Friday, March 12, 2010

Literary Terms

Paradox: A statement that contradicts itself.
"A dog growls when it's angry, and wags its tale when it's pleased. Now I growl when I'm pleased and wag my tale when I'm angry."

"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

"War is peace."
"Freedom is slavery."
"Ignorance is strength."

Periodic: A long and frequently involved sentence, marked by suspended sytax, in which the sense is not completed until the final word--usually with an emphatic climax. Contrast with loose sentence.

"Years and years ago, when I was a boy, when there were wolves in Wales, and birds the color of red-flannel petticoats whisked past the harp-shaped hills, when we sang and wallowed all night and day in caves that smelt like Sunday afternoons in damp front farmhouse parlors, and we chased, with the jawbones of deacons, the English and the bears, before the motor car, before the wheel, before the duchess-faced horse, when we rode the daft and happy hills bareback, it snowed and it snowed."

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