Literary devices and how to use them

Rhetorical devices explained with short examples

Stylistic devices are the tools a writer uses to shape how a text sounds and what it does to the reader. This page explains a selection of the most common ones and shows how to analyse them without jumping to a label too early. The full reference of all devices is not yet available on corrected.eu.

Reviewed by Benjamin Lohrer, B.A. Linguistics (our team).

A selection of common devices

Alliteration

Words that begin with the same sound, close together.

Milch macht müde Männer munter.

Anaphora

Successive sentences or clauses that start with the same word or phrase.

Ich will leben. Ich will lieben. Ich will lachen.

Anadiplosis

The end of one clause is repeated at the start of the next.

Nach dem Regen kommt Sonne, Sonne bringt Wärme.

Anastrophe

An unusual word order that sets a word apart.

Röslein rot.

Accumulation

A heap of related words or phrases that adds up to one effect.

Tische, Stühle, Bänke, Regale, Schränke: alles war voll.

Anticlimax

A series that falls from the strong to the weak, often for comic effect.

Er verlor sein Vermögen, seinen Ruf und seinen Regenschirm.

Allegory

An extended image in which a concept stands for something else, often a whole story or figure.

Euphemism and dysphemism

A euphemism makes an unpleasant thing sound milder. A dysphemism does the opposite and makes something sound harsher than it needs to.

Connotation and denotation

Denotation is what a word literally means. Connotation is what it suggests beyond that.

Paronomasia and polysemy

Paronomasia is a play on similar-sounding words. Polysemy means that one word has several related meanings.

Rhetorical devices include figures of speech and tropes. Some, such as accumulation or alliteration, work through the form of the sentence. Others, such as allegory, euphemism or connotation, work through the meaning of the words.

How to analyse a device

Look first, label later. Take the sentence and mark what is actually there: words that repeat, an unusual word order, a question form. Write down what you see in plain words. Only then compare your observation with the definition of the device you want to check. That way the example stays separate from its possible classification, and you do not name a device just because something looks striking.

Take the sentence Der Regen fiel gegen die Scheibe, fiel in die Pfützen und fiel auf das Dach. The word fiel occurs three times. Mark the three places and compare them with the definition of a single device before you assign a name. In Wer würde den leeren Platz übersehen? the question form alone does not decide the classification, so note the sentence form first and check it against a definition afterwards.

A device is not good or bad by itself. Judge its effect in the context of the sentence and the text type. In academic writing, restraint is the rule; in an essay or a speech, a well-placed device can carry the argument.

Where this helps

You need devices for the analysis of a poem, a speech or a literary text, and for writing your own texts with a conscious style. For the periods in which certain devices were fashionable, see literary periods. For poems in particular, see poetry analysis.