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Style and Literary Devices

You can use these for analyzing all 4 genres.

STYLEI. Syntax (word order at the sentence-level)

1. Left branching: more words to the left of the main verb than to the right

2. Right branching: more words to the right of the main verb than to the left

3. Hypotaxis (the adjective is “hypotactic”): subordination (who, that, which, if, since, because, however, when, since etc.)

4. Parataxis (the adjective is “paratactic”) coordination (and, or, but, colon, semi-colon, period )

5. Readability: There are various ways to calculate it, but regardless, every algorithm examines average number of words per sentence and average number of syllables per word.

6. Lexis: Vocabulary used in a text

7. Sesquipedalian: literally, “6-footed” but figuratively, “awkward”

II. Schemes of RepetitionAnaphora: Begin successive clauses with same word such as ...

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise,This fortress built by Nature for herselfAgainst infection and the hand of war,This happy breed of men, this little world,This precious stone set in the silver sea

Epistrophe: End successive clauses, phrases or sentences with same word

Mesarchia: Repetition of the same words (or phrase or clause) at the beginning and middle of successive sentences or periods

Epizeuxis: repetition of the same words next to each other: Hamlet: "Words, words, words"

Polyptoton: Repeated use of same lexeme as different parts of speech or from the same cognate (“With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder”)

Seriation: 3 or more items (nouns, clauses, phrases, sentences) in a series of ideas

Peter Paolucci Fall 2018 Ver. 3.0

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Parallelism: Like ideas in like form in a series of two or more words or periods (phrases, clauses, sentences). There are no special names for parallelism in periods (phrases or clauses) but in words they are called doublets:

Antithetic Doublet: Opposites (good and evil)

Range Doublet: Groupings (kings and queens)

Pleonastic Doublet: Overlapping meanings / synonyms (dictionaries and lexicons)

Amplification: Heaping up of examples or modifiers (could also be connected with parallelisms and seriation)

LITERARY DEVICES

I. Figures of Speech (Figurative Language): TropesTrope: An artful deviation from the ordinary or principal signification of a word by means of wit (the intellectual faculty of finding similarities between things or of making connections between things).

Conceit Extended or sustained metaphor

Dysphemism Unpleasant name for a pleasant thing

Euphemism Pleasant name for an unpleasant thing

Hyperbole Deliberate exaggeration without the intent to deceive; use of exaggerated terms for emphasis or effect.

Irony Using language in such a way as to convey a meaning opposite of what the terms used denote (often by exaggeration).

Litotes Understatement used deliberately.

Metaphor Implied comparison

Onomatopoeia Use of words whose sound correspond with their semantic value.

Oxymoron Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another. A compressed paradox.

Paradox An apparently contradictory statement that contains a measure of truth

Personification Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities. [The sky is crying.]

Reification Reference to humans or living things as though they are objects. [Referring to someone as a blonde or redhead.]

Rhetorical Question Asking a question for a purpose other than obtaining the information requested.

Peter Paolucci Fall 2018 Ver. 3.0

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Syllepsis Using a word differently in relation to two or more words that it modifies or governs (sometimes called zeugma).

Simile Explicit comparison of one thing to another

Synecdoche A whole is represented by naming one of its parts (“the blonde”)

II. Other Devices1

Topic

A topic is the general subject matter under discussion, expressed in neutral way without any sense of an opinion. Examples of topics are love, freedom, marriage, the oppression of women and minorities, even the moon.

Theme

Theme is the persuasive argument embedded in a literary text. Themes may be explicitly stated/expressed in the text, or they may be implicitly hinted at through actions. If “the moon” is a topic, saying “the (full) moon is the cause of the rise of murder rates in urban centres” is a theme.

Symbolism

A symbol is a person, place, thing, object, or event that represents/stands for something larger (and usually more complex) than itself. A symbol is usually an object (a red rose, a serpent, a flag, water, the sun, the colour green, a sword, a pen) or an event (a marriage ceremony, a horse jumping over a fence, a kiss). Symbols may be “public” / “conventional” that is to say, generally understood to represent certain ideas, or symbols may have a personal, individual meaning constructed (defined) from inside the specifics of a literary text itself. So the colour red, for example, may symbolize blood, a life force, passion, etc., but a literary text may re-construct that symbol to mean something else (say, hope) in the context of the immediate story, poem, or discussion.

The symbol itself is said to be literal; it’s meaning, figurative.

Imagery

Hard to define in literary criticism because it has so many nuances. Sometimes said to be sensory in nature, but can also refer to recurring similes and metaphors across a whole literary text. Can also be like a symbol. For our purposes here, let’s use it to mean a cluster of symbols that can be characterized under one umbrella. So if a literary text uses symbols like grass, trees, flowers, and a river, we can say the text uses nature imagery, or organic imagery.

1 Sources: “Norton Glossary of Literary Terms,” The Beford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms, and M. H. Abrams’ A Glossary of Literary Terms.Peter Paolucci Fall 2018 Ver. 3.0

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Motif

A “recurrent device, formula or situation within a literary work” (Norton). A motif can be things like doors closing, cars passing by, sunsets, sounding alarm clocks. Recurring symbols or images can also said to form a motif if they occur throughout a text, or in predictable patterns in a text. Motif can unify a work because it is a commonly recurring element of the text. Motif is related to topic and theme because it can signal what the arguments of a text are.

Peter Paolucci Fall 2018 Ver. 3.0