There are some literary terms we all sort of know. We’ve heard them in workshops, we’ve probably nodded thoughtfully when someone else used them, and we may have even used them ourselves. But then someone asks, What is the difference between a motif and a symbol? And the room gets quiet.
Most of these terms aren’t difficult on their own, what makes them confusing is that they overlap, or that the nuance between them is tissue-paper thin.
Before we start, see how many of these you can decipher without looking them up:
Refrain vs. Anaphora
Enjambment vs. Line Break
Caesura vs. White Space
Volta vs. Hinge vs. Tonal Departure vs. Arc
Tone vs. Emotion vs. Theme vs. Subject
How’d you do?