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| 4651827530 | Accent | The stress or emphasis placed on a syllable; this usually refers to poetry. e.g. " Not in a BOX.Not with a FOX. Not in a HOUSE. Not with a MOUSE. I would not eat them here or there. I would not eat them anyWHERE. I would not eat GREEN EGGS and HAM. I do not like them SAM-I-AM." - Dr. Seuss | 0 | |
| 4651831652 | Allegory | A narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one. e.g. " The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis is a religious allegory with Aslan as Christ and Edmund as Judas" | 1 | |
| 4651834607 | Alliteration | The repetition of sounds in a sequence of words (OR in words within close proximity to one another). Alliteration refers to repeated, initial consonant sounds at the beginning of STRESSED syllables. Poets use alliteration to create powerful musical effects in a line of poetry and to highlight and emphasize key words, concepts, and relationships. e.g. "Three Grey Geese by Mother Goose: Three Grey Geese in a Green field Grazing, Grey were Geese and Green was the Grazing" | 2 | |
| 4651841891 | Allusion | An indirect reference to a person, event, place statement or theme found in literature. the other arts, history, myths, religion, or popular culture. Allusions are used to enrich meaning or broaden the impact of a statement. * Basically anything pretty well-known. e.g. "Don't act like a Romeo in front of her" - reference to Shakespeare's Romeo, a passionate lover of Juliette | 3 | |
| 4651846553 | Anadiplosis | Repetition at the start of a line, taking words from the end of the previous line. e.g. "I love the WINTER. WINTER is my favorite time of THE YEAR. THE YEAR for me is happiest when there is rain" | 4 | |
| 4651849606 | Anaphora | Repetition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines. e.g. "I LOVE THE winter. I LOVE THE fall. I LOVE THE spring and summer. I LOVE them all" | 5 | |
| 4651851889 | Antagonist | The character pitted against the protagonist (the main character) of a work. | 6 | |
| 4651852510 | Antithesis | A rhetorical figure in which two ideas are directly opposed. The opposing ideas must be presented in a grammatically parallel way, thus creating a perfect rhetorical balance. e.g. " I LONG and DREAD to close" "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." "Speech is SILVER, but silence is GOLD" | 7 | |
| 4651858189 | Aphorism | A concise, pointed, epigrammatic (witty, pithy, terse) statement that reveals a truth or principle. Once it gets over-used, they tend to be referred to as proverbs (A statement that gives behavioral advice rather than just revealing a truth is called maxim). e.g. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" (Shakespeare) "No man is an island unto himself" (John Donne) "All you need is love" (The Beatles) "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view - until you climb into his skin and walk around in it" - true since we can't claim to know a person unless we understand the way he views the world and its affairs | 8 | |
| 4651859997 | Apostrophe | A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could not reply. e.g. William Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand: come, let me clutch thee! I have thee not, and yet I see thee still" - In his mental conflict before murdering King Duncan, Macbeth has a strange vision of a dagger and talks to it as if it were another person. | 9 | |
| 4651878892 | Approximate Rhyme (Half-Rhyme) | (also known as half-rhyme) A form of rhyme in which words contain similar sounds, but do not rhyme perfectly. Usually, these rhymes are the result of consonance or assonance. | 10 | |
| 4651882834 | Archetype | Generally, the original model from which something is developed or made. It is characters, settings, and plots that are universally observed and acknowledge by people in general. Archetypes involves recurrent images, character types and story lines that people know & understand. There is the archetypical character: the jock, or the mean girl or the nerd. There are archetypical settings: "Anywhere, USA" or the castle or the Haunted House. | 11 | |
| 4651904392 | Aside (in drama) | A convention in drama whereby a character onstage addresses the audience to reveal some inner thought or feeling that is presumed inaudible to any other characters onstage who might be within earshot | 12 | |
| 4651906698 | Assonance | The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds, usually in STRESSED syllables, followed by a different consonant sounds in proximate words. (Assonance is diff. from perfect rhyme in that rhyming words also repeat the final consonant sounds) e.g. fate and cave show assonance, whereas fate and late show perfect rhyme. | 13 | |
| 4651910301 | Blank Verse | Unrhymed iambic pentameter. | 14 | |
| 4651910728 | Connotation | The association evoked by a world beyond its literal meaning. It usually reflects broad cultural associations. e.g. word that conjures up any kind of emotion - goes w/ mood - goes w/ denotation | 15 | |
| 4651912794 | Consonance | The repetition of the final consonant sound or sounds, preceded by different vowel sounds in proximate words. e.g. maDe & wooD This can also happen w/in a word, as long as you're comparing the STRESSED syllable e.g. LItter and LEtter. | 16 | |
| 4651915561 | Didactic | Intended to teach, particularly in having moral instruction as an ulterior motive. e.g. For something to be didactic: "let me tell you to do this, then do THIS" - very loud message. | 17 | |
| 4651918920 | Enjambment | In poetry, this is the running on of a line of poetry from one line to the next, continuing an idea, and without any punctuation. It flows | 18 | |
| 4651920684 | Epic | A long and formal narrative poem that usually recounts the adventures of a hero of almost mythic proportions. Epic can also quite simply mean LONG. | 19 | |
| 4651924231 | Euphemism | A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing. | 20 | |
| 4651928516 | Foot | The metrical unit of a line of verse, and usually consist of one stressed syllable and one or more unstressed syllables. - Iamb: unstressed, stressed - Trochee: stressed, unstressed - Anapest: uns., uns., str. - Dactyl: str., uns. uns. - Spondee: stressed, stressed - Pyrrhic: uns., uns. ---> (very rare) | 21 | |
| 4651932842 | Free Verse | Non-metrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, and in which pauses, line breaks, and formal patterns develop organically from the requirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms. | 22 | |
| 4651934851 | Internal Rhyme | Rhyme that occurs w/in a line. e.g. "They took same honey, and plenty of money, their graves are green, that may be seen" | 23 | |
| 4651937989 | Irony | Irony is the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, often for humorous or emphatic effect; irony is having the opposite of what one would expect, happen. Verbal: when a person says/writes 1 thing & means another, or uses words to convey a meaning opposite of literal meaning. Dramatic: this is inherent in speeches or a situation of a drama and is understood by the audience, but not grasped by char. in play. Situational: involves situation in which actions have an effect that's opposite from what was intended =, so that the outcome is contrary to what was expected. | 24 | |
| 4651944085 | Juxtaposition | This is an act or instance of placing close together or side by side, especially for comparison or contrasts. This word can be used for ideas in a poem or prose. It can be used for physically placing two things next to each other. A poet can be juxtapose the seasons. An author can juxtapose two settings or two characters. | 25 | |
| 4651990876 | Litotes | An understatement (as opposed to a hyperbole that is an overstatement) which is expressed w/ a negative. e.g. "You won't be sorry"... (meaning you'll be glad) | 26 | |
| 4651992493 | Meter | basic rhythmic structure of a verse. - see how many feet per line of poetry. - monometer : 1 ft. p/ line (rare) -dimeter: 2 ft. p/ line - trimeter: 3 ft. p/ line - tetrameter: 4 ft. p/ line - pentameter: 5 ft. p/ line (typical in Shakespeare's works) - hexameter: 6 ft. p/ line - heptameter: 7 ft. p/ line - octameter: 8 ft. p/ line | 27 | |
| 4651996676 | Metonymy | A figure of speech in which one thing is represented by another that is commonly & often physically associated w/ it. e.g. - referring to someone's handwriting as his or her "hand" or - calling a monarch the "crown" | 28 | |
| 4652001320 | Monologue | An extended narrative delivered uninterrupted and exclusively by one person, although it may be heard or witnessed by others. | 29 | |
| 4652002647 | Motif | A unifying element in an artistic work, esp. any recurrent image, symbol, theme, or character type. ex: specific colors e.g. green & shite in Great Gatsby e.g. storms, stress, in Frankenstein. | 30 | |
| 4652006975 | Octave | An 8-line stanza or the 1st 8 lines of an Italian sonnet or an 8-line poem. | 31 | |
| 4652007883 | Onomatopoeia | The use of words that mimic their meaning in sound - boom, click, plop | 32 | |
| 4652008736 | Rhyme, Rhythm, Meter | Rhyme: repetition of identical vowel sound in the stressed syllable of 2+ words, as well as subsequent sounds after this vowel sound. Rhythm: "flow" - basic pattern and language established by stresses and unstressed syllables and pauses. Meter: basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines a verse. | 33 | |
| 4652014959 | Sestet | A six-line stanza OR the last six lines of a sonnet structured on the Italian model OR just simply a six-line poem. | 34 | |
| 4652016313 | Shift | Some might call it the "turn" or might even use the Italian word "volta" - but as a general rule the shift introduces a change in the speaker's understanding and presentation of what he is narrating, signaling to the readers that he has reached an insight. Commonly used w/ poetry, not prose. | 35 | |
| 4652023314 | Soliloquy | A type of monologue performed onstage as part of a play in which a single speaker reveals his or her inner thoughts out loud but while alone onstage. | 36 | |
| 4652025219 | Stream of Consciousness | A literary technique that approx. the flow or jumble of thoughts and sensory impressions that pass through the mind each instant. Works written by authors using this technique frequently appear to be choppy or fragmented, just as our thoughts, emotions, and sensory impressions often are. | 37 | |
| 4652028939 | Synecdoche | A figure of speech (a trope) in which a part of something is used to represent a whole e.g. when you refer to a boat as a sail - refer to a car as his wheels - refer to the violins, violas, and cellos in an orchestra as the strings | 38 | |
| 4652047793 | Tercet | A three-line stanza exhibited in a villanelle as well as in other poetic forms OR a 3-line poem, even. | 39 | |
| 4652050701 | Villanelle | A nineteen-line form consisting of five tercets rhymed "aba", and concluding quatrain rhymed "abaa", w/ lines 1 & 3 of the first tercets serving as refrains in an alternating pattern through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 & 29. | 40 |
