Literary Devices

What are they?

Metaphor

An implied comparison is made between two unlike things that actually have something important in common…not using like or as.

Examples: "Memory is a crazy woman that hoards colored rags and throws away food.“ (Austin O'Malley)

"Life is a journey, travel it well."(United Airlines)

Simile

A figure of speech in which two fundamentally unlike things are explicitly compared, usually in a phrase introduced by like or as.

Examples: "Human speech is like a cracked cauldron on which we bang out tunes that make bears dance, when we want to move the stars to pity.“ (Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary)

"Life is like an onion: You peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep."(Carl Sandburg)

Personification

A figure of speech in which an inanimate object or abstraction is endowed with human qualities or abilities.

Examples: "And indeed there will be timeFor the yellow smoke that slides along the street, rubbing its back upon the window panes."(T. S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock")

"Oreo: Milk’s favorite cookie."(slogan on a package of Oreo cookies)

Imagery

Mental images, as produced by memory or imagination/descriptions and figures of speech.

Example: His iron coat all overgrown with rust, Was underneath envelope'  d with gold, Whose glistering gloss darkened with filthy dust, Well yet appeare'  d, to have been of old A work of rich entail, and curious mold, Woven with antics and wild imagery. —Spenser, Edmund

Onomatopoeia

The formation or use of words (such as hiss or murmur) that imitate the sounds associated with the objects or actions they refer to.

Example: "Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?(Alfred Noyes, "The Highwayman")

Alliteration

A figure of speech in which consonant sounds at the beginning of words are repeated.

Example: "The soul selects her own society.“ (Emily Dickinson)

Hyperbole

A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect; an extravagant statement.

Examples: My sister wears so much make-up she broke a chisel trying to get it off last night…

My sister wears so much make-up that when she smiles her cheeks fall off.

Oxymoron

A rhetorical figure in which incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a deafening silence and a mournful optimist.

More Examples: sweet sorrow, free trade, living dead, old news, hot chilli, jumbo shrimp, even odds, clearly confused, tight slacks, now then, good grief, etc.

Assonance

Identity or similarity in sound between internal vowels in neighboring words.

Examples: "Old age should burn and rave at close of day;Rage, rage, against the dying of the light."(Dylan Thomas, "Do not go gentle into that good night")

"I must confess that in my quest I felt depressed and restless."("With Love," performed by Thin Lizzy)

Consonance

Consonance is the repetition, at close intervals, of the final consonants of accented syllables or important words , especially at the ends of words, as in blank and think or strong and string or Lady lounges lazily and Dark deep dread.Although it is similar to alliteration it is not limited to the first letter.

Example: Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.

-Robert Frost

Rhythm

Rhyme

Repetition

Allusion

Irony

Symbol

Foreshadowing

Satire

Understatement

Pun

Aside