Literary Terms Review

Literary Terms Review Wohoo! (Yes, that’s an onomatopoeia.)

Name that literary term! • “The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor.” • I heard the swishing of her skirts as she walked up the stairs. • "Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.“ • The pen is mightier than the sword.

Name that literary term! • "He was a remarkable Prime Minister with feet of clay". • The less you have the more free you are. • “My love is like a red, red rose.” • Julie wears so much make-up she has to use a sandblaster to get it off at night. • America is a melting pot. • My desk is groaning underneath the mountains of papers to grade. • I love it when my students cheat on their tests.

Figures of Speech (Poetry Terms) A figure of speech is a specific device or kind of figurative language, such as hyperbole, metaphor, personification, simile, or understatement. Figurative language is used for descriptive effect, often to imply ideas indirectly. It is not meant to be taken literally. Figurative language is used to state ideas in vivid and imaginative ways.

Simile • Figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike things by using a connective word—like, as, than, or resembles • “My love is like a red, red rose.” -Robert Burns • “And the sudden flurries of snow-birds, Like brown leaves whirling by.” –James Russell Lowell

Simile • Ex: The desks overhead sounded like the thunderous dancing of elephants. • Ex: My eyes pooled like rivers during the wedding vows. • Your examples: (Fill in the blank with an appropriate comparison.) • Anger tastes like . . . • Kindness smells like . . .

Metaphor • Figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without using a connective word such as like or as. Metaphors can be direct, implied, extended, or mixed • Ex: “I am soft sift/ In an hourglass.” –Gerard Manley Hopkins

Metaphor • “All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely playersin it.” -William Shakespeare • Ex: America is a melting pot. • Ex: How could she date a snake like that? • Your example: (Fill in the blank with an object) • Friendship is . . . • Education is . . .

Personification • Gives human qualities to an animal, thing, or concept • Ex: The tree sighed sadly in the cold wind. • Ex: The warm sun wrapped me in a blanket of peace.

Personification • “The ruddy brick floor smiled up at the smoky ceiling; the oaken settles, shiny with long wear, exchanged cheerful glances with each other; plates on the dresser grinned at pots on the shelf . . .” --The Wind in the Willows • Your example: (Describe a place in the style above--giving a feeling to the place by adding personification.)

Hyperbole • Figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion or create a comic effect • Ex: The limousine was as long as the Titanic. • Julie wears so much make-up she has to use a sandblaster to get it off at night.

Hyperbole • “At last the garbage reached so high That finally it touched the sky. And all the neighbors moved away, And none of her friends would come out to play. And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said, “OK, I’ll take the garbage out!” But then, of course, it was too late. . . --Shel Silverstein Your examples: (Finish the sentences.) I laughed until . . . I was hungry enough . . .

Understatement • The opposite of hyperbole, under-stating for effect, describing something as less than it really is • “Ay, a scratch, a scratch” Mercutio says in Romeo and Juliet, describing his fatal wound.

Repetition • Repeating an entire word, line or stanza for emphasis • “In Guernica the dead children / were laid out in order upon the sidewalk / in their white starched dresses / in their pitiful white dresses “ (Norman Rosten)

Alliteration • Repetition of sounds, most often consonant sounds, at the beginning of words. Alliteration gives emphasis to words. • “beaded bubbles”(Keats) • “Oh, man, put up your sword and see/The brother that you did to death:/There is no hatred in his eye,/No curses crackle in his breath.” (Henry Treece)

Create your own examples of Understatement, Repetition, and Alliteration

Rhyme • rhyme: identical or similar sounds, usually at the end of a line of poetry. • fat, cat: rhyme, time: death, breath: etc.

Rhyme Scheme • rhyme scheme: the order in which rhymed words recur. In a stanza of four lines, the possible rhyme schemes include abab, abcb, and abba. • “Guns aren’t lawful; a Nooses give; b Gas smells awful; a You might as well live. b

Internal Rhyme • Rhyme within a single line • “There are strange things done in the midnight sun / by the men who moil for gold / The Arctic trails have their secret tales / that would make your blood run cold.”

Onomatopoeia • the use of sound to suggest the qualities of the thing described. Poets use meter, vowel sounds, and consonant sounds to suggest sound, time, movement, effort, texture or tone. • “The moan of doves in immemorial elms, / And murmuring of innumerable bees” (Tennyson)

Imagery • Use of words to create a sensory experience or image • Uses the 5 senses • Ex: The family dinner was a “combination of boisterous conversation, badly burnt chicken, and the scent of freshly baked bread.”

Imagery • Your examples: • A sunset (sight) • A bowl of ice (touch) • A song you love (sound) • A bunch of flowers (smell) • A piece of candy (taste) • Be ready to share!

Symbolism • Represents something else and itself, especially a concrete object standing for an abstract idea • Always actually occurs in the text, usually more than once, instead of as a comparison • Common symbols: • Rose - Cross • Flag - weather

Symbolism • “All this last day Frodo had not spoken, but had walked half-bowed, often stumbling, as if his eyes no longer saw the way before his feet. Sam guessed that among all their pains he bore the worst, the growing weight of the Ring, a burden on the body and a torment to his mind.” -J.R.R. Tolkien • Your example: (Come up with your own symbol that represents two different meanings. )

Metonymy • Type of symbolism or naming in which the name of something is replaced with something closely associated with it • Ex: The White House issued a statement regarding the recent economic downturn. • What do these metonymies represent? • The throne • The Kremlin • Time to “hit the books”

Metonymy • Create your own metonymy! Decide what thing closely associated with school should represent it. Then use it in a sentence about school.

Allegory • A constant set of symbols operating on two levels in a story • Ex: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave--People are chained in a cave and think that the shadows they see are truth. When people break free, they leave the cave and see things as they truly are. • Ex: James Stern of the New York Times said that Lord of the Flies is an allegory on human society today; the novel’s primary implication [is] that what we have come to call civilization is, at best, not more than skin-deep.

Allusion • Reference to a statement, person, place, event, or thing that is known from literature, history, religion, myth, politics, sports, science, or the arts • Like an “inside joke that suggests a meaningful connection • Ex: "Christy didn't like to spend money. She was no Scrooge, but she seldom purchased anything except the bare necessities".

Allusion • Ex: Teacher: “Well Principal Skinner, here’s the boy who pulled the fire alarm today.” Principal: “So you’re the boy who cried wolf…”* • Your example—think of a recent example you’ve heard or seen in which someone references a well-known work *(refers/suggests a common connection to the fable of the boy who cried “wolf” so many times as a joke that the villagers didn’t believe him when the wolf really came)

Euphony • The use of language to produce a pleasing, harmonious sound • Ex: “To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, / And tender curving lines of creamy spray.” (Tennyson) • “And the words hung hushed in their long white dream/By the ghostly glimmering, ice-blue stream.”

Cacaphony / Dissonance • The deliberate use of harsh, dissonant sounds. • Ex: “Their clenched teeth still clench’d, and all their limbs / Locked up like veins of metal, clamped and screwed” (John Keats). • “All day cows mooed and shrieked/Hollered and bellowed and wept…”

Assonance • The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds • Ex: “Through the long noon coo.” (George Meredith) • “Thou still unravished bride of quietness,/Thou foster child of silence a slow time.” (Keats)

Consonance • Repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds • Ex: “bitter” and “batter” • “Such weight and thick pink bulk” • “struts and frets” • “first and last”

Apostrophe • A rhetorical address to someone or something invisible, inanimate, or not normally addressed, as if it were alive • Ex: “Oh Canada” • Ex:“O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rust, and let me die” (Romeo and Juliet) • Ex: John Donne apostrophizes death in the line “Death, be not proud.”

Oxymoron • Figure of speech which seems to be self contradictory, but is actually true; a compressed paradox • Ex: Romeo and Juliet describes love using several oxymorons, such as “cold fire,” “feather of lead”, “glorious pain”, “sweet sorrow” and “sick health” • Ex: She had a terrible beauty. There was a deafening silence. • Create your own oxymoron using this same adjective-noun form.

Paradox • A statement that appears to be contradictory, but actually expresses a truth • Ex: “Less is more” • “Truth must dazzle gradually/Or every man be blind” -Emily Dickinson • “Success is counted sweetest/By those who ne’er succeed” -Emily Dickinson • “It is in giving that we receive” -Francis of Assisi

Paradox • “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t” - Hamlet • “I must be cruel only to be kind” Hamlet • Write your own paradox! (Humans are the best examples of paradoxes. Think of someone you know who has seemingly opposite characteristics that make sense and are true.)

Pun • Aplay on words. A pun can be strictly for humour, as in Dorothy Parker’s telegram after a much-publicized pregnancy: “Dear Mary, we all knew you had it in you.” • Poets sometimes use puns to suggest more than one meaning.

Pun • 1 word, 2 different meanings: • Ex: This coffee will perk me up! “Ask for me tomorrow, and you will find me a grave man (Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet) • 1 sound/pronuciation, 2 different words: • Ex: The farmer was found dead in the chicken house. Authorities suspect foul play.

Irony--3 kinds • A deliberate contrast between two levels of meaning • Verbal—implying a different meaning than what is directly stated • Different than sarcasm, which is much more direct and harsh • Situational--the opposite of what is expected happens • Dramatic—audience knows something that one or more of the characters does not

Irony—which kind? • The beautiful woman lawyer walked into the courtroom wearing a visibly stained suit that frayed at the edges. • “Oh, and there’s a thrilling shot of one of the kids being sick on a small fishing boat off the coast of Florida and we are hovering over him offering him salami and mayonnaise sandwiches. That one really breaks us up.”—Erma Bombeck • Juliet is actually not dead, but asleep with the help of a strong potion. Romeo sees her lying in the tomb and kills himself because he believes her to be dead.

Irony—your turn! • Verbal Irony--a teenager is being yelled at for being out past curfew. What does he/she say in reply? • Situational Irony--You meet the man/woman of your dreams and expect to make a good impression. Instead, . . . • Dramatic Irony--Think of a recent movie in which the audience knows something the characters do not.

Assignment • Go back through the PowerPoint and complete the examples. • You can choose how to present it, but it must be posted on your blog. • DUE: December 9th, 2011 (that’s the same day you will be getting the quiz on these terms)

Literary Terms Review