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A cliché (UK: / ˈ k l iː ʃ eɪ / or US: / k l iː ˈ ʃ eɪ /; French:) is a saying, idea, or element of an artistic work that has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning, novelty, or figurative or artistic power, even to the point of now being bland or uninteresting. [1]
A literary trope is an artistic effect realized with figurative language — word, phrase, image — such as a rhetorical figure. [1] In editorial practice, a trope is "a substitution of a word or phrase by a less literal word or phrase". [2]
Authors writing their texts consider not only a word's denotation but also its connotation. For example, a person may be described as stubborn or tenacious, both of which have the same basic meaning but are opposite in terms of their emotional background (the first is an insult, while the second is a compliment).
Also apophthegm. A terse, pithy saying, akin to a proverb, maxim, or aphorism. aposiopesis A rhetorical device in which speech is broken off abruptly and the sentence is left unfinished. apostrophe A figure of speech in which a speaker breaks off from addressing the audience (e.g., in a play) and directs speech to a third party such as an opposing litigant or some other individual, sometimes ...
He notes that "the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything", and adds that "by tradition, almost by definition, the essay is a short piece". Furthermore, Huxley argues that "essays belong to a literary species whose extreme variability can be studied most effectively within a three-poled frame of reference".
Tara Brabazon discusses how the "school ma'am on the colonial frontier has been a stock character of literature and film in Australia and the United States. She is an ideal foil for the ill mannered, uncivilised hero. In American literature and film, the spinster from East – generally Boston – has some stock attributes."
The book takes its title from one of Amis' essays, an encomium to James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Amis characterizes that novel as Joyce's "campaign against cliché". Amis writes, To idealise: all writing is a campaign against cliche. Not just cliches of the pen but cliches of the mind and cliches of the heart.
A thought-terminating cliché (also known as a semantic stop-sign, a thought-stopper, bumper sticker logic, or cliché thinking) is a form of loaded language, often passing as folk wisdom, intended to end an argument and quell cognitive dissonance.