| Term | Definition |
|---|
| alliteration | repetition at close intervals of initial consonant sounds |
| assonance | repetition at close intervals of vowel sounds |
| consonance | repetition at close intervals of final consonant sounds |
| cacophony | harsh, non-melodic, unpleasant sounding arrangement of sounds |
| euphony | pleasant, easy to articulate sounds |
| onomatopoeia | use of words which mimic their meaning in sound |
| sibilance | hissing sounds represented by s, z, h |
| allegory | characters are symbols, has a moral |
| apostrophe | someone absent, dead, or imaginary, or an abstraction, is being addressed as if it could reply |
| didactic poetry | poetry with the primary purpose of teaching or preaching |
| dramatic monologue | character "speaks" through the poem; a character study |
| elegy | poem which expresses sorrow over a death of someone for whom the poet cared, or on another solemn theme |
| sonnet | 14 line poem, fixed rhyme scheme, fixed meter (usually 10 syllables per line) |
| connotation | what a word suggests beyond its surface definition |
| denotation | basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word |
| diction | choice of words for effect |
| syntax | word order or grammatical appropriateness |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| caesura | a natural pause in the middle of a line, sometimes coinciding with punctuation |
| couplet | 2 successive lines which rhyme, usually at the end of a work |
| enjambment | describes a line of poety in which the sense and grammatical construction continues on to the next line |
| feminine rhyme | latter 2 syllables of 1st word rhyme with latter 2 syllables of 2nd word |
| free verse | no fixed meter or rhyme |
| iambic pentameter | 70% of verse is written this way; 10 syllables per line, following an order of accented-unaccented syllables |
| internal rhyme | repetition of sounds within a line (but not at the end of a line) |
| masculine rhyme | final syllable of 1st word rhymes with final syllable of 2nd word (scald recalled) |
| meter | regularized rhythm of stressed/unstressed syllables; accents occur at approx. equal intervals of time |
| refrain | repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines in a pattern |
| rhyme | repetition of end sounds |
| rhythm | wave-like recurrence of sound |
| stanza | group of lines |
| structure | internal organization of a poem's content |
| allusion | a reference to something in literature or history |
| anaphora | repetition of the same word(s) at the start of 2 or more lines |
| archetype | a character of personality type found in every society |
| conceit | an extended witty, paradoxical, or startling metaphor |
| hyperbole | exaggeration, overstatement |
| imagery | representation through language of a sensory experience |
| irony | incongruity or discrepancy between the implied & expected; verbal, dramatic, situational |
| metaphor | implied or direct comparison |
| metonymy | symbolism; 1 thing is used as a substitute for another with which it is closely identified (the White House) |
| mood | the atmosphere suggested by the setting, diction, etc; conjures an emotional response on the reader's part |
| oxymoron | compact paradox; 2 successive words contradict each other |
| pace | tempo or rate implied by the structure and style of the poem |
| paradox | statement or situation containing seemingly contradictory elements |
| parallelism | presents coordinating ideas in a coordinating manner |
| persona | assumed speaker of the poem; typically used synonymously with speaker |
| personification | giving a non-human the characteristics of a human |
| simile | comparison using like or as |
| style | an author's combined use of these ideas into a recurring pattern of usage |
| symbolism | something (object, person, situation, etc.) means more than what it is |
| synecdoche | symbolism; the part signifies the whole, of the whole the part (all hands on board) |
| theme | central idea |
| tone | writer's attitude toward the audience or subject, implied or related directly |
| understatement | saying less than one means, for effect |
Combine with other sets
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