LITERARY DEVICES STARTS WITH (A)
Alliteration
Definition: The repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning of two or more words or stressed syllables.
Example: "Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux." (Pope, The Rape of the Lock)
Allusion
Definition: An implicit or indirect reference to another work of literature, or to a historical or mythological person or event.
Example: "Not half so fixed the Trojan could remain, While Anna begged and Dido raged in vain." (Pope, The Rape of the Lock). This is an allusion to the story of Aeneas, Dido, and Anna from Virgil's Aeneid.
Anapaest
Definition: A metrical foot consisting of three syllables, where the first two are unstressed and the third is stressed.
Example: "Like ă chĭld / frŏm thĕ wōmb, / lĭke ă ghōst / frŏm thĕ tōmb." (Shelley, "The Cloud")
Anaphora
Definition: The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences.
Example: "So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee." (Shakespeare, "Sonnet XVIII")
Ant-climax or Bathos
Definition: A statement in which there is a sudden fall from the serious to the trivial or from the sublime to the ridiculous, often used for humorous or satirical purposes.
Example: "Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast, When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last;" (Pope, The Rape of the Lock)
Aphorism
Definition: A terse, memorable expression of a universal truth.
Example: "Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses." (Bacon, "Of Marriage and Single Life")
Apostrophe
Definition: An address to someone absent or something abstract as if the person or thing were present.
Example: "O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?" (Shelley, "Ode to the West Wind")
Archaism
Definition: The use of a word or a style of writing that is already old-fashioned.
Example: "Lord, thou hast examined me and knowest me. Thou knowest all, whether I sit down or rise up;" (The Bible, Psalms)
Assonance
Definition: Repetition of a vowel sound in nearby words without the recurrence of consonant sounds that would make a rhyme.
Example: "Then in a wallful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;" (Keats, "To Autumn"). The "o" and "i" sounds are repeated.
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