Literary Devices

Alliteration
Alliteration is the repetition of the initial consonant sound in words.
The grass grew green in the graveyard.

Assonance
Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds.
The snow in the rose garden groaned.

Imagery
Imagery is when the writer or speaker uses the descriptions to access the senses of the reader of listener
The chirping crickets filled the empty night air.

Repetition
Repetition is when the writer or speaker knowingly repeats a word or group of words for effect.

Nobody, oh nobody can make it out here alone.

Love is a red, red rose.

Soliloquy:
A soliloquy is a dramatic speech delivered by a lone character to the audience. Usually the soliloquy
serves as a reflection of the character's interior state. Thus, the character who delivers a soliloquy is
processing thoughts and emotions so that the audience can observe their inner thoughts and feelings.
Often, soliloquies represent moments of dramatic irony—there are several scenes in Romeo and Juliet in
which we know something the speech-giver does not know. For example, Juliet stands on her balcony
professing her love for Romeo unaware that he crouches below in the bushes.

Wordplay:
Shakespeare’s plays, even his tragedies, contain a lot of delightful puns. A pun is a humorous play on
words.

Mercutio – “Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.”

Romeo – “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes / With nimble soles; I have a soul of lead…” (Act I Sc.
4 -Romeo and Juliet)

Foreshadowing
is a reference to something that will happen later in the story.

Blank Verse: In many of Shakespeare’s plays, the dialogue alternates between prose and verse. Often,
this stylistic distinction parallels class distinctions. While characters of the lower classes tend to speak in
short passages of prose, the aristocratic characters tend to speak in formally structured passages of verse,
usually blank verse. Blank verse refers to unrhymed iambic pentameter, which constitutes the linguistic
fabric of most Shakespearean drama.

Personification occurs when an inanimate object or concept is given the qualities of a person or animal.

Juliet— “For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night / Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back. / Come,
gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night” (Act III Sc. 2)