Textual Analysis Glossary

Technique | Definition | Example(If appropriate) | Alliteration | A sequence of repeated consonant sounds. | | Assonance | The close repetition of similar vowel sounds, in successive or proximate words, usually in stressed syllables. | | Blank verse | An unrhymed line of five feet in which the dominant accent usually falls on the second syllable of each foot (di dúm), a pattern known as an iamb. | | Caesura | A pause or breathing-place about the middle of a metrical line. The word derives from a Latin word meaning 'cut or slice', so the effect can be quite violent. | | Cliché | A trite phrase that has become overused. | What goes around comes around. | Climax | The decisive moment and the turning point of the action in the plot of a play or story. | | Connotation | A suggested, implied or evocative meaning. | | Couplet | A pair of lines rhyming consecutively. | Humpty Dumpty sat on a wallHumpty Dumpty had a great fall | Denotation | The explicit or literal meaning of a word. | | Enjambement | The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line. | | End-stopped lines | The effect achieved when the syntax of a line coincides with the metrical boundary at the end of a line. The contrary of enjambement. | | Euphemism | The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one. | The use of "pass away" instead of "die." | Figurative language | Language in which figures of speech (such as metaphors, similes, and hyperbole) freely occur. | | Form | The term is usually used in the analysis of poetry to refer to the structure of stanzas. It can also be used less technically of the general structural principles by which a work is organised, and is distinguished from its content | | Hyperbole | Emphasis by exaggeration | I’ve told you a million times not to exaggerate! | Imagery | Vivid descriptive language that appeals to one or more