Literary Terms

Literary Terms

1. Assonance

   • Repetition of vowel sounds

2. Bathos

   • Intentional or unintentional anticlimax

3. Chiasmus

   • 2 lines have parallel syntax with reversed order of corresponding words

4. Consonance

   • Repetition of sequence of 2/more consonants (with change in intervening vowel)
     • Pitter patter, live love

5. Epigram

   • Shorted, pointed, witty statement (makes use of irony/wordplay)

6. Hyperbole

   • Bold overstatement/exaggeration
     • Serious/comic/ironic effect

7. Lampoon

   • Gentle, broad satirical piece (ridiculing particular person/group)

8. Litotes

   • Strong positive term expressed through assertion of negative term
     • He's no fool

9. Meiosis

   • Deliberate understatement (opposite of hyperbole)
     • Ironic effect

10. Metonymy

    • Literal term for one thing applied to something it's become closely associated with
      • The Crown, Hollywood

11. Solecism

    • Obvious accidental violation of normal language & grammar rules