Poetry Devices
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Created by:
AnthonyJHunger on January 4, 2012
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40 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Ballad | A narrative poem written in 4 line stanzas, characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style. |
| Elegy | A lyric poem that laments the dead. |
| Epic | a long narrative poem written in elevated style which present the adventures of characters of high position and episodes that are important to the history of a race or nation |
| Free verse | Poetry that does not have a regular meter or rhyme scheme |
| Lyric Peom | a type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling. |
| Narrative Poem | a poem that tells a story |
| Ode | A long, stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form. Usually a serious poem on an exalted subject. |
| Sonnet—Shakespearean and Petrarchan | In its basic definition, a sonnet is a rhyming poem of fourteen lines with ten syllables per line, generally written in iambic pentameter meaning there is the rhythm ti-tum; ti-tum; ti-tum. Although there are many different varieties, the two most common variations of sonnets are; the English sonnet- popularised by William Shakespeare, and the Italian sonnet- or sometimes referred to as the Petrarchan sonnet due to the first major practitioner Francesco Petrarch.The Shakespearean or English sonnet is arranged as three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet divides into two parts: an eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming abba abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd. More sophisticated than your average rhyming poetry, the sonnet is sometimes considered to be the most accessible of classic forms. |
| Caesura | a break or pause (usually for sense) in the middle of a verse line. |
| Couplet | A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem. |
| Enjambment | A run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. An enjambed line differs from an end-stopped line in which the grammatical and logical sense is completed within the line. |
| Foot( type of pattern) | A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. |
| Iamb (one type of foot) | An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one, as in to-DAY. |
| Meter(# of patterns) | the measured pattern of the rhythmic accents in poems. |
| Octave | An eight-line unit, which may constitute a stanza; or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet. |
| Quatrain | A four-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines and the second four lines in a Petrachan sonnet. A Shakespearean sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a couplet. |
| Sestet | A six-line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem; the last six lines of an Italian sonnet. |
| Stanza | A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form--either with similar or identical patterns or rhyme and meter, or with variations from one stanza to another. |
| Alliteration | The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. |
| Assonance | The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose. |
| Onomatopoeia | The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz and crack are onomatopoetic. |
| Rhyme | The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. |
| Rhyme scheme | The pattern of words that sound alike on the ends. |
| Rhythm | The recurrence of accents or stress in lines of verse. |
| Refrain | The repetition of a similar phrase, line, or group of lines repeated throughout a poem usually in the same place and usually after every stanza. |
| Internal Rhyme | a rhyme created by 2 or more words in the same line of verse. |
| Repetition | the use of a line, word, or group of words more than once. |
| Allusion | A brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological situation or character |
| Apostrophe | Speaking directly to a real or imagined listener or inanimate object; addressing that person or thing by name. |
| Connotation | The associations called up by a word that goes beyond its dictionary meaning. Poets, especially, tend to use words rich in connotation. |
| Figurative Language | A form of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words. Examples include hyperbole or exaggeration, litotes or understatement, simile and metaphor, which employ comparison, and synecdoche and metonymy, in which a part of a thing stands for the whole. |
| Denotation | The dictionary definition of the word. |
| Hyperbole | A figure of speech involving exaggeration. |
| Image and Imagery | An image is a word or phrase that appeals to one or more of the five senses. Imagery is the writer's use of words to re-create sensory experiences, such as to create a picture in your mind. |
| Metaphor | a comparison btw essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as. |
| Personification | The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities. |
| Simile | A figure of speech involving a comparison btw unlike things using like, as , or as though. |
| Symbol | An object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, that stands for something beyond itself. |
| Tone | The implied attitude of a writer toward the subject and characters of a work. |
| Theme | The central message or life application of the work. |
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