Download Literary Devices student notes

Literary Devices
A. Basic Literary Terms
1.
scene (setting):
2.
speaker (narrator):
Ex: May Swenson wrote a poem where the speaker is an alien visiting Earth
3.
theme:
Ex: theme of friendship: seem from situations George and Lennie go through
4.
author’s purpose:
5.
mood:
Ex: words describe mood: _______, _______, ______, _______, _______, etc.
6.
tone:
Ex: words to describe tone: _______,_______,_______,_______,_______, etc.
7.
protagonist:
8.
antagonist:
9.
symbol:
Ex:
the heart is a symbol for love
a. symbolic meaning: _______ ________ of meaning suggested by a work’s _______,
or surface meaning
B. Word Choice
1. diction: the writer’s, speaker’s, or narrator’s ____________________
Ex: If the speaker of a poem is a child, the author would chose words a child would use
2. denotation: The most specific or direct meaning of a word: the “____________”
definition/meaning of a word
Ex: the word cool means: moderately cold; neither warm nor cold
Literary Device Notes for Poetry 1
3. connotation: The set of associations _________ by a word in addition to its ________
meaning; ________ meanings; all _____________ & ____________ associated
Ex: cool can also mean: great; fine; excellent
4. dialect:
Ex:
5. dialogue:
Ex: She said, “that will be fine.”
C. Images
1.
image: a single word or phrase that appeals to our _________ (_____, _______, _______,
________, ________)
2.
cliché:
Ex: worn blue jeans, strong as an ox
3.
fresh images:
Ex: e. e. cummings writes: mud-luscious
D. More Literary Devices
1. irony: the contrast between ______________ and __________
a. verbal irony:
Ex: calling a clumsy basketball player Michael Jordan
b. situational irony:
Ex: You stay up all night studying for a test. When you go to class, you discover
the test is not until the next day.
c. dramatic irony:
Ex: While watching a horror movie, YOU, and the audience, know that the killer is
waiting for the victim in the house=and he/she is attacked.
Literary Device Notes for Poetry 2
2. allusion: a _____________ (usually brief) often casual, occasionally indirect, to a person,
event, or condition thought to be _________________________.
3. allegory:
Ex.: Aesop’s fables, such as the tortoise and the hare,
the boy who cried wolf, modern books such as Lord of the
Flies, Star Trek, the Matrix,
Literary Device Notes for Poetry 3