Latin Prose Finnigan Nōmen/Numerus: / Hōra: Diēs: Literary Devices Journal An author uses literary devices (also called stylistic or rhetorical devices or figures of speech) to enhance his narrative. The effect of these will vary by device, but ultimately an author uses them deliberately to emphasize certain aspects of the text and to create some sort of emotional/mental response in the reader. There are many such devices, and we will encounter them in all texts we read throughout the year. Please keep track of these and record examples as we come across them. You are expected to know the ones we come across and will be assessed on them throughout the year. The examples you record below will be checked for a grade during your binder checks throughout the year. Be sure to cite the text from which you have recorded your examples (e.g. Caes. BG 4.24, Cic. Cat. 1.3, Verg. Aen. 2.486, etc.) 1. ALLEGORY: (Grk. speaking differently ) A prolonged metaphor, i.e. a type of imagery involving the extended use of a person or object to represent some concept outside the literal narrative of a text. 2. ALLITERATION: (ad, toward/near + littera, letter ) The deliberate repetition of sounds, usually of initial consonants, in successive words for emphasis or onomatopoetic effect. Cf. ONOMATOPOEIA. 3. ANAPHORA: (Grk. carrying back ) The repetition of the same words or phrases at the beginning of successive clauses, often with asyndeton, for emphasis and emotional effect. 4. ANTITHESIS: (Grk. set against, in opposition ) The sharp contrast of juxtaposed ideas or words. 5. APOSTROPHE: (Grk. turning away ) A break in a narrative to address some person or personified thing present or absent, sometimes for emotional effect, sometimes to evoke a witness to a statement being made. 6. ASSONANCE: (Lat. responding to ) The repetition of internal or final vowel or syllable sounds in successive words, for musical and sometimes onomatopoetic effect.
7. ASYNDETON: (Grk. without connectives ) The omission of conjunctions where one or more would ordinarily be expected in a series of words, phrases, or clauses, underscoring the words in the series. Cf. POLYSYNDETON. 8. CHIASMUS: (Grk. crossing ) The arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in an oppositional, ABBA order, often to emphasize some opposition or to draw the elements of the chiasmus closer together. Cf. SYNCHESIS. 9. CONDUPLICATIO: (Lat. doubling ) The repetition of a word in close succession for emphasis and emotional effect. 10. CONSONANCE: (Lat. sounding together ) The repetition of consonants at the beginning, middle, or end of words (thus overlapping with the term ALLITERATION). Cf. ALLITERATION. 11. ELLIPSIS: (Grk. falling short ) The omission of one or more words necessary to the sense of a clause but easily understood from context; often a form of the verb sum, esse. 12. ENJAMBMENT: (Fr. straddling ) Delay of the final word or phrase in a sentence or clause to the beginning of the following verse, to create suspense or emphasize an idea or image. 13. FRAMING: The enclosure of a line of verse by placing two closely connected words, often a noun and a modifying adjective, at the beginning and end. 14. GOLDEN LINE: An arrangement of words in a line of poetry in an interlocked order (i.e. SYNCHESIS or CHIASMUS) with a verb in the middle.
15. HENDIADYS: (Grk. one through two ) The use of two nouns connected by a conjunction to express a single idea, instead of having one noun modified by an adjective or a genitive; the usual effect is to give equal prominence to an image that would ordinarily be subordinated. 16. HOMOIOTELEUTON: (Grk. like endings ) The use of similar endings to words, phrases, or clauses. Cf. POLYPTOTON. 17. HYPERBATON: (Grk. stepping over, transposition ) A departure from usual word order for special effect; violently displaced word order, e.g. the distant separation of an adjective from its noun. 18. HYPERBOLE: (Grk. throwing beyond, excess ) Self-conscious exaggeration for rhetorical effect. Cf. LITOTES. 19. HYSTERON PROTERON: (Grk. the latter put as the former ) A reversal of the natural, logical, or chronological order of terms or ideas. 20. IRONY: (Grk. pretended ignorance ) The use of language with a meaning opposite its literal meaning. 21. LITOTES: (Grk. plainness ) A form of deliberate understatement in which a quality is described by denying its opposite, usually intensifying the statement; using double negatives is a frequently used form of litotes. Cf. HYPERBOLE. 22. METAPHOR: (Grk. carrying across, transference ) An implied comparison (not using the word like or as ), using one word for another that it suggests, usually with a visual effect. Cf. SIMILE.
23. METONYMY: (Grk. change of name ) A type of imagery in which one word, generally a noun, is employed to suggest another with which it is closely related. Cf. SYNECDOCHE. 24. ONOMATOPOEIA: (Grk. the making of words ) The use of words the sounds of which suggest their meaning or the general meaning of their immediate context. 25. OXYMORON: (Grk. pointedly foolish ) The juxtaposition of incongruous or contradictory terms. 26. PERSONIFICATION: (Fr. person making ) A type of imagery by which human traits are attributed to plants, animals, inanimate objects, or abstract ideas. 27. PLEONASM: A pleasing fullness of expression; the use of more words than necessary to convey the sense of an expression. 28. POLYPTOTON: (Grk. many case endings ) The repetition of the same word or of words from the same root but with different endings. Cf. HOMOIOTELEUTON. 29. POLYSYNDETON: (Grk. many connectives ) The use of a greater number of conjunctions than usual or necessary, usually to emphasize the elements in a series. Cf. ASYNDETON. 30. PRAETERITIO: (Lat. passing over ) The speaker mentions a topic while saying that he will not discuss it.
31. PROLEPSIS: (Grk. taking beforehand, anticipation ) The attribution of some characteristic to a person or thing before it is logically appropriate, especially application of a quality to a noun before the action of the verb has created that quality. 32. PROSOPOPOEIA: The representation of an absent or dead person, or even something inanimate, as speaking or acting. Cf. PERSONIFICATION. 33. RHETORICAL QUESTION: A question, often exclamatory or expressing indignation, that is posed by a speaker but in fact expects no answer. 34. SIMILE: (similis, -e, like ) An explicit comparison (often introduced by ut, velut, quālis, or similis) between one person or thing and another, the latter generally being something more familiar to the reader and thus more easily visualized. Cf. METAPHOR. 35. SYNCHESIS: (Grk. pouring together ), also called INTERLOCKING WORD ORDER. An interlocked arrangement of related pairs of words in an ABAB pattern, often emphasizing the close connection between the two thoughts or images. Cf. CHIASMUS. 36. SYNCOPE: The omission of a short, unaccented vowel, reflecting contractions common in daily speech and often employed in poetry for metrical convenience. 37. SYNECDOCHE: (Grk. understanding one thing with another ) A type of metonymy in which a part is named in place of an entire object, or a material for a thing made of that material, or an individual in place of a class of people. Cf. METONYMY.
38. TMESIS: (Grk. cutting ) A separation of a compound word into its constituent parts. 39. TRANSFERRED EPITHET: An application of an adjective to one noun when it properly applies to another, often involving personification and focusing special attention on the modified noun. 40. TRICOLON: (Grk. having three members ) A series of three examples, illustrations, phrases, or clauses. Cf. TRICOLON CRESCENS. 41. TRICOLON CRESCENS: (Grk. having three members + crescens, growing ) A climactic series of three examples, illustrations, phrases, or clauses, each (or at least the last) of which is more fully developed or more intense than the preceding. Cf. TRICOLON. 42. WORD PICTURE: A type of imagery in which the words of a phrase are arranged in an order that suggests the visual image being described. 43. ZEUGMA: (Grk. yoking ) The use of a single word with a pair of others (e.g. a verb with two adverbial modifiers), when it logically applies only to one of them or applies to both of them, but with different meanings.