| Term | Definition |
|---|
| allegory | a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; emblem |
| metaphor | figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance |
| symbol | something used for or regarded as representing something else |
| synedoche | something used for or regarded as representing something else |
| allusion | incidental mention of something, either directly or by implication |
| personification | the attribution of a personal nature or character to inanimate objects or abstract notions |
| understatement | to state or represent less strongly or strikingly than the facts would bear out |
| hyperbole | obvious and intentional exaggeration |
| simile | figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared using like or as |
| metonymy | a figure of speech that consists of the use of the name of one object or concept for that of another to which it is related, or of which it is a part |
| connotation | the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning |
| denotation | explicit or direct meaning of a word |
| diction | style of speaking or writing as dependent upon choice of words |
| syntax | the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language |
| alliteration | the commencement of two or more stressed syllables of a word group either with the same consonant sound or sound group |
| assonance | rhyme in which the same vowel sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of the rhyming words |
| onomatopoeia | the formation of a word by imitation of a sound made by or associated with its referent |
| couplet | a pair of successive lines of verse, especially a pair that rhyme and are of the same length |
| narrative poetry | poetry that tells a story |
| lyric poetry | a poem that expresses feeling and may be a song that may be expressed to an audience |
| epigram | a short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject and usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought |
| epic | resembling or suggesting such poetry |
| elegy | a mournful, melancholy, or plaintive poem, esp. a funeral song or a lament for the dead |
| sonnet | a poem, properly expressive of a single, complete thought, idea, or sentiment, of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter |
| ballad | a simple narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas and adapted for singing |
| ode | a lyric poem typically of elaborate or irregular metrical form and expressive of exalted or enthusiastic emotion |
| villanelle | a short poem of fixed form, written in tercets, usually five in number, followed by a final quatrain, all being based on two rhymes |
| haiku | a poem, written in 17 syllables divided into 3 lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, and employing highly evocative allusions and comparisons, often on the subject of nature or one of the seasons |
| internal rhyme | middle rhyme; rhyme which occurs in a single line of verse |
| end rhyme | a rhyme in which the last word at the end of each verse is the word that rhymes |
| enjambment | the running on of the thought from one line, couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break |
| end stopped lines | feature in poetry in which the syntactic unit (phrase, clause, or sentence) corresponds in length to the line |
| stanza | an arrangement of a certain number of lines, usually four or more, sometimes having a fixed length, meter, or rhyme scheme, forming a division of a poem |
| blank verse | type of poetry which has a regular meter but no rhyme |
| open form | various styles of poetry that are written without using strict meter, rhythm, or rhyme |
| iamb | a foot of two syllables, a short followed by a long in quantitative meter, or an unstressed followed by a stressed in accentual meter |
| verbal irony | a person says one things and means another (sarcasm) |
| situational irony | outcome is a situation is opposite of someone's expectations |
| dramatic irony | the important information that the audience has that characters in a literary work do not |
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