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Elegy

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"With the farming of a verse Make a vineyard of the curse, Sing of human unsuccess In a rapture of distress; In the deserts of the heart Let the healing fountain start, In the prison of his days Teach the free man how to praise." (In Memory of W. B. Yeats, by W. H. Auden)

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Ellipsis

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some people prefer cats; other dogs Kathleen wants to be a firefighter; Sara, a nurse.

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Epic

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a long narrative poem written in elevated style which presents the adventures of characters of high position and episodes that are important to the history of a race or nation

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Epigram

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"the more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." "i am not young enough to know everything."

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Epigraph

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"You are all a lost generation" in the beginning of his book The Sun Also Rises. "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." This is a quotation from Balzac given in The Godfather, a famous novel by Mario Puzo.

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Epiphany

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One day he goes back to his room. Depressed by his sins, he falls ill and makes a decision to reform himself. He goes to church for confession where the priest is very kind. So, Stephen finds a new course in life - he becomes a priest.

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Epitaph

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an inscription on a tombstone or burial place

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Epithet

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"The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter..." "Here of a Sunday morning My love and I would lie, And see the coloured counties, And hear the larks so high About us in the sky."

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Eulogy

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a formal speech praising a person who died

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Euphemism

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You are becoming a little thin on top (bald). Our teacher is in the family way (pregnant). He is always tired and emotional (drunk). We do not hire mentally challenged (stupid) people. He is a special child (disabled or retarded).

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Expletive

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an interjection to lend emphasis; sometimes a profanity

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Fable

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"Now, comrades, what is the nature of this life of ours? Let us face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. We are born, we are given just so much food as will keep the breath in our bodies... and the very instant that our usefulness has come to an end.... No animal in England knows the meaning of happiness or leisure after he is a year old. No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery...."

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Flat Character

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a character who embodies a single quality and who does not develop in the course of the story

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Foreshadowing

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"Life were better ended by their hate, Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love"

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Frame Device

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a story within a story -Canterbury Tales- primary tales are told within the "frame story" of the pilgrimage to Canterbury, inception

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Jargon

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Getting on a soapbox Bang for the buck Code Eight

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Juxtaposition

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Frequently in the poem, the bad qualities of Satan and the good qualities of God are placed side by side and comparison hence made brings to the surface the contrast between the two characters.

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Declarative Sentence

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a sentence that makes a statement or declaration

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Deductive Reasoning

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"the sun rises every morning; therefore, the sun will rise Tuesday morning."

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Denotation

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A dog is used to suggest shamelessness or an ugly face. A dove is used to suggest peace or gentility. Home is used to suggest family, comfort and security.

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Dialect

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Jim: "We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack yo' heels. Dat's de good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows it." Huck: "I'll take the canoe and go see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know." Walter: Reckon I have. Almost died first year I come to school and et them pecans — folks say he pizened 'em and put 'em over on the school side of the fence.

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Dialogue

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conversation between two or people

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Diction

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the word choices made by a writer

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Didactic

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having the primary purpose of teaching or instructing

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Dilemma

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a situation that requires a person to decide between two equally attractive or equally unattractive alternatives

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Dissonance

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harsh, inharmonious, or discordant sounds

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Chiasmus

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"It is not the earth that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath." - "Love as if you would one day hate, and hate as if you would one day love."

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Cliche

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"Happy Birthday!" "I now pronounce you man and wife" in the nick of time - to happen just in time only time will tell - to become clear over time a matter of time - to happen sooner or later at the speed of light - to do something very quickly lasted an eternity - to last for a very long time lost track of time - to stop paying attention to time

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Climax

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"Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; A shining gloss that vadeth suddenly; A flower that dies when first it gins to bud; A brittle glass that's broken presently: A doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, vaded, broken, dead within an hour."

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Colloquialism

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a bunch of numpties - a group of idiots to bamboozle - to deceive go bananas - go insane or be very angry wanna - want to gonna - going to y'all - you all go nuts - go insane or be very angry look blue -look sad buzz off - go away

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Complex Sentence

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a sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause

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Compound Sentence

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a sentence with two or more independent clause properly joined

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Conceit

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"Oh stay! three lives in one flea spare Where we almost, yea more than married are. This flea is you and I, and this Our marriage-bed and marriage-temple is"

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Concrete Details

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details that relate to or describe actual, specific things or events that are perceived through the sense

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Connotation

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"All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts,"

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Cumulative Sentence

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we go to the store after midnight for some peanuts.

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Malapropism

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New Scientist, a magazine, reports one of its employees calling his colleague "a suppository (i.e. repository) of knowledge "tandem bicycle" as "tantrum bicycle" and also have incorrectly used "Alcoholics Unanimous" instead of "Alcoholics Anonymous".

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Maxim

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-never trust a man who says, "trust me." - "don't let your mouth write no check your tail can't cash."

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Metaphor

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My brother was boiling mad. (This implies he was too angry.) The assignment was a breeze. (This implies that the assignment was not difficult.) It is going to be clear skies from now on. (This implies that clear skies are not a threat and life is going to be without hardships) The skies of his future began to darken. (Darkness is a threat; therefore, this implies that the coming times are going to be hard for him.) Her voice is music to his ears. (This implies that her voice makes him feel happy)

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Metonymy

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England decides to keep check on immigration. (England refers to the government.) The suits were at meeting. (The suits stand for business people.) The pen is mightier than the sword. (Pen refers to written words and sword to military force.) The Oval Office was busy in work. ("The Oval Office" is a metonymy as it stands for people at work in the office.) Let me give you a hand. (Hand means help.)

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Balanced Sentence

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a sentence in which words, phrases, or clauses are set off against each other to emphasize a contrast

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Bathos

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in sincere or overly sentimental quality of writing/ speech intended to evoke pity

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Genre

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a major category of type of literature

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Legend

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a narrative handed down from the past, containing historical elements and usually supernatural elements

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Litotes

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They do not seem the happiest couple around. The ice cream was not too bad. New York is not an ordinary city. Your comments on politics are not useless. You are not as young as you used to be. I cannot disagree with your point of view. William Shakespeare was not a bad playwright at all. He is not the cleverest person I have ever met. She is not unlike her mother. Ken Adams is not an ordinary man A million dollars is not a little amount. You are not doing badly at all. Your apartment is not unclean.

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Limerick

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light verse consisting of five lines of regular rhythm in which the first second,and fifth lines (each consisting of three feet) rhyme, and the third and fourth lines (each consisting of two feet) rhyme

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Limited Narrator

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a narrator who presents the story as it is seen and understood by a single character and restricts information to what is seen, heard, thought, or felt by that one character

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Literary License

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deviating form normal rules or methods in order to achieve a certain effect -intentional sentence fragments

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Homily

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a sermon, or a moralistic lecture

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Hubris

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intentional exaggeration to create an effect

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Hyperbole

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My grandmother is as old as the hills. Your suitcase weighs a ton! She is as heavy as an elephant! I am dying of shame. I am trying to solve a million issues these days.

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Hypothetical Question

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"here is my cell phone. how would you sell it to me?"

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Idiom

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"Every cloud has its silver lining but it is sometimes a little difficult to get it to the mint." "American idioms drive me up the hall!"

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Imagery

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It was dark and dim in the forest. - The words "dark" and "dim" are visual images. The children were screaming and shouting in the fields. - "Screaming" and "shouting" appeal to our sense of hearing or auditory sense. He whiffed the aroma of brewed coffee. - "whiff" and "aroma" evoke our sense of smell or olfactory sense. The girl ran her hands on a soft satin fabric. - The idea of "soft" in this example appeals to our sense of touch or tactile sense. The fresh and juicy orange are very cold and sweet. - " juicy" and "sweet" when associated with oranges have an effect on our sense of taste or gustatory sense.

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Implication

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a suggestion an author or speaker makes without stating it directly Note: the author/speaker implies; the reader infers

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Inductive Reasoning

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every cat I have ever seen has four legs; cats are four legged animals

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Inference

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"It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the holocaust was complete."

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Invective

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"A knave, a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave... and art nothing but the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch..." "I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth."

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Irony

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I posted a video on YouTube about how boring and useless YouTube is. The name of Britain's biggest dog was "Tiny". You laugh at a person who slipped stepping on a banana peel and the next thing you know, you slipped too. The butter is as soft as a marble piece. "Oh great! Now you have broken my new camera."

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Absolute

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"best" "all" "unique" "perfect"

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Ad Hominem Argument

answer

"How can you argue your case for vegetarianism when you are enjoying your steak? A: "All murderers are criminals, but a thief isn't a murderer, and so can't be a criminal." B: "Well, you're a thief and a criminal, so there goes your argument."

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Adage

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"don't count your chickens before they hatch" "don't burn any bridges behind you"

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Allegory

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the declaration of an ex-US president G.W Bush was allegorical when he used the term "Axis of Evil" for three countries and later the term "allies" for those countries that would wage war against the "Axis".

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Alliteration

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But a better butter makes a batter better. A big bully beats a baby boy.

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Allusion

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"Don't act like a Romeo in front of her." - "Romeo" is a reference to Shakespeare's Romeo, a passionate lover of Juliet, in "Romeo and Juliet". The rise in poverty will unlock the Pandora's box of crimes. - This is an allusion to one of Greek Mythology's origin myth, "Pandora's box". "This place is like a Garden of Eden." -This is a biblical allusion to the "garden of God" in the Book of Genesis. "Hey! Guess who the new Newton of our school is?" - "Newton", means a genius student, alludes to a famous scientist Isaac Newton. "Stop acting like my ex-husband please." - Apart from scholarly allusions we refer to common people and places in our speech.

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Analogy

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Life is like a race. The one who keeps running wins the race and the one who stops to catch a breath loses. Just as a sword is the weapon of a warrior, a pen is the weapon of a writer. How a doctor diagnoses diseases is like how a detective investigates crimes. Just as a caterpillar comes out of its cocoon, so we must come out of our comfort zone. You are as annoying as nails on a chalkboard.

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Anaphora

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"Every day, every night, in every way, I am getting better and better" "My life is my purpose. My life is my goal. My life is my inspiration." "Buying nappies for the baby, feeding the baby, playing with the baby: This is what your life is when you have a baby. "I want my money right now, right here, all right?"

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Anecdote

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What is that? Bells, dogs again! Is it a dream? I sob and cry. See! The door opens, fur-clad men Rush to my rescue; frail am I; Feeble and dying, dazed and glad. There is the pistol where it dropped. "Boys, it was hard — but I'm not mad. . . . Look at the clock — it stopped, it stopped. Carry me out. The heavens smile. See! There's an arch of gold above. Now, let me rest a little while — Looking to God and Love . . .and Love . . .". In this poem, the speaker is freezing slowly in the Arctic. He recollects the memories of his life and tells the whole story to the readers, but sees flashes of his life before he dies. In fact, he is using anecdotes to tell his life story.

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Antecedent

answer

the word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers

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Antithesis

answer

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Man proposes, God disposes. Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing. Speech is silver, but silence is gold. Patience is bitter, but it has a sweet fruit. Money is the root of all evils: poverty is the fruit of all goodness. You are easy on the eyes, but hard on the heart.

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Aphorism

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Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle; Old age regret. [Benjamin Disraeli] Pride hath fall. [Proverb] The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. [William Faulkner] Life's Tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. [Benjamin Franklin] Yesterday is but today's memory, and tomorrow is today's dream. [Khalil Gibran] The simplest questions are the hardest to answer. [Northrop Frye] A proverb is no proverb to you till life has illustrated it. [John Keats] Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. [Rudyard Kipling]

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Apostrophe

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"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky."

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Archetype

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The Hero: He or she is a character who predominantly exhibits goodness and struggles against evil in order to restore harmony and justice to society The Mother Figure: Such a character may be represented as Fairy Mother who guides and directs a child, Mother Earth who contacts people and offers spiritual and emotional nourishment, and Stepmother who treats their stepchildren roughly.

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Argument

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"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."

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Asyndeton

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"Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils, Shrunk to this little measure?" Without looking, without making a sound, without talking

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