Literary terms refer to the technique, style, and formatting used by writers and speakers to masterfully emphasize, embellish, or strengthen their compositions. Literary terms can refer to playful techniques employed by comedians to make us laugh or witty tricks wordsmiths use to coin new words or phrases. They can also include the tools of persuasion that writers use to convince and drive audiences to action. With their carefully crafted speeches geared towards both logical and emotional thinking, they challenge our everyday modes of thinking.
Literary terms also include powerful figurative language that writers use to summon emotion ranging from guilt to anger to bliss, and to allow us to see the world in new and magical ways. Words can be arranged to give poems, songs, and prose alike, rhythm and musicality. They can animate a story with such wealth of detail, character development, and action that as readers, we are taken by a story, and feel as if the people on the page are real. Literary terms have a wide range of application, from the poet’s beauty, to the speaker’s persuasion, to the novelist’s story development.
Literary terms are important in a wide variety of ways. They allow writers and speakers to make comments on society, politics, and trends. Rhetorical devices can be used to strengthen arguments which persuade and convince audiences. Poetic figurative language can summon emotions and visions of nature and the world in unique and compelling ways. Literary terms have the power to create serious, comedic, or whimsical moods via tools of persuasion, poeticism, and wordplay.
This depends. The variety of uses for literary terms spans across genres and is remarkably wide-ranging based on the goals or needs of the writer. Below we have categorized this vast subject.
One of the most difficult tasks in the world is making people change their minds. Most of us are stubborn in our thinking and stick to our guns when it comes to views on morality, politics, and our own personal lives. For a rhetorician or speechwriter, writing and speaking in a convincing and persuasive manner is a profession, one which utilizes numerous tools of the trade to appeal to an audience. The power of persuasion can gain voters for a politician, convince people to take action for a cause, or get you a raise at your job. With appeals to both pure logic and powerful emotion, persuasion is an art that has been employed for centuries.
Persuasion is an extremely powerful tool, as gaining the hearts and minds of an audience means gaining their support and action. Persuasion empowers the writer to change the mind of the audience and to compel the audience to take action in a certain way.
Persuasive tools are utilized by politicians, professional speakers, speechwriters, journalists, and poetry and prose writers. Persuasion should be used when convincing others is the goal in mind. In a piece which is supposed to be objective or unbiased such as a journalistic report, tools of persuasion should be avoided.
Satire refers to a play, novel, poem, film or other composition which uses comedy, irony, mockery, and exaggeration to criticize the absurdity or weaknesses of a certain person, institution, or situation. Often, satire utilizes comedy for more serious means, such as political and social commentary.
For an example of satire, see Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show which regularly satirizes news media: