AP Literature Poetry Terms Flashcards

5794519327	Alliteration	The repetition of initial stressed, consonant sounds in a series of words within a phrase or verse line. Example: "Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood."	0
5794526283	Allusion	A brief, intentional reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, or movement.	1
5794528249	Amphibrach	A stressed syllable surrounded by two unstressed syllables. (This is a metrical foot) Examples: "another," "uncommon," "instead of."	2
5794535115	Anapest	A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. Examples: "underfoot" and "overcome" (Metrical Foot)	3
5794539966	Anaphora	The repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines to create a sonic effect. Example: "I have a dream" repetition	4
5794541625	Antithesis	Contrasting or combining two terms, phrases, or clauses with opposite meanings. Example: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."	5
5794611135	Apostrophe	An address to a dead or absent person, or personification as if he or she were present.	6
5794612586	Archetype	A basic model from which copies are made; a prototype. AKA our basic knowledge from the unconscious	7
5794620708	Assonance	The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called vowel rhyme. Example: "Try to light the fire"	8
5794645368	Blank Verse	Unrhyming iambic pentameter, also called heroic verse. This 10-syllable line is the predominant rhythm of traditional English dramatic and epic poetry, as it is considered the closest to English speech patterns.	9
5794646715	Cacophony	Harsh or discordant sounds, often the result of repetition and combination of consonants within a group of words. Example: "Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!"	10
5794654963	Cadence	The patterning of rhythm in natural speech, or in poetry without a distinct meter (i.e., free verse).	11
5794657659	Caesura	A stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause.	12
5794660144	Catalexis	Omission or incompleteness usually in the last foot of a line in metrical verse Ex: Take the bride and take the groom out, Slap the child and clear the room out. -- Take the bride and take the groom, Slap the child and clear the room.	13
5794668665	Chiasmus	Repetition of any group of verse elements (including rhyme and grammatical structure) in reverse order, such as the rhyme scheme ABBA. Ex: "But many that are first / Shall be last, / And many that are last / Shall be first";	14
5794673058	Closed Form	A type of form or structure in poetry characterized by regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, and metrical pattern. Example: Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though. He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.	15
5794682870	Common Measure	A quatrain that rhymes ABAB and alternates four-stress and three-stress iambic lines.	16
5794685568	Conceit	An often unconventional, logically complex, or surprising metaphor whose delights are more intellectual than sensual.	17
5794687515	Concrete	Verse that emphasizes nonlinguistic elements in its meaning, such as a typeface that creates a visual image of the topic.	18
5794694424	Connotation	The associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning.	19
5794695922	Consonance	A resemblance in sound between two words, or an initial rhyme. This can also refer to shared consonants, whether in sequence ("bed" and "bad") or reversed ("bud" and "dab"	20
5794702385	Controlling Image	An image a poet uses to carry forward the sense of the poem.	21
5794705970	Couplet	A pair of successive rhyming lines, usually of the same length.	22
5794706780	Dactyl	A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables; the words "poetry" and "basketball"	23
5794708005	Dimeter	A line of verse composed of two feet. Example: "Some go local / Some go express / Some can't wait / To answer Yes,"	24
5803901225	Dirge		25
5800075818	Dirge	A brief hymn or song of lamentation and grief; it was typically composed to be performed at a funeral.	26
5800076661	Dissonance	A disruption of harmonic sounds or rhythms.	27
5800082194	Double Entendre	A phrase or a figure of speech that might have multiple senses, interpretations or two different meanings or that could be understood in two different ways.	28
5800085864	Dramatic Monologue	A poem in which an imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually not the reader.	29
5800088697	Elegy	In traditional English poetry, it is often a melancholy poem that laments its subject's death but ends in consolation.	30
5800096594	End Rhyme	The rhyming of the final syllables of a line.	31
5800104522	End-Stopped Line	A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period.	32
5800108208	Enjambment	The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped.	33
5800109003	Epic	A long narrative poem in which a heroic protagonist engages in an action of great mythic or historical significance.	34
5800118998	Epigram	A pithy, often witty, poem. Example: This Humanist whom no beliefs constrained Grew so broad-minded he was scatter-brained.	35
5800123075	Euphemism	A polite, indirect expressions which replace words and phrases considered harsh and impolite or which suggest something unpleasant. Example: Croak = Death	36
5800129387	Euphony	The use of words and phrases that are distinguished as having a wide range of noteworthy melody or loveliness in the sounds they create.	37
5800134830	Exact Rhyme	A form of rhyme between two words or phrases, satisfying the following conditions: The stressed vowel sound in both words must be identical, as well as any subsequent sounds. For example, "sky" and "high"; "skylight" and "highlight".	38
5800142049	Explication	A relatively short analysis which describes the possible meanings and relationships of the words, images, and other small units that make up a poem.	39
5800142420	External Rhyme	A pattern of words that rhyme on the "outside." edge of the poem - the last syllable in the last word of each line in a stanza.	40
5800143753	Eye Rhyme	Rhymes only when spelled, not when pronounced. For example, "through" and "rough.	41
5800143754	Feminine Rhyme	The rhyming of one or more unstressed syllables, such as "dicing" and "enticing."	42
5800144918	Figurative Language	Using figures of speech to be more effective, persuasive and impactful.	43
5800144919	Foot	The basic unit of measurement of accentual-syllabic meter. Usually contains one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable.	44
5800145474	Free Verse	Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech.	45
5800145475	Haiku	A Japanese verse form of three unrhyming lines in five, seven, and five syllables.	46
5800146215	Heroic Couplet	A pair of successive rhyming lines, usually of the same length written in iambic pentameter and features prominently in the work of 17th- and 18th-century didactic and satirical poets.	47
5800146216	Hyperbole	A figure of speech composed of a striking exaggeration.	48
5800146993	Iamb	A metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. Ex: "unite" and "provide"	49
5800146994	Image	The ideas pictured in a reader's mind created by the writer.	50
5800147005	Imagery	Elements of a poem that invoke any of the five senses to create a set of mental images.	51
5800148544	In media res	Describes a narrative that begins, not at the beginning of a story, but somewhere in the middle — usually at some crucial point in the action	52
5800148545	Internal Rhyme	Rhyme within a single line of verse; When a word from the middle of a line is rhymed with a word at the end of the line.	53
5800149345	Limerick	A fixed light-verse form of five generally anapestic lines rhyming AABBA. Example: "An infatuated man from Dover, was left by his imaginary lover. He pulled his hair, in sheer despair, forgetting a wig was his cover."	54
5800149954	Litotes	A deliberate understatement for effect; the opposite of hyperbole.	55
5801378015	Lyric	Originally a composition meant for musical accompaniment. The term refers to a short poem in which the poet, the poet's persona, or another speaker expresses personal feelings.	56
5801378512	Masculine Rhyme	A rhyme of final stressed syllables (e.g., blow / flow, confess / redress ).	57
5801379576	Measure	A poetic rhythm measured by temporal quantity or accent	58
5801379577	Meiosis	The use of understatement to highlight a point or explain a situation or to understate a response used to enhance the effect of a dramatic moment.	59
5801380062	Metaphor	A comparison that is made directly. Example: John Keats's "Beauty is truth, truth beauty"	60
5801380063	Metaphysical Poets	A group of 17th-century poets whose works are marked by philosophical exploration, colloquial diction, ingenious conceits, irony, and metrically flexible lines.	61
5801380574	Meter	The rhythmical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse.	62
5801380999	Metonymy	A figure of speech in which a related term is substituted for the word itself. Often the substitution is based on a material, causal, or conceptual relation between things. For example, the British monarchy is often referred to as the Crown.	63
5801381682	Narrative Ballad	A popular narrative song passed down orally. In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (abcb) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines.	64
5801381683	Near Rhyme	Rhyming in which the words sound the same but do not rhyme perfectly. Example "shape/keep"	65
5801382411	Octave	An eight-line stanza or poem.	66
5801382412	Ode	A formal, often ceremonious lyric poem that addresses and often celebrates a person, place, thing, or idea. Its stanza forms vary.	67
5801383436	Onomatopoeia	A figure of speech in which the sound of a word imitates its sense (for example, "choo-choo," "hiss," or "buzz").	68
5801383437	Open Form	A type of structure or form in poetry characterized by freedom from regularity and consistency in such elements as rhyme, line length, metrical pattern, and overall poetic structure.	69
5801384170	Oxymoron	A figure of speech that brings together contradictory words for effect, such as "jumbo shrimp" and "deafening silence."	70
5801384171	Paradox	As a figure of speech, it is a seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that illuminates a truth. "Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is."	71
5801384928	Parallelism	The use of successive verbal constructions in poetry or prose that correspond in grammatical structure, sound, meter, meaning, etc.	72
5801384929	Paronomasia	A play on words; a pun.	73
5801385583	Pentameter	A line made up of five feet. It is the most common metrical line in English.	74
5801385584	Persona	A dramatic character, distinguished from the poet, who is the speaker of a poem	75
5801386466	Personification	A figure of speech in which the poet describes an abstraction, a thing, or a nonhuman form as if it were a person	76
5801386467	Prosody	The principles of metrical structure in poetry.	77
5801387268	Pyrrhic	A metrical unit consisting of two unstressed syllables, in accentual-syllabic verse, or two short syllables, in quantitative meter. EX: "To a green thought in a green shade."	78
5801387269	Quatrain	A four-line stanza, rhyming.	79
5801387878	Refrain	A phrase or line repeated at intervals within a poem, especially at the end of a stanza.	80
5801387879	Repetition	A literary device that repeats the same words or phrases a few times to make an idea clearer.	81
5801388725	Rhythm	An audible pattern in verse established by the intervals between stressed syllables.	82
5801388726	Rhyme	The repetition of syllables, typically at the end of a verse line.	83
5801390019	Rhyme Scheme	The ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem or verse.	84
5801390020	Satire	A literary work that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vices, stupidities, and follies.	85
5801390579	Scansion	The analysis of the metrical patterns of a poem by organizing its lines into feet of stressed and unstressed syllables and showing the major pauses, if any.	86
5801391299	Sestet	A six-line stanza, or the final six lines of a 14-line Italian or Petrarchan sonnet.	87
5801391300	Sonnet	A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme	88
5801392054	Spondee	A metrical foot consisting of two accented syllables. Example: With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: Praise him.	89
5801392055	English Sonnet	A sonnet consisting of three quatrains and a couplet with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg	90
5801392497	Italian Sonnet	A sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abba abba and a sestet rhyming in any of various patterns	91
5801392498	Slant Rhyme	Rhyming in which the words sound the same but do not rhyme perfectly. Example "shape/keep"	92
5801393753	Sight Rhyme	Rhymes only when spelled, not when pronounced. For example, "through" and "rough.	93
5801394286	Simile	Comparison using like or as	94
5801394575	Stanza	A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem. In modern free verse, the stanza, like a prose paragraph, can be used to mark a shift in mood, time, or thought.	95
5801394576	Stress	A syllable uttered in a higher pitch—or with greater emphasis—than others.	96
5801394577	Symbol	Something in the world of the senses, including an action, that reveals or is a sign for something else, often abstract or otherworldly.	97
5801395250	Synecdoche	A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole (for example, "I've got wheels" for "I have a car," or a description of a worker as a "hired hand")	98
5801395251	Synesthesia	In description, a blending or intermingling of different sense modalities.	99
5801396332	Tenor	What's getting reimagined by the other part of the metaphor	100
5801396726	Tetrameter	A line made up of four feet.	101
5801396727	Tone	The poet's attitude toward the poem's speaker, reader, and subject matter, as interpreted by the reader.	102
5801397267	Trimeter	A line of three metrical feet.	103
5801397268	Triple Rhyme	A feminine rhyme involving one stressed and two unstressed syllables in each rhyming line.	104
5801397665	Trochee	A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable. EX: "garden" and "highway."	105
5801398265	True Rhyme	A form of rhyme between two words or phrases, satisfying the following conditions: The stressed vowel sound in both words must be identical, as well as any subsequent sounds. For example, "sky" and "high"; "skylight" and "highlight".	106
5801400098	Understatement	A figure of speech in which a writer or speaker says less than what he or she means; the opposite of exaggeration. The last line of Frost's "Birches" illustrates this literary device: "One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."	107
5801400099	Villanelle	A French verse form consisting of five three-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas. These two refrain lines form the final couplet in the quatrain.	108
5801400570	Virgule	Separates lines of poetry that are quoted in run-on fashion in the text	109
5801401376	Volta	Italian word for "turn." AKA The climax of a sonnet.	110