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| The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables, as in "on scrolls of silver snowy sentences" (Hart Crane). Modern alliteration is predominantly consonantal; certain literary traditions, such as Old English verse, also alliterate using vowel sounds. |
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| a question asked solely to produce an effect or to make an assertion and not to elicit a reply, as “What is so rare as a day in June?” |
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| The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, especially in stressed syllables, with changes in the intervening consonants, as in the phrase tilting at windmills. |
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| the attribution of a personal nature or character to inanimate objects or abstract notions, esp. as a rhetorical figure. |
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| obvious and intentional exaggeration. |
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| (of poetry) having the form and musical quality of a song, and esp. the character of a songlike outpouring of the poet's own thoughts and feelings, as distinguished from epic and dramatic poetry. |
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| the omission from a sentence or other construction of one or more words that would complete or clarify the construction, as the omission of who are, while I am, or while we are from I like to interview people sitting down. |
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| a break, esp. a sense pause, usually near the middle of a verse, and marked in scansion by a double vertical line, as in know then thyself ‖ presume not God to scan. |
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| something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial; emblem, token, or sign. |
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| the formation of mental images, figures, or likenesses of things, or of such images collectively: the dim imagery of a dream. |
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| A figure of speech in which two essentially unlike things are compared, often in a phrase introduced by like or as, as in "How like the winter hath my absence been" or "So are you to my thoughts as food to life" (Shakespeare). |
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| a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication: an allusion to Shakespeare. |
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| the purging of the emotions or relieving of emotional tensions, esp. through certain kinds of art, as tragedy or music. |
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| using language effectively to please or persuade |
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| (of a line of verse) ending at the end of a syntactic unit that is usually followed by a pause in speaking and a punctuation mark in writing. |
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| the running on of the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break. |
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| the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt. |
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| a conventional poetic phrase used for or in addition to the usual name of a person or thing, esp. in Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon verse, as “a wave traveler” for “a boat.” |
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| a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our God.” |
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| understatement, esp. that in which an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary, as in “not bad at all.” |
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| The direct address of an absent or imaginary person or of a personified abstraction, especially as a digression in the course of a speech or composition. |
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| a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole or the whole for a part, the special for the general or the general for the special, as in ten sail for ten ships |
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| A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government or of the sword for military power. |
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