| Term | Definition |
|---|
| paraphrase | prose restatement of the central ideas of a poem, in your own language |
| speaker | voice used by an author to tell a story or speak a poem |
| metaphor | figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, without using the word "like" or "as" |
| verse | generic term used to describe poetic lines composed in a measured rhythmical pattern, that are often, but not necessarily, rhymed |
| theme | central meaning or dominant idea in a literary work; provides a unifying point around which the plot, characters, setting, point of view,symbols, and other elements of work are organized |
| lyric | type of brief poem that expresses the personal emotions and thoughts of a single speaker |
| narrative poem | poem that tells a story |
| epic poem | long narrative poem, told in a formal, elevated style, that focuses on a serious subject and chronicles heroic deeds and events important to a culture or nation |
| diction | writer's choice of words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning |
| jargon | category of language defined by a trade or profession |
| denotation | dictionary meaning of a word |
| connotation | associations and implications that go beyond the word's literal meaning |
| persona | literally, a mask; in literature, a speaker created by a writer to tell a story or to speak in a poem |
| ambiguity | allows for two or more simultaneous interpretations of a word, phrase, action, or situation, all of which can be supported by the context of a work |
| syntax | ordering of words into meaningful verbal patterns such as phrases, clauses, and sentences |
| tone | author's implicit attitude toward the reader or the people, places, and events in a work as revealed by the elements of the author's style |
| dramatic monologue | type of lyric poem in which a character (the speaker) addresses a distinct but silent audience imagined to be present in the poem in such a way as to reveal a dramatic situation and,often unintentionally, some aspect of his or her temperament or personality |
| carpe diem | "seize the day" |
| allusion | brief reference to a person,place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature |
| image | word, phrase, or figure of speech (esp a simile or metaphor) that addresses the sense, suggesting mental pictures of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings, or actions |
| figures of speech | way of saying one thing in terms of something else |
| simile | comparison between two things by using words such as like, as, than, appears, or seems |
| implied metaphor | subtle comparison; terms being compared are not specifically explained |
| extended metaphor | sustained comparison in which part or all of a poem consists of a series of related metaphors |
| synedoche | kind of metaphor in which part of something is used to signify the whole |
| metonymy | type of metaphor in which something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it |
| apostrophe | an address either to someone who is absent and therefore cannot hear the speaker or to something nonhuman that cannot comprehend |
| hyperbole | boldy exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without intending to be literally true |
| understatement | opposite of hyperbole; figure of speech that says less than intended |
| paradox | statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense |
| oxymoron | condensed form of paradox in which two contradictory words are used together ("sweet sorrow") |
| symbol | person, object, image, word, or event that evokes a range of additional meaning beyond and usually more abstract than its literal significance |
| allegory | narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning because its events, actions, characters, settings, and objects represent specific abstractions or ideas |
| irony | literary device that uses contradictory statements or situations to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true |
| situational irony | exists when there is an incongruity between what is expected to happen and what actually happens due to forces beyond human comprehension or control |
| verbal irony | figure of speech that occurs when a person says one thing but means the opposite |
| satire | literary art of ridiculing a folly or vice in order to expose or correct it |
| ballad | song that is transmitted orally from generation to generation that tells a story and that eventually is written down |
| onomatopoeia | term referring to the use of a word that resembles the sound it denotes |
| alliteration | repetition of the same consonant sounds in a sequence of words, usually at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable |
| villanelle | nineteen lines (5 tercets, 1 quatrain); tercets: aba, quatrain: abaa; line 1:repeats in 6,12&18; line 3:repeats in 9,15&19 |
| poem | type of rhythmic, compressed language that uses figures of speech and imagery to appeal to the reader's emotions and imagination |
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