Official English Poetry Terms
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33 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 prejudice | a pre-judgment: a preconceived belief, opinion, or judgment made without determining the facts of the case; an unreasonable judgment held despite facts to the contrary |
| courage | a quality of spirit that enables you to face danger or pain without showing fear (also known as bravery) |
| equality | the state or quality of being equal; corresponding quality, degree, value, rank, or ability |
| human dignity | the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed. high rank office or position |
| Jim Crow Laws | laws enacted in 1867 that made segregation against African Americans lawful in the United States |
| Segregation | the act of separating or setting apart from others or from the main body or group; isolate |
| Bildungsroman | a novel of education |
| Allusion | a figure of speech that makes a brief reference to a historical or literary figure, event, or object. It seeks to associate the reader with something they may already know. |
| line | a single line of poetry |
| stanza | a group of lines in between pauses |
| quatrain | a stanza of four lines |
| couplet | a stanza of two lines |
| open form | arrangement of elements and structures which follow no apparent pattern |
| closed form | very orderly, predictable patterns of rhythm, lines, stanzas, rhyme, etc. |
| free verse | poetry that is characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and non-rhyming lines |
| tone | how a poem says what it says; the attitude or feelings it expresses about the theme |
| 1st person, 2nd person, 3rd person/omniscient | whether the speaker is talking about themselves, directly addressing someone, or narrating what happens with other people/objects |
| symbol | an object or action which represents something much more than itself at the literal level |
| theme | what a poem says; the statement a poem makes about its subject |
| imagery | to evoke a mental image (sometimes emotional), figurative language |
| metaphor | a term used to treat two things that are not the same as equals; comparing without using like or as |
| simile | a comparison between two unlike things using like, as, etc. |
| personification | giving human qualities to objects, animals, or ideas |
| hyperbole | exaggeration that is made for emphasis or humorous effect |
| alliteration | repetition of a consonant sound at the beginning of words |
| end rhyme | rhyming that occurs at the end of the line |
| exact rhyme | perfect rhyme |
| slant rhyme | a rhyme that is not exact; words that sound the same, but are not spelled the same |
| rhyme scheme | the order of the rhymes in a poem, the rhyme pattern (uses abc... to describe) |
| repetition | a repeating sound, line, syllable, etc. that reinforces a poem's meaning |
| refrain | a repeated line, group of lines, or word |
| assonance | repetition of a vowel sound within words |
| consonance | repetition of a consonant sound within words |
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