A Glossary of Literary Terms
Robert Harris
Southern California College
Version Date: May 22, 1997
To find a particular term, use your browser''s Find command (on the Edit menu in
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Adventure novel. A novel where exciting events predominate over characterization
and sometimes theme. Examples:
H. Rider Haggard, King Solomon''s Mines
Baroness Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel
Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Allegory. "A form of extended metaphor in which objects and persons in a
narrative, either in prose or verse, are equated with meanings that lie outside
the narrative itself. Thus it represents one thing in the guise of another--an
abstraction in that of a concrete image. The characters are usually
personifications of abstract qualities...." (Wm. Thrall, et al, Handbook to
Literature, NY Odyssey, 1960) Many works contain allegories or are allegorical
in part, but not many are entirely allegorical. A good example of a fully
allegorical work is
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
Alliteration. The recurrence of initial consonant sounds. The repetition can be
juxtaposed (and then it is usually limited to two words):
Ah, what a delicious day!
Yes, I have read that little bundle of pernicious prose.
Done well, alliteration is a satisfying sensation.
This two-word alliteration calls attention to the phrase and fixes it in the
reader''s mind, and so is useful for emphasis as well as art. Often, though,
several words not next to each other are alliterated in a sentence. Here the use
is more artistic. And note in the second example how wonderfully alliteration
combines with antithesis:
I shall delight to hear the ocean roar, or see the stars twinkle, in the
company of men to whom Nature does not spread her volumes or utter her voice
in vain. --Samuel Johnson
Do not let such evils overwhelm you as thousands have suffered, and
thousands have surmounted; but turn your thoughts with vigor to some other
plan of life, and keep always in your mind, that, with due submission to
providence, a man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself. --Samuel
Johnson
I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with
writers, as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the
deepest, provided any water be there; and that often, when there is nothing
in the world at the bottom, besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a
yard and a half underground, it shall pass, however, for a wondrous deep,
upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous dark. --Jonathan Swift
Allusion. A causal and brief reference to a famous historical or literary figure
or event:
You must borrow me Gargantua''s mouth first. ''Tis a word too great for any
mouth of this age''s size. --Shakespeare
If you take his parking place, you can expect World War II all over again.
Plan ahead: it wasn''t raining when Noah built the ark. --Richard Cushing
Sometimes the allusion becomes an analogy:
Our examination of the relation of the historian to the facts of history
finds us, therefore, in an apparently precarious situation, navigating
delicately between Scylla of an untenable theory of history as an objective
compilation of facts . . . and the Charybdis of an equally untenable theory
of history as the subjective product of the mind of the historian. . .
.--Edward Hallett Carr
Notice in these examples that the allusions are to very well known characters or
events, not to obscure ones. (The best sources for allusions are literature,
history, Greek myth, and the Bible.) Note also that the reference serves to
explain or clarify or enhance whatever subject is under discussion, without
sidetracking the reader.
Allusion can be wonderfully attractive in your writing because it can introduce
a variety and energy into an otherwise limited discussion (an exciting
historical adventure rises suddenly in the middle of a discussion of chemicals
or some abstract argument), and it can please the reader by reminding him of a
pertinent story or figure with which he is familiar, thus helping (like analogy)
to explain something difficult. The instantaneous pause and reflection on the
analogy refreshes and strengthens the reader''s mind.
Anadiplosis. A rhetorical trope formed by repeating the last word of one phrase,
clause, or sentence at or very near the beginning of the next. It can be
generated in series for the sake of beauty or to give a sense of logical
progression:
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,/ Knowledge might
pity win, and pity grace obtain. . . . --Philip Sidney
Most commonly, though, anadiplosis is used for emphasis of the repeated word or
idea, since repetition has a reinforcing effect:
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out of
cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. --Jer. 2:13
The question next arises, How much confidence can we put in the people, when
the people have elected Joe Doax?
This treatment plant has a record of uncommon reliability, a reliability
envied by every other water treatment facility on the coast.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. --John 1:1
Notice how the main point of the sentence becomes immediately clear by repeating
the same word twice in close succession. There can be no doubt about the focus
of your thought when you use anadiplosis.
Analogy. The comparison of two things, which are alike in several respects, for
the purpose of explaining or clarifying some unfamiliar or difficult idea or
object by showing how the idea or object is similar to some familiar one. While
simile and analogy often overlap, the simile is generally a more artistic
likening, done briefly for effect and emphasis, while analogy serves the more
practical purpose of explaining a thought process or a line of reasoning or the
abstract in terms of the concrete, and may therefore be more extended. (See
Simile, below.)
For answers successfully arrived at are solutions to difficulties previously
discussed, and one cannot untie a knot if he is ignorant of it. --Aristotle
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a
carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It
is not your trade to make tables. --Samuel Johnson
And hearing this, Jesus said to them, "It is not those who are healthy who
need a physician, but those who are sick; I did not come to call the
righteous, but sinners." --Mark 2:17
He that voluntarily continues ignorance is guilty of all the crimes which
ignorance produces, as to him that should extinguish the tapers of a
lighthouse might justly be imputed the calamities of shipwrecks. --Samuel
Johnson
Notice in these examples that the analogy is used to establish the pattern of
reasoning by using a familiar or less abstract argument which the reader can
understand easily and probably agree with. Some analogies simply offer an
explanation for clarification rather than a substitute argument:
Knowledge always desires increase: it is like fire, which must first be
kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.
--Samuel Johnson
The beginning of all evil temptations is inconstancy of mind, and too little
trust in God. For as a ship without a guide is driven hither and thither
with every storm, so an unstable man, that anon leaveth his good purpose in
God, is diversely tempted. The fire proveth gold, and temptation proveth the
righteous man. --Thomas a Kempis
When the matter is complex and the analogy particularly useful for explaining
it, the analogy can be extended into a rather long, multiple-point comparison:
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its
parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. [And so forth, to
the end of the chapter.] --1 Cor. 12:12 (NIV)
The importance of simile and analogy for teaching and writing cannot be
overemphasized. To impress this upon you better, I would like to step aside a
moment and offer two persuasive quotations:
The country parson is full of all knowledge. They say, it is an ill mason
that refuseth any stone: and there is no knowledge, but, in a skillful hand,
serves either positively as it is, or else to illustrate some other
knowledge. He condescends even to the knowledge of tillage, and pastorage,
and makes great use of them in teaching, because people by what they
understand are best led to what they understand not. --George Herbert
To illustrate one thing by its resemblance to another has been always the
most popular and efficacious art of instruction. There is indeed no other
method of teaching that of which anyone is ignorant but by means of
something already known; and a mind so enlarged by contemplation and enquiry
that ...
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