much in the sun.
  Act I scene ii

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Chiasmus

• Chiasmus is the figure of speech in which two or
  more clauses are related to each other through a
  reversal of structures in order to make a lager
  point.
• Example Don't sweat the petty things, and don't
  pet the sweaty things. - Jacquelyn Small.
• Example in Hamlet Whether love lead to fortune,
  or else fortune love. Act IV scene iii
• To be or not to be Act III scene i

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Metonymy

• Metonymy is a figure of speech in which a thing
  or concept is called not by its own name but
  rather by the name of something associated in
  meaning with that thing or concept.
• Example Referring to royalty as the crown is
  an example of metonymy.
• Example in Hamlet I saw him enter such a house
  of sale. Act II scene ii

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Synecdoche

• Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a term
  for a part of something to the whole of something
  or vice-versa.
• Example Our song is a slamming screen door,
  sneaking out late. Our Song Taylor Swift
• Example in Hamlet "So the whole ear of Denmark
  Is by a forged process of my death Rankly
  abused." (ear stands for Denmark), Act I, scene v,

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Repartee

• Repartee is a conversation or speech
  characterized by quick, witty comments or
  replies.
• Example in Hamlet One. No. Judgment. A
  hit, a very palpable hit. Well again.

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Stichomythia

• Stichomythia is a dialogue in which two
  characters speak alternate lines of verse, used
  as a stylistic device in ancient Greek drama.
• Example in Hamlet Come, come, you answer with
  an idle tongue. Go, go, you question with a
  wicked tongue. Act III scene iv

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Stock Characters

• A stock character is someone based on common
  literary or social stereotypes.
• Example An example of a stock character is the
  school diva, this is Blair Waldorf in Gossip
  Girl.
• Example in Hamlet Polonius is a stock character.
  He represents the older man with former wisdom,
  and unknowingly through his failures provides
  comic relief.

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Alliteration

• Alliteration is repetition of a particular sound
  in the stressed syllables of a series of words or
  phrases.
• Example Sally sells seashells by the seashore.
• Example in Hamlet "With witchcraft of his wit,
  with traitorous gifts Act I scene v

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Assonance

• Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds to
  create internal rhyming within phrases or
  sentences
• Example "I feel the need, the need for speed.
  Top Gun
• Example in Hamlet For in that sleep of death,
  what dreams may come Act I scene i

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Consonance

• Consonance is the repetition of the same
  consonant two or more times in short succession.
• Example Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled
  peppers
• Example in Hamlet Thou wretched, rash,
  intruding fool, farewell. Act III scene iv

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Rhyme

• Rhyme is correspondence of sound between words or
  the endings of words, especially when these are
  used at the ends of lines of poetry.
• Example Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall Humpty
  Dumpty had a great fall
• Example in Hamlet The play's the thing
• Wherein I'll catch the conscious of the King.
• Act II scene ii

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Rhythm

• Rhythm is a strong, regular, repeated pattern of
  movement or sound.
• Example In songs, the rhythm is the beat.
• Example in Hamlet Hamlet is written in iambic
  pentameter, which gives it rhythm

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Meter

• Meter is an arranged and measured rhythm in
  verse rhythm that continuously repeats a single
  basic pattern.
• Example in Hamlet O that this too too solid
  flesh would melt,
• Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
• Or that the Everlasting had not fixd
• His canon gainst self-slaughter! O God! O God!
  Act II scene ii

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End-Stopped Line

• End-stopped line is a feature in poetry in which
  the syntactic unit corresponds in length to the
  line.
• Example Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
  
• Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
• Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
• And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
  Sonnet 18
• Example in Hamlet Without the which we are
  pictures, or mere beasts Act IV scene v

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Run-On Line

• Run-on line is when there is no punctuation at
  the end of the line.
• Example in Hamlet Will nothing stick our person
  to arraign Act IV scene v

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Caesura

• Caesura is a complete pause in a line of poetry
  or in musical composition.
• Example To err is human to forgive, divine
• Alexander Pope
• Example in Hamlet 'To Be, or Not To Be..." Act
  III scene i

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Free Verse

• Free verse is an open form of poetry, it does not
  use consistent meter patterns or rhyme or any
  other musical pattern.
• Example Some kind of attraction that is neither
• Animal, vegetable, nor mineral, a power not
• Solar, fusion, or magnetic
• And it is all in my head that
• I could see into his
• And find myself sitting there. Feelings Now
  Katherine Foreman
• Example in Hamlet "Indeed this counselor / Is
  now most still, most secret, and most grave, /
  Who was in life a foolish prating knave Act
  III, Scene 4

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Iambic Pentameter

• Iambic Pentameter is the particular rhythm that
  the words establish in that line.
• Example But, soft! what light through yonder
  window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the
  sun Romeo and Juliet.
• Example in Hamlet How noble in reason! how
  infinite in faculty! in form, in moving, how
  express and admirable! in action how like an
  angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty
  of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to
  me, what is this quintessence of dust? Act II
  scene ii

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Grammatical/Rhetorical Pauses

• A grammatical pause is introduced by s mark of
  punctuation and rhetorical pauses are natural
  pauses.
• Example in Hamlet To be or not to be that is
  the question whether tis nobler in the mind to
  suffer Act III scene i

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Concluding Couplet

• Concluding couplet is a pair of end-rhymed lines
  of verse
• Example in Hamlet
• Till then sit still, my soul foul deeds will
  rise,
• Though all the earth o'erwhelm them, to men's
  eyes.
• Act I.ii