Glossary
Glossary
A glossary of literary terms — from metaphor to free verse.
Literature01Versification
Rhythm, metre, rhyme and the stanza.
44 termsOpen
Literature02Tropes & Figures
Metaphor, metonymy and rhetorical figures.
43 termsOpen
Literature03Stylistics
Language, register and stylistic devices.
52 termsOpen
Literature04Genres & Forms
Novel, novella, sonnet — genres and folk forms.
91 termsOpen
Literature05Movements
Baroque, romanticism, modernism, avant-garde.
38 termsOpen
Literature06Composition
Plot, fabula, conflict and structure.
50 termsOpen
Literature07Character & Image
Hero, character, lyric subject, archetype.
30 termsOpen
Literature08Theory & Criticism
Literary theory, criticism and book culture.
68 termsOpen
Tropes & Figures
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Allegory
Allegory is a trope and a mode of artistic representation in which an abstract concept or idea is embodied in a concrete image that has a f…
Allusion
Allusion is a stylistic device, a hint at a widely known historical, mythological, biblical or literary fact, event or personage, which enr…
Amplification
Amplification is a stylistic device of accumulating homogeneous linguistic means (synonyms, epithets, similes, syntactic constructions of t…
Anadiplosis
Anadiplosis is a stylistic figure of repetition in which a word or group of words concluding one segment of speech (a line, a sentence) is…
Anaphora
Anaphora is a stylistic figure consisting in the repetition of identical sounds, words or syntactic constructions at the beginning of adjac…
Antithesis
Antithesis is a stylistic figure of the sharp opposition of concepts, images, characters or states that emphasises contrast and heightens t…
Antonomasia
Antonomasia is a variety of metonymy consisting in the use of a proper name as a common one or, conversely, of a common name instead of a p…
Aposiopesis
Aposiopesis is a stylistic figure consisting in the sudden breaking-off of an utterance, when the author or personage does not finish a tho…
Asyndeton
Asyndeton is a stylistic figure consisting in the deliberate omission of conjunctions between homogeneous members of a sentence or parts of…
Catachresis
Catachresis is the stylistic combination of logically or semantically incompatible words used in a figurative sense, resulting in an inward…
Chiasmus
Chiasmus is a stylistic figure consisting in the mirror-like, crosswise arrangement of the parallel members of two adjacent segments of spe…
Ellipsis
Ellipsis is a stylistic figure consisting in the deliberate omission of a structurally necessary member of a sentence (most often the predi…
Epiphora
Epiphora is a stylistic figure opposite to anaphora: the repetition of identical words, phrases or sound combinations at the end of adjacen…
Epithet
An epithet is an artistic modifier that figuratively characterises an object or phenomenon, emphasising an essential or emotionally signifi…
Euphemism
A euphemism is a word or expression that names, in a softened, indirect or veiled way, an object, action or phenomenon that it is awkward t…
Gradation
Gradation is a stylistic figure consisting in such an arrangement of words, images or parts of an utterance that each successive element st…
Hyperbole
Hyperbole is a trope of artistic exaggeration of the size, force, quantity or significance of an object or phenomenon for the sake of inten…
Inversion
Inversion is a stylistic figure consisting in the violation of the usual, direct word order in a sentence for the sake of expressively emph…
Irony
Irony is a trope in which the true sense of an utterance is the opposite of what is literally expressed: words of praise convey censure, an…
Litotes
Litotes is a trope of artistic understatement of the size, force or significance of an object, the opposite of hyperbole ("a thumb-sized bo…
Metaphor
Metaphor is a trope that transfers the name of one object to another on the basis of their similarity, creating a hidden, condensed compari…
Metonymy
Metonymy is a trope that transfers the name of one object to another on the basis of their real contiguity — spatial, temporal, causal or l…
Oxymoron
An oxymoron is a stylistic figure that combines in a single image logically incompatible, mutually contradictory concepts: "a living corpse…
Parallelism
Parallelism is a stylistic figure consisting in the identical or similar syntactic construction of adjacent segments of speech (lines, sent…
Paronomasia
Paronomasia is a stylistic figure consisting in the deliberate bringing-together of words similar in sound but different in meaning (parony…
Periphrasis
Periphrasis is a trope that replaces the direct name of an object or person with a descriptive turn of phrase singling out their essential…
Personification
Personification is a trope that endows inanimate objects, natural phenomena, abstract concepts or animals with the features, actions and fe…
Pleonasm
Pleonasm is verbosity, the use within an utterance of words close in meaning, one of which is logically redundant ("saw with my own eyes,"…
Polysyndeton
Polysyndeton is a stylistic figure opposite to asyndeton: the deliberate repetition of conjunctions between homogeneous members of a senten…
Pun
A pun (play on words) is a stylistic device built on the comic or witty juxtaposition of words similar in sound but different in meaning, o…
Reminiscence
Reminiscence is a conscious or involuntary echo in a literary work of the images, motifs, rhythmic-syntactic structures or particular turns…
Rhetorical address
Rhetorical address is a stylistic figure consisting in an emphatic appeal to an absent person, an inanimate object, an abstract concept or…
Rhetorical exclamation
A rhetorical exclamation is a stylistic figure that conveys the heightened emotional tension of an utterance through an exclamatory intonat…
Rhetorical question
A rhetorical question is a stylistic figure having the form of a question but requiring no answer, since it contains a hidden affirmation o…
Sarcasm
Sarcasm is the highest degree of irony, a caustic, exposing mockery filled with anger, contempt or bitterness, which does not conceal but s…
Simile
A simile is a trope that figuratively juxtaposes two objects or phenomena by a common feature, using the conjunctions "like," "as," "as if,…
Symbol
A symbol is a polysemous image that expresses an idea or complex of notions through a concrete object, while retaining both its own direct…
Symploce
Symploce is a complex stylistic figure of repetition combining anaphora and epiphora: adjacent segments of speech have identical beginnings…
Synaesthesia
Synaesthesia is an artistic device consisting in the combination in a single image of sensations of different sense organs, when a phenomen…
Synecdoche
Synecdoche is a variety of metonymy based on a quantitative correlation between objects: the name of a part is used instead of the whole or…
Tautology
Tautology is the repetition of the same or a cognate word within an utterance.
Trope
A trope is a word or expression used in a figurative sense for the sake of artistic expressiveness, when the direct meaning yields to the f…
Zeugma
Zeugma is a stylistic figure in which one word (most often a verb or adjective) is syntactically joined to several others, to each of which…
