1. PRETTY LITTLE WORDS YOUR TOOLBOX FOR SOUNDING LEGIT (ALL DEFINITIONS FROM HTTP://WEB.CN.EDU/KWHEELER/LIT_TERMS.HTML)

2. DENOTATION & CONNOTATION Denotation: the literal meaning or definition of a word Connotation: an idea or feeling that a word invokes.

3. METAPHOR A comparison between two unrelated objects. Refers to one thing by another in order to identify similarities between the two (and therefore define each in relation to one another); figurative, not literal. –It was raining when Rahel came back to Ayemenem. Slanting silver ropes slammed into loose earth, plowing it up like gunfire. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy –Night’s candles are burnt out (Romeo and Juliet) –Sea of faces –The apparition of these faces in the crowd / petals on a black, wet bough (Ezra Pound) –Stay gold, Ponyboy. Stay gold. (The Outsiders)

4. SIMILE An implied comparison using a preposition such as like or as which figuratively makes the comparison by stating outright that one thing is another thing. –“My mistress’s eyes are nothing like the sun…” (Shakespeare, Sonnet 130) –As cold as ice –Free as a bird –“Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are gonna get.”

5. PERSONIFICATION Abstractions, animals, ideas, and inanimate objects are given human character, traits, abilities, or reactions. –Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun, And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. (Robert Frost) –One must have a mind of winter (Wallace Stevens) –The wind sighed –The storm raged –Justice is blind

6. ALLUSION When a person or author makes an indirect reference in speech, text, song, event, or figure. Often allusions made are to past events or figures, but sometimes allusions are made to current famous people or events. –’Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow (R&J) –Run when you will, the story shall be changed: Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) –So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay. (Robert Frost)

7. IMAGERY Primarily ‘the mental pictures’ that readers experience with a passage of literature. It includes, though, all the sensory perceptions, whether by literal description, allusion, simile, or metaphor. –“More light and light; more dark and dark our woes.” (Romeo and Juliet) –“Yon light is not daylight, I know it, I: It is some meteor that the sun exhales” (More R&J) –Basically the entire first paragraph of “The Chrysanthemums” –The crisp crunch of the leaves in the first autumn fall (Draven)

8. ONOMATOPOEIA A word which imitates the natural sounds of a thing. It creates a sound effect that mimics the thing described, making the description more expressive and interesting. –Snap –Crackle –Pop –Crisp –Crunch

9. REPETITION A technique in which a sound, word, or phrase is repeated for effect or emphasis –“A horse is a horse, of course, of course, And no one can talk to a horse of course That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed.”

10. ANAPHORA The intentional repetition of words, phrases, or clauses at the beginning of successive clauses. We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on the end. We shall fight in France. We shall fight on the seas and oceans. We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island, whatever the cost shall be. (Winston Churchill, the speech beast)

11. ALLITERATION Repetition of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words. –The lurid letters of Lucy Lewis are luscious, lucid and libidinous. –Five miles meandering with a mazy motion (Samuel Coleridge, “Kubla Khan”) ALSO… –Life’s a long song (Jethro Tull) –She sells seashells by the sea shore. –Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers.

12. CONSONANCE Repetition of the same consonant sound, especially at the end of words. –The silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain… (E.A. Poe) –Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil (Gerard Manley Hopkins) –Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! (John Keats) –All’s well that ends well.

13. ASSONANCE The repetition of vowel sounds within non-rhyming words. Examples would be: –Hate and sale, or drive and higher. –As the verses unfold and your soul suffers the long day (Jethro Tull) –And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; –Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs — (Gerard Manley Hopkins) –Of beechen green (John Keats)

14. PUNS A play on two words similar in sound but different in meaning. –A horse is a very stable animal. –Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana. –An elephant’s opinion carries a lot of weight.

15. HYPERBOLE Exaggeration or overstatement. –and the twelve o'clock gloom spins the room (Jethro Tull) –I’m going to starve to death before the end of third period! –I will love you until the heat death of the universe! –Any and all yo’ momma jokes.

16. ANTITHESIS Opposition or contrast of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel syntactical construction. –I burn and I freeze –One small step for a man, one giant leap for all mankind. –Evil men fear authority; good men cherish it. –We shall support any friend, oppose any foe.

17. FORESHADOWING Suggesting, hinting, indicating, or showing what will occur later in a narrative. Foreshadowing often provides hints about what will happen next and builds suspense. –In John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, Carlson killing Candy’s dog foreshadows George killing Lennie because Lennie is similar to the dog. Even the nature of the death of the dog was the same as Lennie’s. Also George chooses to kill Lennie himself in order to save him from being killed by a stranger just as Candy says he wishes he would have killed his own dog for the same reason.

18. OXYMORON A figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (together). –Jumbo Shrimp –Nightlight –Sophomore (wise fool)

19. PARADOX A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true. –He discovered that stepping back from his job has increased the rewards he gleans from it. –Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. -Gandhi –It’s weird not to be weird. -John Lennon –Life is a preparation for the future; and the best preparation for the future is to live as if there were none. -Albert Einstein –I know one thing: that I know nothing. -Socrates (via Plato)

20. APOSTROPHE Not to be confused with the punctuation mark, apostrophe is the act of addressing some abstraction or personification that is not physically present. Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so. (John Donne) [to death] O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, / That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! / Thou art the ruins of the noblest man / That ever lived in the tide of times. (Julius Caesar) [Mark Antony to Caesar’s corpse) Welcome, O life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race. (James Joyce) (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man)

21. ENJAMBMENT A line having no pause or end punctuation but having uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into the next line. –One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; (Wallace Stevens) –…look, love, what envious streaks do lace the severing clouds in yonder east. (R&J)

22. CAESURA A pause separating phrases within lines of poetry--an important part of poetic rhythm.rhythm –It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale; look, love… (R&J) –Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep? (John Keats)

23. IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS A type of informal English that has a meaning different from the meaning of the words in the expression. Figurative not literal. Examples: –Hold your tongue. –Let the cat out of the bag. – It’s raining cats and dogs.