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Literary devices and terms are the techniques and elements—from figures of speech to narrative devices to poetic meters—that writers use to create narrative literature, poetry, speeches, or …

The following examples of mood are from different types of literature: plays, novels, and poems. In each, we identify how the author builds the mood of the work using a combination of setting, …

A motif is an element or idea that recurs throughout a work of literature. Motifs, which are often collections of related symbols, help develop the central themes of a book or play.

Characters and events can also be symbolic. A famous example of a symbol in literature occurs in To Kill a Mockingbird, when Atticus tells his children Jem and Scout that it's a sin to kill a …

In our LitCharts literature study guides, we usually identify themes in headings as thematic concepts, and then explain the theme more fully in a few paragraphs.

Need help with Chapter 9: It’s More Than Just Rain or Snow in Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor? Check out our revolutionary side-by-side summary and analysis.

In contrast to the strictly grammatical view of parallelism, in rhetoric and literature parallelism can do much more than just create a pleasing and grammatical sentence structure.

Allegory in Literature Allegory is one of the oldest literary forms, with writers long relying on allegory's ability to convey a moral or political message efficiently and discreetly.

It's important to understand that all literature involves some sort of exposition, and it can be done either well (such that as a reader you almost don't realize it's happening) or badly (such that it …