Literary Devices

Literary Devices

Knowledge and Application

What is a Literary Device?

• A literary device is a tool used in literary works.

• It forms the universal umbrella for all devices employed in literature.

• It contains poetic devices, dramatic devices, and prose elements or devices.

• It is largely seen to comprise of Figures of Speech and some elements of literature.

Figures of Speech

• These are the various devices employed in communicating within the context of speech (utterances or texts).

• They can be grouped into various domains in accordance with their peculiarities and meaning associations.

• They can be grouped as devices for the following: comparisons, contradictions, sounds, exaggerations and understatements, other unique communicative devices.

• They are employed in the use of figurative language.

Comparison devices

These are devices used to compare two objects in direct or indirect ways to express the writer's artistic beauty and communicative style. These devices happen to apply themselves in similar fashions yet they are so distinct from each other.

Examples of Comparison devices

• Examples of these devices are:

  Simile - used to compare by employing "as" or "like". It compare a peculiar characteristic of one entity to the other; so, some features are compared rather than all.

  
  

• Metaphor - used to compare two objects of opposition indirectly. This makes use of adapting all features of the compared entities. Thus, strengths and weaknesses are compared and the associative meaning is deduced based on context.

  
  

• Personification - ascribing human actions or deeds to non-human objects (a way of making the non-human behave like humans in acts).

Examples of Comparison devices

• Apostrophe - used to address an inanimate entity as if it were human; or a dead person as if he/she is alive.

• Allusion - used to refer or reference a particular concept or aspect directly or indirectly.

• etc.

Sound Devices

Sound devices are the literary devices employed to indicate the audible sensations in a literary text. These are devices employed by writer's to achieve a sound effect and influence the perspectives of the reader or audience.

Examples of sound devices.

• Alliteration - the repetition of consonant sounds in the initial positions of words in close succession.. Mostly, it highlights the expression of movement.

• Assonance - the repetition of vowel sounds in words within a literary line; mostly in words in close succession. Mostly, it is used to create a mood of speed, vitality, joy, or suspence.

• Onomatopoeia - makes use of words that imitate and reproduce real-life sounds and actions to bring out a sound effect that heightens the visual effect or experience.

• Other sound devices are RHYME, RHYTHM, etc.