Symbolic Devices

• Allegory: a literary mode that attempts to convert abstract concepts, values, beliefs, or historical events into characters or other tangible elements in a narrative. Examples include, Gulliver’s Travels, The Faerie Queene, Pilgrim’s Progress, and Paradise Lost.
• Allusion: when a text references, incorporates, or responds to an earlier piece (including literature, art, music, film, event, etc). T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) offers an extensive example of allusion in literature. According to Baldick, “The technique of allusion is an economical means of calling upon the history or the literary tradition that author and reader are assumed to share” (7).
• Analogy: a comparison for the purposes of explaining or clarifying; unlike metaphor, which compares two things, analogies often compare concepts or acts (e.g. writing is like running—one achieves most by slowly raising the stakes).
• Anecdote: a short account of an interesting story about an event or person.
• Apology: often at the beginning or conclusion of a text, the term “apology” refers to an instance in which the author or narrator justifies his or her goals in producing the text.
• Archetype: “a resonant figure or mythic importance, whether a personality, place, or situation, found in diverse cultures and different historical periods” (Mickics 24). Archetypes differ from allegories because they tend to reference broader or commonplace (often termed “stock”) character types, plot points, and literary conventions. Paying attention to archetypes can help readers identify what an author may posit as “universal truths” about life, society, human interaction, etc. based on what other authors or participants in a culture may have said about them.
• Bildungsroman: typically a type of novel that depicts an individual’s coming-of-age through self-discovery and personal knowledge. Such stories often explore the protagonists’ psychological and moral development.
• Conceit: a comparison, generally lengthy or throughout a work, established by way of extended metaphor.
• Deus Ex Machina: according to Taafe, “Literally, in Latin, the ‘god from the machine’; a deity in Greek and Roman drama who was brought in by stage machinery to intervene in the action; hence, any character, event, or device suddenly introduced to resolve the conflict” (43).
• Ekphrasis: a literary description of a visual work—drawing upon the work to produce its own creative product. For example, a poem about a painting would be ekphrastic.
• Extended Metaphor: a (metaphoric) comparison drawn out over the course of an entire work or substantial part/section of it. What that extended metaphor compares would also be called the conceit of the work.
• Hyperbole: exaggerated language, description, or speech that is not meant to be taken literally, but is used for emphasis. For instance, “I’ve been waiting here for ages” or “This bag weighs a ton.”
• Imagery: a term used to describe an author’s use of vivid descriptions “that evoke sense-impressions by literal or figurative reference to perceptible or ‘concrete’ objects, scenes, actions, or states” (Baldick 121). Imagery can refer to the literal landscape or characters described in a narrative or the theoretical concepts an author employs.
• Irony: typically refers to saying one thing and meaning the opposite, often to shock audiences and emphasize the importance of the truth.
• Metaphor: a figure of speech that refers to one thing by another in order to identify similarities between the two (and therefore define each in relation to one another).
• Metonymy: a figure of speech that substitutes a quality, idea, or object associated with a certain thing for the thing itself. For instance, referring to a businessman as “a suit” or the sea as “the deep” are examples of metonymy. Using metonymy can not only evoke a specific tone, but also comments on the importance of the specific element that is doing the substituting.
• Personification: language that attributes human properties to the non-human.
• Satire: a style of writing that mocks, ridicules, or pokes fun at a person, belief, or group of people in order to challenge them. Often, texts employing satire use sarcasm, irony, or exaggeration to assert their perspective.
• Symbol(ism): an object or element incorporated into a narrative to represent another concept or concern. Broadly, representing one thing with another. Symbols typically recur throughout a narrative and offer critical, though often overlooked, information about events, characters, and the author’s primary concerns in telling the story.
• Synecdoche: substitutes a part of something for the whole. For example, the phrase “all hands on deck” can substitute for the more awkward “all people on deck.”

Sonic/Linguistic Devices:

• Alliteration: the repetition of sounds, often the repeating of the first letter of words in succession (e.g. she sells sea shells)—and generally used to convey a specific tone.
• Assonance: the repetition of a vowel sound.
• Consonance: the repetition of a consonant sound.
• Diction: word choice, or the specific language an author, narrator, or speaker uses to describe events and interact with other characters.
• Near rhyme (or slant rhyme): imperfectly sounded rhyme.
• Onomatopoeia: the formation of a word from a sound associated with what the word means (e.g. sizzle).
• Syntax: the organization of words and phrases in a sentence or passage, and how those arrangements are used to convey specific tones and meanings  .
• Tone: the attitude of a writer towards the subject or audience, as it is expressed through choice of words.

Terms for Interpreting Plot

• Exposition: Usually located at the beginning of a text, this is a detailed discussion introducing characters, setting, background information, etc. readers might need to know in order to understand the text that follows.
• Climax: The height of conflict and intrigue in a narrative. This is when events in the narrative and characters’ destinies are most unclear; the climax often appears as a decision the protagonist must make or a challenge he or she must overcome in order for the narrative to obtain resolution.
• Denouement: The “falling action” of a narrative, when the climax and central conflicts are resolved and a resolution is found. In a play, this is typically the last act and in a novel it might include the final chapters.
• Frame Narrative: a story that an author encloses around the central narrative in order to provide background information and context. This is typically referred to as a “story within a story” or a “tale within a tale.” Frame stories are usually located in a distinct place and time from the narratives they surround. Examples of stories with frame narratives include Canterbury Tales, Frankenstein, and Wuthering Heights.
• In media res: Beginning in “the middle of things,” or when an author begins a text in the midst of action. This often functions as a way to both incorporate the reader directly into the narrative and secure his or her interest in the narrative that follows.

 

Works Cited

Baldick, Chris. Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Mikics, David. A New Handbook of Literary Terms. Yale University Press, 2007.

Taafe, James G. A Student’s Guide to Literary Terms. The World Publishing Company, 1967.