Sound Devices

Sound devices may draw attention to words a writer wants to emphasize, connect words, or create special moods.

Onomatopoeia: the use of a word that suggests the sound it makes; creates clear sound images and helps a writer draw attention to certain words; examples include buzz, pop, hiss, moo, hum, murmur, crackle, crunch, and gurgle

Alliteration: the repetition of initial (first) consonant letters or sounds in word groups; term comes from the Latin word allitera, meaning "adding letters"; examples include wild and wooly, sweet sixteen, through thick and thin, dime a dozen, and big blue balloon; recognized by sound, not by spelling (know and nail alliterate, and know and key do not)

Assonance (partial rhyme, near rhyme): the similarity or repetition of similar vowel sounds in word groups; examples include right-hive and pane-make; lake and stake rhyme, while lake and fate contain assonance

Consonance: the repetition of inner or end consonant sounds in word groups, without a similar correspondence of vowel sounds; similar to alliteration, except consonance does not limit the repeated sound to the first syllable (Margaret got a velvet hat)

Euphony: pleasant combination of sounds; smooth-flowing meter and sentence rhythm give lines euphony; generally, lines with a high percentage of vowel sounds in proportion to consonant sounds tend to be more melodious, or "euphonic"

Cacophony: "bad-sounding"; refers to the unpleasant discordant (cacophonous) effect of sounds or words; sometimes used by writers to give their writing a special effect; dissonance is the arrangement of cacophonous sounds in words or rhythmical patterns Figurative Language

Literal language, straightforward and matter-of-fact, means exactly what it says. A writer using literal language states an idea directly. Figurative language, on the other hand, uses figures of speech to go beyond literal meanings. Authors using figurative language make comparisons and indirect statements to help us see things in vivid, imaginative ways. A figure of speech is any way of saying something other than the literal, ordinary way. Some commonly-used figures of speech are given below.

Metaphor: a figure of speech comparing things that are basically unalike to make the reader see them as similar in some way; metaphor is Greek for "transfer" (meta means "across," and phor/pher means "carry")

stated (direct) metaphor: stated directly (The thief was a fox. She is a doll.); metaphors may follow linking verbs such as become or remain (The boy remained a rock for his family during the tragedy. The offensive line became an effective wall to run behind during the game.)

implied metaphor: the connection between two things is suggested rather than stated (He strutted across the room.)

Simile: a comparison of things that are basically unalike by using the words like, as, as if, than, such as, or resembles; technically, a simile is a type of stated metaphor; most similes begin with like or as The unkind words struck like a knife in the girl's heart. His hands are like leather. He is skinny as a rail. The cave was as dark as a tomb.

It is important to know that not all phrases beginning with like or as are similes. Look at the following sentence and notice that two unalike items are not compared: He got some shoes like Bill's. In that sentence, the author is speaking literally, not figuratively.

Symbol: a person, place, thing, or event that means more than it is; a dove is a symbol of peace, a heart is a symbol of love, an eagle is a symbol of the United States, a skull and crossbones is a symbol of poison, etc.; symbolism is the use of something to stand for more than it is; a work of literature may have a symbolic meaning

Personification: technique in which an author gives human characteristics to nonhuman things (animals, natural forces, objects, ideas, etc.); examples are Jack Frost, Old Man Winter, Mother Nature, etc.; sentences with personification are as follows: The angry sky thundered overhead. The land was glad rain finally came. The waves danced upon the beach.

Pun: a figure of speech involving a play on words; a word used to express two meanings at the same time; a joke based on words with several meanings or words that sound the same but have different meanings. The gorilla went ape when he saw the bananas. On the side of the diaper delivery truck was written "Rock a Dry Baby." A plumber's advertisement said, "A flush is better than a full house."

Hyperbole: overstatement; a deliberate exaggeration used for an ironic or humorous effect to emphasize a point; from the Greek word for "overcasting" I'm starved. I'll die if I don't pass English. He calls a million times a day. He's older than dirt. Basic Elements of Poetry: Rhyme, Rhythm, and Meter

Poetry as a literary form may be defined simply as a patterned expression of ideas in concentrated or imaginative terms, usually (but not necessarily) containing rhyme and a specific meter.

Form: a poem's design as a whole; its shape or structure

closed form: the poet follows some sort of pattern

open form: the poet does not follow a pattern; instead, the poem is shaped as is moves along, often adding emphasis as it goes

Subject: the central topic of a poem

Speaker: the voice telling the poem; a poem may have more than one speaker; the speaker and the poet are not necessarily the same

Persona: a "mask" the poet creates to provide the speaker of a poem; when analyzing poetry, be sure to distinguish between the poet and the speaker (if there is a difference)

Satiric Poetry: poetry that makes fun of human corruption, wickedness, or foolishness

Repetition: the recurrence of sounds, words, phrases, or lines in poetry

Rhyme: the similarity or likeness of sound existing between two words; the repetition of sounds that are similar or identical; expresses strong feelings and enhances the meaning and impact of poetry

internal rhyme: the repetition of similar sounds within lines

end rhyme: the repetition of similar sounds at the end of lines

perfect/exact/true rhyme: different initial consonant sounds are followed by similar vowel sounds (tie/lie, meet/feet)

approximate/slant/off rhyme: only the final consonant sounds are identical (comb/tomb, cat/cot, hope/cup); see consonance

rhyme scheme: the pattern of rhymes formed by the end rhyme in a poem; first sound is a, second sound is b, third sound is c, etc.

Rhythm: the regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables (beats) we hear in poetry; stress is simply the greater amount of emphasis we give to a syllable in speaking; stressed syllable is accented (long); unstressed syllable is unaccented (short)

Meter: the pattern of rhythm in a line of poetry; from the Greek word meaning "measure"; the type of meter depends upon the placement of stress within each poetical foot (see chart below)

Poetical foot: unit used to measure rhythm in a line of poetry; consists of two or three syllables; lines of poetry consist of a series of feet; poetic lines are classified according to the number of feet per line (clues in prefixes) monometer: 1 foot trimeter: 3 feet pentameter: 5 feet heptameter: 7 feet dimeter: 2 feet tetrameter: 4 feet hexameter: 6 feet octameter: 8 feet Types of Meter

Foot Description Example Henry 2 syllables: unstressed - stressed Wadsworth iamb (iambic meter) "rising meter" (pro-CEED, be-LOW) Longfellow, the most common foot in English "Nature" 2 syllables: stressed - unstressed Edgar Allan Poe, trochée (trochaic meter) "falling meter" (FIF-ty, NEV-er) "The Raven" James Russell Lowell, A Fable 3 syllables: 2 unstressed - 1 stressed for Critics anapest (anapestic meter) "rising meter" (o-ver-COME) Byron, "The Destruction of Sennecherib" Henry 3 syllables: 1 stressed - 2 unstressed Wadsworth dactyl (dactylic meter) "falling meter" (PAR-a-graph) Longfellow, "Evangeline" usually compound 2 stressed syllables; often used to slow rhythm of line; words (FOOT- spondée (spondaic meter) two spondées combined into one unit is a dispondée BALL, CHILD- HOOD) usually found 2 unstressed syllables; also called a dibrach, the interspersed with pyhhric shortest metrical foot in Classical verse other poetical feet

Verse Forms Based on Meter and Rhyme

1. Rhymed Verse: contains end rhyme and usually has a regular meter and rhyme scheme; rhyming couplets means that every two lines rhyme; an example of "closed form"

2. Blank Verse: contains a fixed rhythm and regular line length - unrhymed iambic pentameter (10 syllables per line and no rhyme); an example of "closed form"; often found in poetry dealing with complex subjects; commonly used in narrative and dramatic poetry; because of its regular rhythm, it may become monotonous and "sing-songy" (many poets vary the rhythm to add emphasis and avoid monotony); originated in England with Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; other examples are Shakespeare's dramatic poetry (plays), John Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), William Cullen Bryant's "Thanatopsis," and Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses"

3. Free Verse: poetry free of traditional metrical and stanzaic patterns; no fixed rhythm or rhyme scheme; uses everyday (colloquial) language, natural speech rhythms, and differing line lengths; key feature is its departure from traditional meters; an example of "open form"; examples are Psalms and Song of Solomon in the King James Bible, John Milton's Samson Agonistes and Lycidas, the poetry of Walt Whitman, and the work of the nineteenth century French symbolists; other poets using free verse include Stephen Crane, Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters, Ezra Pound, and e.e. cummings Stanza Forms

A stanza (Italian for "station," "stopping place," or "room") is a unit of poetry longer than a line; it is a way of arranging lines of poetry in a pattern based on thought or form, usually according to rhyme and meter. A stanza serves the same function as a paragraph in prose: it allows the poet to organize his or her thoughts into a unit. A refrain is a group of words, phrases, or lines repeated at regular intervals in a poem. Types are as follows: couplet: 2-line stanza; 2 successive lines that rhyme (a-a) triplet (tercet): 3-line stanza (usually a-b-a or a-a-a) quatrain: 4-line stanza; most common form in English (a-a-a-a; a-b-a-b; a-b-b-a; a-a-b-b; a-b-a-c) quintet: 5-line stanza (may be one of a number of rhyme schemes) sestet: 6-line stanza (sometimes used to refer to last 6 lines of sonnet) septet: 7-line stanza octave: 8-line stanza (often used to refer to first 8 lines of sonnet)

Limerick: 5-line nonsense poem with anapestic meter; rhyme scheme usually a-a-b-b-a; first, second, and fifth lines contain three stresses; third and and fourth lines contain two stresses; made popular by British painter and author Edward Lear (1812-88)

Ballad Stanza: four lines with rhyme scheme of a-b-c-b; first and third lines in tetrameter; second and fourth lines in trimeter

Haiku: about 17 syllables; usually three lines (5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables); means "beginning verse"; mostly rhymeless imagery; originated in the sixteenth century in Japan

Tanka: 5 lines of 31 syllables (5, 7, 5, 7, 7)

Concrete Poetry: poem visibly resembling the object which it describes; key is the arrangement of words

Acrostic: initial letter of each line, read downward, spells out word or words

Types of Poetry 1. Lyric Poetry: expresses the personal thoughts and feelings of a single speaker (a single emotional event); may or may not contain definite stanza forms and patterns of rhyme and rhythm; may be "open" or "closed" form (rhymed verse, blank verse, or free verse); may tell a story, but shorter than a narrative or dramatic poem; generally between 12 and 30 lines, and rarely over 60 lines; emphasizes sound and imagery over dramatic and narrative content; often rich in musical devices; once had a narrow meaning: it was "musical" poetry (name comes from the Greeks, who sang the poems to the music of the lyre; some notable Greek lyric poets were Anacreon, Sappho, and Archiolochus

Sonnet: 14-line stanza, usually in iambic pentameter, following a specific rhyme scheme

Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet: contains eight lines (octave) following the rhyme scheme a-b-b-a a-b-b-a, followed by six lines (sestet) with a varying rhyme scheme (c-d-e-c-d-e or c-d-c-d-c-d); turn between the octave and the sestet is the volta; usually divided into comparison/contrast or question/resolution according to the divisions of the octave and sestet; used in American literature by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Shakespearean (English) Sonnet: contains three quatrains and one couplet following the rhyme scheme a-b-a-b-c-d-c-d-e-f-e-f-g-g; each quatrain is usually a variation of the basic theme of the poem, and the couplet is usually a conclusion

Note: while both types follow a rhyme scheme and (usually) are written in iambic pentameter, Shakespeare ended his sonnets with a couplet

A sonnet cannot be written in blank verse because a sonnet rhymes and blank verse does not.

Ode: long lyric poem in stanzas of varied metrical patterns; often a serious poem on a dignified theme; formal, lofty language and admiration for the subject; generally celebrates a subject of public interest and involves the performance of a group of people; sung in honor of gods or heroes in Greek and Roman literature

2. Narrative Poetry: tells a story; often has a strong dramatic element

Epic Poem: most famous type of narrative poem; a long narrative poem about a national or legendary hero; examples are the Iliad, Odyssey, Aenead, Columbiad, Beowulf, Dante's Divine Comedy, and Milton's Paradise Lost; a Homeric Simile, common in epic poetry, is an extended comparison of two actions or objects that develops mounting excitement and usually ends in a climax; a canto is a subdivision of an epic poem

Ballad: a narrative poem in short stanzas (often rhymed and in quatrains) sometimes set to music; among the most common subjects are love, jealousy, revenge, death, adventure, mystery, and war; frequently focuses on a dramatic or tragic incident and contains dialogue of characters; often involves historical or legendary figures; commonly uses a refrain to add emphasis or suspense; the French word for ballad once meant "to dance"; Bishop Thomas Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1765) increased popular interest

Basic Elements of Drama Narrator: a character in some plays who speaks directly to the audience, introducing the action and providing commentary between scenes; may or may not be a character in the action

Monologue: a long speech by a character; allows characters to express complicated thoughts or develop extensive arguments; in fiction, one person speaks in a monologue

Soliloquy: a type of monologue in which a character, alone on stage, addresses himself; "thinking out loud" lets the audience know a character's true thoughts and feelings

Aside: a brief remark or speech; when a character on stage turns from the person he is addressing to speak directly to the audience; audience alone hears his thoughts (rest of characters cannot); lets the audience know what the character is really thinking and feeling, as opposed to what he or she pretends; two characters addressing one another may speak in asides to the audience

Chorus: a group of actors speaking or chanting in unison, often while going through steps of elaborate, formalized dance; usually used to express views and emotions of the public; sometimes pose questions to characters or audience; sometimes used as a narrator; a characteristic device of Greek drama for conveying communal or group emotion

Realistic Drama: attempts, in context and presentation, to preserve the illusion of actual, everyday life; characters are not "superhuman"; situations or plots are usually believable

Nonrealistic Drama: departs from presenting the outward, visible appearance of life; characters sometimes have "superhuman qualities"; plots sometimes border on the absurd; good parallel is a soap opera

Tragedy: a type of drama in which the protagonist (someone of unusual moral or intellectual stature or ability) suffers a fall in fortune because of some error of judgment, excessive virtue, or flaw in his nature (tragic flaw); sometimes warns of excess in any one personality trait; most of the time, a reconciliation takes place in the end

Catharsis: a term (first used by Aristotle) that describes some sort of emotional release experienced by the audience at the end of a successful tragedy; "wisdom gained from tragedy" (waste of human life, waste of human greatness, etc.)

Melodrama: (related to tragedy); contains sensational incidents and emphasizes plot over characters; conflicts are often "crude (virtuous protagonist versus villainous antagonist); resolutions are emotionally satisfying and "happy" (good winning out over evil); issues are oversimplified; adjective form is "melodramatic"

Comedy: a type of drama (opposed to tragedy) normally having a happy ending and emphasizing human limitation, rather than human greatness; the main purpose of a scornful comedy is to expose and ridicule human corruption, folly, vanity, and hypocrisy; in a romantic comedy, a likeable and sensible main character is placed in difficult circumstances from which he or she is rescued at the end, either attaining his or her goals or having fortunes reversed

Non-Fiction Literature Non-fiction literature is a type of prose literature dealing with real people and real life situations. This is not to say, however, that non-fiction literature is necessarily "fact" or "truth." Among the varieties of non-fiction literature are biographies, autobiographies, speeches, histories, essays, diaries, journals, newspapers, and even cookbooks or car repair manuals. An author's purpose may be to entertain, inform, persuade, or explain. The chief uses of non-fiction literature are as follows:

Descriptive Literature (description): uses imagery to give us a picture about the subject

Narrative Literature (narration): tells about a series of events

Expository Literature (exposition): presents information or explains a subject

Persuasive Literature (persuasion): designed to change people's ideas or actions

Major Forms of Non-Fiction Literature

Essays. An essay is a piece of prose of various lengths dealing with a subject briefly and from a personal point of view. An essay attempts to say something, but not everything, about a subject. The author of an essay should have evidence for his or her ideas. A critical essay deals with a topic of literature or any of the arts. The major styles of essays are formal and informal. Formal Essay: serious in tone, tightly-organized, generally objective; frequently designed to instruct (didactic); major parts (introduction, body, conclusion) work together to make up a complete idea or thing; develops theme according to principles of unity, coherence, and emphasis

Informal Essay: may be relaxed, serious, or humorous; conversational style (colloquial), digressions, humorous anecdotes; writer's personality and point of view are as important as the subject; E. B. White and James Thurber are among the American "masters" of the informal essay

Speeches. Speeches are mostly intended for oral presentation, but some are meant to be read silently. In either case, the key element is the author's ability to be persuasive (often use rhetorical questions and parallelisms)

Biographies (including Autobiographies). The subject of a biography is someone's life. A biographer may use a variety of source materials: diaries, letters, archives, memoirs, personal knowledge, books, etc. For the distinction between primary and secondary source materials, see below.

Types of Source Materials The two major categories of source materials are primary sources and secondary sources. Primary Sources: original documents written by someone who participates in or has direct knowledge of something. Examples include speeches, diaries, letters, novels, legislative bills, laboratory studies, field research reports, eyewitness reports, or newspaper articles.

Secondary Sources: commentaries on primary sources, often written by a non-participant in an event or after the fact about someone or something else

Paraphrasing and Plagiarism

Paraphrasing is restating someone else's language in your own words; it makes ideas clearer and avoids plagiarism. Plagiarism is the stealing and passing off as your own someone else's ideas or words without crediting (acknowledging, citing) the source. In other words, presenting as "your work" or "your idea" something that came from someone else is plagiarism. Plagiarizing someone else's work can get you expelled from a college or university. Basic Guidelines for Avoiding Plagiarism 1. Give credit for facts that someone else discovered, someone's original theory or idea, or research that proves a story. 2. Give credit for information gained from photographs, tables, or graphs. 3. Give credit for a direct or an indirect quotation from a book. 4. Do not give credit for things that are "common knowledge." (The sun rises in the East. Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.)

5. Do not give credit for sayings that are so much a part of our culture (clichés) that no one knows who said them. ("You can't judge a book by its cover.")

Tips for Reading and Analyzing Non-Fiction 1. Ask yourself, "What is the author's purpose?" Is the writer trying to entertain, to inform, to persuade, or to explain something? Does it seem to be more than one of these purposes? 2. Is the tone formal or informal? Is it some of both? How do you know? 3. What impressions do you form of the writer and his or her personality? Why do you feel this way? 4. Examine what the author does with language. How does the language affect you as a reader? Explain. 5. In your own words, what is the main idea that the author is trying to express? 6. How do elements of style (imagery, figurative language, irony, etc.) help express the author's attitude toward the subject, as well as your response? 7. Read the work more than once. On the first reading, think about the main point (thesis) of the essay and whether or not the author uses sufficient evidence to support his or her ideas. How does the author support his or her claims? Is it with relevant and sufficient evidence or with just a few anecdotes or emotional examples? Are any of the author's assumptions questionable? Does the author consider opposing arguments and refute them persuasively? Are there any reasons to be suspicious of the author's motives or to question his or her objectivity? As you read, also think about the author's style and your personal response to the writing.

8. Be aware of what types of source materials provide the bases of the author's arguments.