Walcott Vocabulary - IB HL Lit

Allegory

A figure of speech in which abstract ideas and principles are described in terms of characters, figures and events.

Alliteration

A number of words occur close together in a series, having the same first sound.

Allusion

A brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance.

Ambiguity

Ambiguous words or statements lead to vagueness and confusion

Anachrony

A discrepancy between the order of events in a story and the order in which they are presented in the plot:

Anadiplosis

The repetition of a word or words in successive clauses in such a way that the second clause starts with the same word which marks the end of the previous clause.

Anagram

A form of word play in which letters of a word or phrase a rearranged in such a way that a new word or phrase is formed.

Analogy

A comparison in which an idea or a thing is compared to another thing that is quite different from it.

Anaphora

Repetition of the first part of the sentence.

Antimetabole

Repeating a phrase in reverse order.

Antithesis

Two opposite ideas are put together in a sentence for achieving a contrasting effect.

Aphorism

A statement of truth or opinion expressed in a concise and witty manner.

Apostrophe

A writer or a speaker, using an apostrophe, detaches himself from the reality and addresses an imaginary character in his speech.

Assonance

Takes place when two or more words close to one another repeat the same vowel sound but start with different consonant sounds.

Ballad

A type of poetry or verse which was basically used in dance songs.

Cacophony

A mixture of harsh and inharmonious sounds.

Chiasmus

Two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures.

Colloquialism

Use of informal words, phrases or even slangs in a piece of writing.

Conceit

A figure of speech in which two vastly different objects are likened together with the help of similes or metaphors.

Connotation

Meaning that is implied by a word apart from the thing which it describes explicitly.

Consonance

Repetitive sounds produced by consonants within a sentence or phrase.

Denotation

Generally defined as literal or dictionary meanings of a word.

Deus ex machina

The circumstance where an implausible concept or a divine character is introduced into the storyline for the purpose of resolving the conflict and procuring an interesting outcome. Also know as "God of the machine".

Dialect

Language used by the people of a specific area, class, district or any other group of people.

Epiphora

Also known as epistrophe, a stylistic device in which a word or a phrase is repeated at the end of successive clauses.

Enjambment

The running on of the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break.

Extended Metaphor

A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem.

Hero's Journey

According to folklorists and other narrative scholars, the hero's journey forms the basic template for all great stories. Described at length in Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the hero's journey serves as the tale every culture tells. T

Hyperbole

An exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis.

Iambic Pentameter

A line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short (or unstressed) syllable followed by one long (or stressed) syllable, for example Two households, both alike in dignity.

Idiom

A set expression or a phrase comprising two or more words.

Imagery

Use figurative language to represent objects, actions and ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical senses.

Irony

A figure of speech in which words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words.

In Medias Res

A narrative work that opens in the middle of action.

Juxtaposition

A literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions etc. are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts.

Metaphor

A figure of speech makes an implicit, implied or hidden comparison between two things or objects.

Metonymy

A figure of speech that takes the place of the name of a thing with the name of something else with which it is closely associated.

Mood

A literary element that evokes certain feelings.

Motif

Object or idea that repeats itself throughout a literary work.

Onomatopoeia

A word, which imitates the natural sounds of a thing, which it describes.

Oxymoron

A figure of speech in which two opposite ideas are joined to create an effect.

Parallelism

Components in a sentence that are grammatically same or similar in their construction, sound, meaning or meter.

Pastiche

A literary piece that imitates another famous literary work of another writer. Unlike parody, its purpose is not to mock but to honor the literary piece it imitates.

Pathetic fallacy

A literary device that attributes human qualities and emotions to inanimate objects of nature.

Personification

A figure of speech in which a thing, an idea or an animal is given human attributes.

Point of view

The angle of considering things which shows us the opinion or feelings of the individuals involved in a situation.

Polysyndeton

A stylistic device in which several coordinating conjunctions are used in succession in order to achieve an artistic effect.

Prose

A form of language that has no formal metrical structure. It applies natural flow of speech, and ordinary grammatical structure.

Pun

A play on words in which a humorous effect is produced by using a word that suggests two or more meanings or by exploiting similar sounding words having different meanings.

Rhyme

Correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words.

Perfect rhyme

Perfect rhyme.

Half rhyme

A rhyme that doesn't rhyme exactly.

Internal rhyme

A rhyme within the same line.

Free verse

A piece with no rhyme or consistent rhythm.

Blank verse

A piece with no rhyme, but does have a consistent rhythm.

Synecdoche

A literary device in which a part of something represents the whole or it may use a whole to represent a part.

Syntax

A set of rules in a language, which shows and how different parts of sentence are put together in such an order that it conveys a complete thought.

Tone

An attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience.

Understatement

A figure of speech employed by writers or speakers to intentionally make a situation seem less important than it really is.

Verisimilitude

Likeness to the truth.