28 Alphabet ‘A’ Literary Terms Poets and Novelist use to evoke feelings
28 Alphabet ‘A’ Literary Terms Poets and Novelist use to evoke feelings
LITERARY TERMS: These are mostly identifiable rule of thumb, convention or structure that is employed by writers in telling their stories. It also helps them to express or create an emotional mood, attitude, impression, setting or characterisation to stress a point or idea in a literary piece.
Literary Term is defined as the conventional structure of a story which creates a mood, attitude, impression and reveals the setting and characterisation to stress a point or idea in a literary piece or work.
The following are some of the literary terms used by writers to persuade their readers or audience artfully.
1. ALLEGORY; This refers to a literary work in a verse or a prose that has a symbolic or double meaning. This narrative acts as an extended metaphor in which persons, abstract ideas or events represent not only themselves on the literal level but also represent something else on the symbolic level. Example; in the poem THE SKY HEART (by the writer) on the surface it talks about the Sky and how its heart and body is high and makes it alone but on the symbolic level the poem is about a man who has hardened his heart to ever love a woman and build a home with her. With the sky representing a man and the feminine cloud representing a woman who wish to build a family (home) with the man but because of his bitter heart, the sun which also represent a female cannot make him love her and marry her.
2. ALPHEBET POEM; An acrostic poem of thirteen lines in which each line consists of two words, each word beginning with sequential letters in the alphabetic pattern ABCDEF etc. Example is the Paul West form of writing.
3. ALTER EGO; This describes characters that are psychologically identical or intentionally represent the behaviours, thoughts or ideas of the author. Example; Superman for Clark Kent and Hannah Montana for Miley Cyrus.
4. AMBIGUITY; A statement which has two or more possible meaning and in other words becomes unclear leading to more confusion. Writers often use it to achieve special effect.
5. ANACHRONISM; A thing from a different period of history than that which is under discussion a thing that is out of place historically. Example; suppose that a literary work about World War 1 says that a wounded soldier is treated with penicillin to prevent a bacterial infection. The writer of the work would deserve criticism for committing an anachronism, for penicillin and other antibiotics did not come into use until 1941, twenty-three years after the end of World War 1.
6. ANAGRAM; A word or a name created by rearranging the letters of another word. Sometimes writers use it to hide evil ideas or to make fun. Example; Samuel Butler’s Erewhon is an anagram for the word nowhere. Other example Evil to Vile. Anagram aims at parodying, criticizing or praising its subject. E.g. William Shakespeare to I am a Weakish Speller.
SPECIAL USES OF ANAGRAM single word or one word anagrams-this referred to by world play specialists as Transpositions. Shakespeare is a transposition of Keshareapes. Others are created by reversing the order of the letters. Example; Evian-Naïve, Top-Pot there are even anagrams which don’t involve any rearranging of the sequence of letters at all.This is done merely by insertion or deletion of spaces.Examples; Psychotherapist- psycho the rapist and The IRS- Theirs.
7. ANALOGUE; This refers to a literary work that resembles another literary work either a part or fully. Example; the film West Side story is an Analogue of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet Stephen Spielberg’s film jaws is an analogue of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
8. ANALOGY; A comparison of two similar things mainly for the purpose of using something familiar to explain something unfamiliar. Similes and Metaphors are types of analogies.
9. ANAPEST; It is a poetic device defined as a metrical foot in a line of a poem that contains three syllables when the first two syllables are short and unstressed followed by a stressed syllable that is long and stressed. Anapest is also known as antidactylus, since it is a reverse pattern of dactyl meter. Anapest consist of three syllables with the first two are unstressed and the last one is stressed; such as unstressed /unstressed/stressed pattern. Example; The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold.
10. ANAPHORAH (uh NAF uh ruh); It is the repetition of a word or a phrase or clause in a beginning of a word groups occurring one after the other. Example; Yet I’m still searching for the lost heart …… The heart filled with the fertility of soil which does not need any fertilizer to make it fertile The heart where all the creatures do bear fruits (FROM THE POEM THE LOST HEART BY THE WRITER everything there is a season…a time to be born, and a time to die, a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted. (From Bible verse Ecclesiastes).
11. ANASTROPHE (uh NAS truh fe); Inversion of the normal word order. Writers use anastrophe to place emphasis on a word or idea to create a Rhythm or a specific Rhyme. Example; “Red as rose you are,” in the normal order it supposed to be “You are as red as rose”. (From the poem BE MY VALENTINE by the WRITER)
12. ANNOTATION; This is an explanatory note that accompanies text, foot note etc to explain or to translate or to cite sources and to give a biographical data, comment or even paraphrase.
13. ANTAGONIST; A character in a story or poem who opposes the main character or the protagonist.
14. ANTHOLOGY; This literary means a gathering of flowers. It is a collection of writing, stories, poems, or plays normally by various writers and published as a book. Example; Bible and Koran.
15. ANTHROPOMORPHISM; This is an act of lending a human quality emotion or ambition to a non-human object or being. Example; The Poem QUEEN OF THE EARTH BY THE WRITER is a clear example of anthropomorphism. In the poem the poet gave human qualities to the Ocean making us believe the Ocean is human and she could make all worries go as soon as the sunset and also she talks at night and screams with the deepest sound that she is the queen of the earth.
Compare Anthropomorphism with personification.
16. ANTI-HERO; A protagonist who is a non-hero or the antithesis of a traditional hero. This is a literary device used by writers for a prominent character in a play or book that has characteristics opposite to that of a conventional hero. Anti-hero is typically clumsy, unsolicited, and unskilled and has both good and bad qualities.
17. ANTI-MASQUE; A comic or grotesque dance presented before or between the acts of a masque, a type of dramatic composition.
18. ANTI NOVEL; Any experimental work of fiction that avoids the familiar conventions of a novel. The term was coined by the French Philosopher and Jean-Paul Sartre. Example; Robbe Gillet’s Le Voyeur.
19. ANTIPHRASIS; It is the humorous use of a word or phrase to convey an idea that is exactly opposite to its real significance. Compare it with an Irony.
20. ANTI-ROMANCE; It is sometimes referred to as a Satire. This is a type of story characterised by having an apathetic or self-doubting anti-hero cast as the protagonist who fails in the object of his journey or struggle. Most anti-romance take place in urban setting and frequently feature insanity, depression and the meaning of reality as major.
21. APHORISM; A statement of truth or opinion expressed in concise and witty manner. They are mostly adage, wise sayings and maxims aimed at imparting sense and wisdom. Example; pride hath fall a mountain. A man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
22. ATMOSPHERE; It creates an emotional mood or tone to a literary piece.
23. AUDIENCE; This refers to people or persons to whom authors write for.
24. AUDITION; It refers to a process by which producers or directors select cast or characters in dramatic production for their production.
25. AUTHOR; It refers to a writer of a literary work. Example William Shakespeare.
26. AUTOBIOGRAPHY; This refers to history of a person’s life written or told by him/ herself.
27. AUTOMATIC WRITING; It is a form of writing that does not come from the conscious thoughts of the writer. This is free writing without pre-conceived thought.
28. AXIOM; It is a statement that is accepted to be true without any analysis or demonstration as the basis for argument.
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