Terms : Hide Images
| 8609553869 | alliteration | the repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the beginning of words Ex: "Gnus never knew pneumonia." Despite spelling, all four words begin with n sound. | 0 | |
| 8609563022 | allusion | a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work. | 1 | |
| 8609569341 | antithesis | a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas. A balancing of one term against another for emphasis or stylistic effectiveness. Ex: "Man proposes; God disposes." | 2 | |
| 8609577546 | apostrophe | a figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage directly addressed as though present. Ex: "Papa Above! Regard a Mouse." -Emily Dickinson | 3 | |
| 8609590875 | assonance | the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. Ex: "A land laid waste with all its young men slain." Repeats a sound in laid, waste, and slain. | 4 | |
| 8609599388 | ballad meter | a four line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four. Ex: "O mother, mother make my bed. O make it soft and narrow. Since my love died for me today. I'll die for him tomorrow." | 5 | |
| 8609615912 | blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the meter of most Shakespeare plays. | 6 | |
| 8609620525 | cacophony | a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones. It may be an unconscious flaw in the poet's music, resulting in harshness of sound or difficulty of articulation, or it may be used consciously for effect Ex: "Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?"- Robert Browning | 7 | |
| 8609639130 | caesura | a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause. Ex: "To err is human, to forgive divine."- Alexander Pope. Naturally pause after human. | 8 | |
| 8609647726 | conceit | an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things. It may be a brief metaphor, but it may also may form the framework of an entire poem. Ex: In John Donne's poem, A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning, he compares his soul and his wife's legs to legs of a mathematical compass. | 9 | |
| 8609667993 | consonance | the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. It usually refers to words in which the ending consonants are the same but the vowel that precedes them are different. Ex: Following words, "add and read, bill and ball, born and burn." | 10 | |
| 8609680832 | couplet | a two line stanza, usually with end rhymes being the same | 11 | |
| 8609686378 | devices of sounds | the techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially in poetry. Used to create a general effect of pleasant or of discordant sound, to imitate another sound, or to reflect meaning Ex: rhyme, alliteration, assonance, etc. | 12 | |
| 8609699422 | diction | the use of words in a literary work. Diction may be described as formal (serious manner and formal disclosure), informal (relaxed but polite conversation), colloquial (the everyday usage of a group, familiar), or slang (newly coined words, not acceptable for formal usage) | 13 | |
| 8609763888 | didactic poem | a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson. Usually involves a subjective judgement of the author's purpose on the part of the critic or the reader. Ex: Essay on Criticism by Alexander Pope | 14 | |
| 8609774696 | dramatic poem | a poem which employs a dramatic form or some elements of dramatic technique as a means of achieving poetic ends Ex: The dramatic monologue | 15 | |
| 8609788489 | elegy | a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet's meditation upon death or solemn theme Ex: O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman | 16 | |
| 8675992726 | end-stopped | A line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semi colon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines. Ex: True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, As those move easiest who have learned to dance. | 17 | |
| 8675995578 | enjambment | The continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next. Ex: ...Or if Sion hill Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd Fast by the oracle of God,... -Milton's Paradise Lost | 18 | |
| 8675999952 | extended metaphor | An implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem. Ex: In The Bait, John Donne compares a beautiful woman to fish bait and men to fish who want to be caught by the woman | 19 | |
| 8676002464 | euphony | A style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. It is the opposite of cacophony. Ex: A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing -John Keat's Endymion | 20 | |
| 8676003408 | eye rhyme | rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation Ex: watch and match, love and move | 21 | |
| 8676003409 | feminine rhyme | A rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, sometimes called double rhyme Ex: waken and forsaken, audition and rendition | 22 | |
| 8676007807 | figurative language | writing that uses figure of speech (as opposed to literal language or that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, irony, and simile. Uses words to mean something other than their literal meaning Ex: The black bat night has flown. Using the metaphor of a bat for night, meaning night is over | 23 | |
| 8676007808 | free verse | Poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. The poetry of Walt Whitman is the best example of free verse | 24 | |
| 8676008804 | heroic couplet | two end-stopped iambic pentameter rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit. Ex: But when to mischief mortals bend their will, How soon they will find fit instruments of ill! | 25 | |
| 8676008805 | hyperbole | A deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious or comic effect. Ex:...No; this my hand will rather The multitudinous seas incarnadine, Making the green one red. -Macbeth | 26 | |
| 8676009859 | imagery | The images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the figurative language of a work. Imagery has several definitions, but the two that are paramount are the visual, auditory, or tactile images evoked by the words of a literary work or the images that figurative language evokes. | 27 | |
| 8676011135 | irony | The contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning. Verbal irony is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning. Irony is less harsh than sarcasm. | 28 | |
| 8676011136 | internal rhyme | Rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end Ex: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, While I nodded, nearly napping...suddenly there came a tapping... | 29 | |
| 8676012052 | lyric poem | Any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings. Love lyrics are common. Sonnets and odes are lyric poems | 30 | |
| 8676013554 | masculine rhyme | Rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme words. Ex: keep and sleep, glow and no, spell and impel | 31 | |
| 8676013555 | metaphor | a figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term like as, like, or than. | 32 | |
| 8676015225 | meter | The repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each unit meter is known as a foot | 33 | |
| 8676043205 | metonymy | A figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself. Ex: In this way we commonly speak of the king as the crown. | 34 | |
| 8676044274 | mixed metaphor | The mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous. Ex: I smell a rat. I see a rat floating in the air. I shall nip it in the bud. -Lloyd George | 35 | |
| 8676047085 | narrative poem | a non dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short. Epics and ballads are a form of narrative poetry. | 36 | |
| 8676048062 | octave | An eight-line stanza. Most commonly, octave refers to the first division of an Italian sonnet. | 37 | |
| 8676050133 | onomatopoeia | The use of words whose sound suggests their meaning. Ex: buzz, hiss, honk | 38 | |
| 8676050134 | oxymoron | A form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms into a single expression. This combination usually serves the purpose of shocking the reader into awareness. Ex: wise fool, sad joy, eloquent silence | 39 | |
| 8676058930 | paradox | A situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense. Ex: Take me to you, imprison me, for I Except you enthrall me, never shall be free Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. - John Donne's Holy Sonnets | 40 | |
| 8676058931 | parallelism | A similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry. Ex: Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold, Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul. | 41 | |
| 8676109052 | paraphrase | a restatement of an idea in such a way as to retain the meaning while changing the diction and form | 42 | |
| 8676116500 | personification | a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human charcteristics | 43 | |
| 8676121664 | poetic foot | a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it. Ex: The most common type of feet are as follows: iambic u/ trochaic/u anapestic u u/ dactylic / u u pyrrhic u u spondaic // | 44 | |
| 8676154804 | pun | a play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings. | 45 | |
| 8676168412 | quatrain | a four line stanza with any combination of rhymes | 46 | |
| 8676169688 | refrain | a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza | 47 | |
| 8676180068 | rhyme | close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse Ex: fan and ran | 48 | |
| 8676190747 | rhyme royal | a seven line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc | 49 | |
| 8676193249 | rhythm | the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. Lends pleasure and heightened emotional response to reader | 50 | |
| 8676200570 | sarcasm | a type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something but it actually insulting it | 51 | |
| 8676204513 | satire | writing that seeks to arouse a reader's disapproval of an object by ridicule. It usually exposes error with an eye to correct vice and folly through comedy | 52 | |
| 8676214895 | scansion | a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the types of feet per line | 53 | |
| 8676221720 | sestet | a six line stanza. Most commonly refers to the second division of an Italian sonnet | 54 | |
| 8676224835 | simile | a directly expressed comparison; a figure of speech comparing two objects usually with like, as, or than Ex: My love is like a fever | 55 | |
| 8676235592 | sonnet | normally a fourteen line iambic pentameter poem. The conventional Petrarchan sonnet is rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde and the Shakespearean Sonnet is rhymed abab, cdcd, efef,gg | 56 | |
| 8676256667 | stanza | usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme | 57 | |
| 8676261948 | strategy (rhetorical strategy) | the management of language for a specific effect. The strategy of a poem is the planned placing of elements to achieve an effect. | 58 | |
| 8676282001 | structure | the arrangement of materials within a work; the relationship of the parts of a work to the whole; the logical divisions of a work. The most common units of a structure in a poem are the line and stanaza | 59 | |
| 8676339578 | style | the model of expression in language; the characteristic manner of expression of an author | 60 | |
| 8676351039 | symbol | something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else. Ex: Winter, darkness, and cold are real things, but in literature they are also likely to be used as symbols of death | 61 | |
| 8676394304 | synecdoche | a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole. Ex: Foot soldiers for infantry and field hands for manual laborers | 62 | |
| 8676403508 | syntax | the ordering of words into patterns or sentences. | 63 | |
| 8717792942 | tercet | a stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme | 64 | |
| 8676406812 | terza rim | a three lined stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc, etc | 65 | |
| 8676410943 | theme | the main thought expressed by a work. In poetry, it is the abstract concept which is made concrete through its representation in person, action, and image in the work | 66 | |
| 8717732000 | tone | the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning. Tone may change from line to line | 67 | |
| 8717750887 | understatement | the opposite of hyperbole. It is kind of irony that deliberately requests something as being much less than it really is. Ex: Macbeth having been near hysterical after killing Duncan, tells Lenox, Twas a rough night. | 68 | |
| 8717799610 | villanelle | a nineteen line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain. The villanelle uses only two rhymes which are repeated as follows: aba, aba, aba, aba, aba, abaa,. Line 1 is repeated entirely to form lines, 6, 12, and 18, and line 3 is repeated entirely to form lines 9, 15, and 19, thus 8 of the 19 lines are refrain. Ex: Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night | 69 |
