Alliteration Repetition of the same letter or sound

Alliteration • Repetition of the same letter or sound within nearby words • Most often, repeated initial consonants • Examples: – Why not waste a wild weekend at Westmore Water Park? – We saw a snake slithering by on our way home.

Allusion • brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious or to a work of art • Examples: – The student’s procrastination was his Achilles heel. – As we learn, we leave the darkness of the cave for the brightness of newfound knowledge.

Anaphora • Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines • Examples: – This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise – We must move forward not as a divided people, not as a broken country…

Antimetabole • Repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order • Examples: – When the going gets tough, the tough get going. – You can take the gorilla out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the gorilla.

Antithesis • Opposition, or contrast, of ideas or words in a balanced or parallel construction • Example: – Give me liberty or give me death. – We shall support any friend, oppose an foe. – Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more.

Asyndeton and Polysyndeton • Asyndeton: The omission of conjunctions between coordinated phrases, clauses, or words, often resulting in a hurried rhythm or vehement effect • Example: – Caesar: I came; I saw; I conquered. • Polysyndeton: Employing many conjunctions between clauses, often slowing the tempo or rhythm. • Example: – It was dark and there was water standing in the street and no lights and windows broke.

Cumulative Sentence • Sentence that completes the main idea at the beginning of the sentence, and then builds and adds on • Example: – He dipped his hands in the bichloride solution and shook them--a quick shake, fingers down, like the fingers of a pianist above the keys. – I write this at a wide desk in a pine shed as I always do these recent years, in this life I pray will last, while the summer sun closes the sky to Orion and to all the other winter stars over my roof.

Hortative Sentence • sentence that exhorts, advices, calls to action • Less of a command more of a request (imperative sentence is the opposite) • Example: – Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. – Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

Imperative Sentence • sentence used to command, enjoin, implore or entreat • Example: – We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.

Inversion • Inverted order of words in a sentence (variation of the subjectverb-object order) • Examples: – Then up spoke the captain of our gallant ship, And a well-spoken man was he; – Divided there is little we can do.

Juxtaposition • placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts • Examples: – The darkness of his mood seeped into the lightness I possessed before his appearance.

Metaphor • A comparison made by referring to one thing as another • Examples: – No man island. – For ever since that time you went away I've been a rabbit burrowed in the wood.

Metonymy • Reference to something or someone by naming one of its attributes. • Examples: – The pen is mightier than the sword. *The pen is an attribute of thoughts that are written with a pen; the sword is an attribute of military action – We await word from the crown.

Oxymoron • Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another • Examples: – The sounds of silence filled the room. – But this peaceful revolution.

Parallelism (parallel structure) • Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses • Examples: – parallelism of words: She tried to make her pastry fluffy, sweet, and delicate. – parallelism of phrases: Singing a song or writing a poem is joyous. – parallelism of clauses: Perch are inexpensive; cod are cheap; trout are abundant; but salmon are best.

Periodic Sentence • A sentence whose main clause is withheld until the end • Example: – For when that greatest of all wars broke out and a multitude of dangers presented themselves at one and the same time, when our enemies regarded themselves as irresistible because of their numbers and our allies thought themselves endowed with a courage which could not be excelled, we outdid them both in a way appropriate to each.

Personification • Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities • Examples: – O beware, my lord, of jealousy! – The insatiable hunger for imagination preys upon human life.

Rhetorical Question • any question asked for a purpose other than to obtain the information the question asks • Examples: – Why are you so smart? – Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?