- Alliteration: The repitition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together.
- Allusion: Something the author or poet writes in their piece of literature that the audience is expected to know
- Anaphora: "-repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive phrases clauses or sentences. ""We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France"
- Apostrophe: a technique by which a writer addresses an inanimate object, an idea, or a person who is either dead or absent.
- Blank Verse: Unrhymed Iambic pentameter
- Concrete Poem: A poem in which the words are arranged on a page to suggest a visual representation of the subject.
- Connotation: The contextual meaning of a word; Feelings associated with words
- Couplet: 2 lines-a concluding comment
- Dactyl, Dactylic: /, u, u. Stressed, unstressed, unstressed
- Dark Lady: Sonnets 127-152, addressed to by Shakespeare
- Denotation: The dictionary definition of a word
- Diction: A writer's choice or words, phrases, sentence structures, and figurative language, which combine to help create meaning.
- Dramatic Monologue: A type of poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener. As readers, we overhear the speaker in a dramatic monologue.
- Dramatic Poetry: poetry that involves the techniques of drama; one or more characters speak to other characters who may or may not be present in the poem
- Fair Young Man, Fair Youth: Sonnets 1-126 addressed to by Shakespeare
- Figurative Language: Words or phrases that mean something other than what they literally say.
- Figure of Speech: An expression or device that uses non-literal language. (e.g. metaphor, simile, hyperbole, understatement, apostrophe, oxymoron, personification)
- Foot: a group of 2 or 3 syllables forming the basic unit of poetic rhythm
- Free Verse: No rhyme nor meter
- Harlem Renaissance: a period in the 1920s when African-American achievements in art and music and literature flourished
- Hexameter: a verse line having six metrical feet
- Hyperbole: a figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion, make a point, or evoke humor; excessive and weakens arguments
- Iamb, Iambic: /, u, Stressed, unstressed
- Imagery: The sensory details or figurative language used to describe, arouse emotion, or represent abstractions. We refer to visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory imagery
- Inverted Syntax: reversing the normal word order of a sentence
- Lyric Poem: Convey thoughts and feelings of a single speaker with a single theme
- Metaphor: figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, in which on thing becomes another without the use of like or as
- Meter: Regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables
- Mood: The feeling evoked in the reader by a literary work or passage. Often can be described in one word such as light-hearted, frightening, or despairing
- Narrative Poem: A poem that tells a story from a point of view
- Octave: an eight line people, or the first eight lines of a Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet
- Onomatopoeia: Words that express sounds
- Parallelism (parallel structure and construction): Parts of a sentence expressed using the same syntactical structure to emphasise their equal importance
- Paraphrase: to put in one's own words
- Pentameter: A line of five metrical feet
- Personification: A figure of speech in which an object or animal is given human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes
- Petrarchan Sonnet: a sonnet with 1 octave and 1 sestet. Rhyme scheme- 8=abbaabba or abababab 6=cdecde or cdccdc or cdedce. Octave presents one point of view and sestet presents contrasting point of view
- Poetry: one of the 3 major types of literature. These are often divided into lines and stanzas. They often eploy regular rythmical patterns.
- Prose: Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure.
- Quatrain: A stanza of poetry containing four lines. A Shakespearean sonnet contains three of these followed by a couplet.
- Rhetoric: The art or study of using language effectively and persuasively.
- Rhetorical Devices: its how something is said by an author not what is said that will create this literary effect. If a device is used correctly its effect will leave a lasting impression on the reader.
- Rhetorical Question: a question asked for an effect, not actually requiring an answer
- Rhyme Scheme: repeated regular pattern of rhymes usually found at the end of lines in a poem
- Scan: to analyze the rhythm of a poem
- Sestet: Six lines of poetry, especially the last six lines of a Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet.
- Shakespearean Sonnet: a sonnet with 3 quatrains and 1 couplet at the end. Rhyme scheme-abab,cdcd,efef,gg. 3 quatrains present problem and 1 couplet presents solution
- Simile: Makes a comparison between two unlike things using like, as, or than.
- Slant Rhyme: a rhyme that is close, but somewhat different, such as predicate and ate
- Sonnet: a fourteen line poem containing a single theme throughout the poem
- Sound Devices: elements such as rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, and onomatopoeia - gives poetry a musical quality
- Speaker: the narrator, point of view, or persona through whom the poet is speaking. a older poet could speak through the view of a teenage girl
- Spondee: /, /, Stressed, Stressed
- Stanza: a group of lines of poetry that are usually similar in length and pattern and are separated by spaces
- Subject: a main premise or topic.
- Syntax: sequence in which words are put together to form sentences
- Tetrameter: a verse in a poem consisting of four metric feet
- Theme: the underlying of main message that the author wishes to convey
- Tone: feeling or effect the writer creates toward his character or his subject
- Trimeter: a line of verse with three metrical feet
- Voice: character or perspective that is taken on by a writer or poet.
Literary Terms