UNFAMILIAR LITERARY & RHETORICAL DEVICES

ANAGRAM
▪ a form of word play in which letters of a word or phrase are rearranged in such a way that a new word or
phrase is formed
▪ formed by using exactly the same letters of the original word, but with a different arrangement
▪ ex. “dirty room” (dormitory), “the classroom” (school master), “bad credit” (debit card)
▪ K. Rowling, in her Harry Potter series, uses an anagram “I am Lord Voldemort” for her character “Tom Marvolo
Riddle,” to reveal the two different identities of the villain.

ANTHIMERIA
▪ uses a word in a new grammatical shape, often as a noun or a verb
▪ it replaces one part of speech with another
▪ ex. “Just Google what you don’t know.” (The word “Google” is a noun, but is used as verb in this sentence,
which means “to search online”.)

APOSIOPESIS
▪ in which the speaker or writer breaks off abruptly, and leaves the statement incomplete
▪ it means to leave a sentence unfinished, so that the reader can determine his own meanings
▪ ex. King Lear by William Shakespeare
King Lear:
“I will have revenges on you both
That all the world shall – I will do such things –
What they are yet, I know not; but they shall be
The terrors of the earth!”

ASIDE
▪ a short commentary that reveals private opinions and reactions of the character
▪ a short comment or speech that a character delivers directly to the audience, or to himself, while other actors
on the stage appear not to hear
▪ ex. In the first act of the play Hamlet, when Claudius talks to Hamlet, by calling him his son and nephew,
Hamlet makes an aside by saying: “A little more than kin, and less than kind.”

CATHARSIS
▪ an emotional discharge through which one can achieve a state of moral or spiritual renewal, or achieve a state
of liberation from anxiety and stress
▪ can also be any other radical change that leads to emotional rejuvenation of a person

DIACOPE
▪ a repetition of a phrase or word, broken up by other intervening words
 UNFAMILIAR LITERARY & RHETORICAL DEVICES

▪ Example:
“You held me down, but I got up1
You hear2 my voice, you hear2 that sound …
You held me down, but I got up1
Get ready ’cause I’ve had enough
I see it3 all, I see it3 now”

DYSPHEMISM
▪ defined as the use of disparaging or offensive expressions instead of inoffensive ones
▪ opposite of euphemism
▪ ex. “— Sons of bitches! cried Mr.Daedalus. When he was down they turned on him to betray him and rend
him like rats in a sewer. Low–lived dogs!” (from The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce)

EPITAPH
▪ a brief composition, having figurative sense in a verse or in prose form, written to pay tribute to a deceased
person, or to remember a past event
▪ a brief writing or saying inscribed on a grave
▪ common examples: “Gone But Never Forgotten”, “Rest in Peace”
▪ ex. “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” (Robert Frost)
“That’s all folks” (Mel Blanc)
“Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I’m free at last.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

DEUS EX MACHINA
▪ refers to the circumstance where an implausible concept or a divine character is introduced into a storyline,
for the purpose of resolving its conflict and procuring an interesting outcome
▪ ex. The eagles saving Frodo and Sam from Mount Doom in The Lord of the Rings.
▪ ex. Cinderella's fairy godmother creating a dress and a coach for her.

HYPOPHORA
▪ a writer raises a question, and then immediately provides an answer to that question
▪ ex. “Thirty-one cakes, dampened with whiskey, bask on window sills and shelves. Who are they for? Friends.”

JUXTAPOSITION
▪ a literary device that implies comparison or contrast
▪ ex. light and darkness, virtue and vice, free will and fate
▪ famous examples in literature:
o wealth and poverty (The Prince and the Pauper)
o land and sea (Moby Dick)
 UNFAMILIAR LITERARY & RHETORICAL DEVICES

KENNING
▪ derived from Norse and Anglo-Saxon poetry
▪ a two-word phrase that describes an object through metaphors
▪ ex. “whale-road” (sea), “bone-house” (grave), “petal-fall” (autumn, fall season)

MEIOSIS
▪ a witty understatement that belittles or dismisses something or somebody
▪ describes the use of understatement to highlight a point, or explain a situation, or to understate a response
used to enhance the effect of a dramatic moment
▪ ex. “School was delayed because of a few snowflakes.”
▪ ex. “Our area is prone to flooding, so you might see a few puddles after a heavy storm.”

PALINDROME
▪ a sequence of letters, numbers, or whole words that reads the same forwards as it does backwards
▪ In English, Ben Jonson was the first writer to introduce this term in the middle of the 17th century.
▪ ex. “Lewd did I live & evil I did dwel.” (‘The Funny Side of English’ by O. A. Booty)
▪ ex. “pop”, “deed”, “kayak”, “civic”, “radar”, “level”, “deified”, “racecar”

PLEONASM
▪ rhetorical device that uses redundant words or phrases to express an idea, usually for emphasis
▪ ex. “exact replica”, “necessary essentials”, “safe haven”, “combined together”

PORTMANTEAU
▪ two or more words are joined together to coin a new word, which refers to a single concept
▪ involves the linking and blending of two or more words, and the new word formed in the process shares the
same meanings as the original words; it is different from a compound word, which could have a completely
different meaning from the words that it was coined from
▪ Examples:
o costume + play = cosplay
o camera + recorder = camcorder
o breakfast + lunch = brunch

POLYPTOTON
▪ involves the repetition of words derived from the same root
▪ ex. “With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder …” (repetition of the root word “food” in different forms)
 UNFAMILIAR LITERARY & RHETORICAL DEVICES

RED HERRING
▪ refers to a misleading or false clue
▪ used to intentionally create a false trail and/or mislead audiences to prevent them from correctly predicting a
story’s outcome before the actual reveal

RUN-ON
▪ run-on sentences are a combination of two independent clauses, joined together without a conjunction or
punctuation mark
▪ ex. “My God the cigar what would your mother say if she found a blister on her mantel just in time too look
here Quentin we’re about to do something we’ll both regret I like you liked you as soon as I saw you I says he
must be …”

SOLECISM
▪ refers to a phrase, sentence, or longer written work that deviates from the grammatical norm in some way (it
may be used purposefully; while in others, it’s a mistake the writer didn’t notice)
▪ ex. “Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice
There is no word ‘curiouser’. This is a great example of how new words can be used that seem wrong at first but are used intentionally
by the author.

SYNCOPE
▪ contraction or shortening of a word by omitting sounds, syllables or letters from the middle of the word
▪ ex. “ne’er” (never), “choc’late” (chocolate),

SYNESTHESIA
▪ describes or associates one sense in terms of another
▪ ex. “I swear, I heard it with my own ears; he tasted the roughness of her attitude–”
‘tasted’ (sense of taste) is associated with ‘roughness’ (texture; sense of touch)

TAUTOLOGY
▪ a phrase or expression in which the same thing is said twice in different words
▪ Examples:
o PIN number (personal identification number number)
o repeat again
o personal opinion
o “The weather was hot, and it was scorching.”
o “She had a small, miniature car.”
 UNFAMILIAR LITERARY & RHETORICAL DEVICES

TMESIS
▪ involves the breaking down of a phrase or a word into two parts
▪ an insertion of a word between the parts of a word, a compound word, or a phrase
▪ ex. “fan-blooddy-tastic” (fantastic), “abso-blooming-lutely” (absolutely)
▪ ex. “This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.” – Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare

TRICOLON
▪ consists of three parallel clauses, phrases, or words, which happen to come in quick succession without any
interruption
▪ ex. “You are talking to a man who has laughed in the face of death, sneered at doom, and chuckled at
catastrophe.”
▪ ex. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies…”

ZEUGMA
▪ involves using a word with two different senses simultaneously
▪ when you use a word in a sentence once, while conveying two different meanings at the same time
▪ ex. “You are free to execute your laws, and your citizens, as you see fit.”
In the first sense, word execute means “put into effect,” as one does with laws; in the second sense, it means “kill.”

ZOOMORPHISM
▪ assigning a person, event, or a deity with animalistic characteristics
▪ ex. superheroes with animal-based powers (e.g. Spiderman), Egyptian cat-headed goddess “Bastet”, the
idiomatic expression “barking up the wrong tree”