Quizlet poetry terms

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  1. alliteration: the repetition of similar sounds, usually consonants or consonant clusters at the beginning of words.
  2. allusion: a reference to a person, a place, an event, or a literary work that a writer expects the reader to recognize and respond to.
  3. apostrophe: a figure of speech in which an absent or a dead person, an abstract quality, or something non-human is addressed directly
  4. assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds
  5. blank verse: verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
  6. caesura: a break or pause in a line of poetry
  7. conceit: a kind of developed metaphor that makes a comparison between two startlingly different things
  8. connotation: all the emotions and associations that a word or phrase may arouse
  9. consonance: the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words
  10. couplet: any two consecutive lines that rhyme
  11. denotation: the literal or dictionary meaning of a word
  12. diction: a writers choice of words, particularly for clarity, effectiveness, and precision
  13. dramatic irony: the reader or audience perceives something that a character in the story or play does not know
  14. dramatic monologue: kind of narrative poem in which one character speaks to one listener or more whose replies are not given in the poem
  15. elegy: a poem of mourning, usually over the death of an individual
  16. end rhyme: rhymes that occur at the ends of lines
  17. epic: a long narrative poem telling about the deeds of a great hero and reflecting the values of the society from which it originated
  18. free verse: verse that has either no metrical pattern or an irregular pattern
  19. heroic couplet: two consecutive lines of rhymed iambic pentameter
  20. iambic pentameter: a rhythm pattern of five metric feet of light, then heavy beats.
  21. imagery: words or phrases that appeal to the senses and create pictures or images in the reader's mind
  22. internal rhyme: rhymes that occur within lines of a poem
  23. irony: a contrast or an incongruity between what is stated and what is really meant, or between what is expected to happen and what really happens.
  24. irony of situation: a discrepancy between the expected results of some action or situation and its actual results
  25. lyric poem: a poem, usually short, that expresses a speaker's personal thoughts or feelings (includes elegy, ode and sonnet)
  26. metaphor: a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that are basically dissimilar
  27. meter: a generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry, measure of the rhythm of a poetic line
  28. metonymy: a figure of speech in which something very closely associated with a thing is used to stand for or suggest the thing itself.
  29. mood: feeling created in the reader by the literary work
  30. motif: a recurring feature such as a name, an image or a phrase in a work of literature
  31. narrative poem: a poem that tells a story
  32. ode: a complex and often lengthy lyric poem, written in a dignified formal style on some lofty or serious subject
  33. onomatopoeia: the use of a word whose sound in some degree imitates or suggests its meaning
  34. oxymoron: a figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory ideas or terms
  35. parallelism: the use of phrases, clauses, or sentences that are similar or complementary in structure or meaning
  36. pastoral: a type of poem that deals in an idealized way with shepherds and rustic life.
  37. personification: a figure of speech in which something nonhuman is given human qualities
  38. quatrain: stanza or poem with four lines
  39. refrain: a word, phrase, line, or group of lines repeated regularly in a poem, usually at the end of each stanza
  40. repetition: repeated words or phrases
  41. rhyme: the repetition of sounds in two or more words or phrases that appear close to each other in a poem
  42. rhyme scheme: the pattern of rhymes in a poem
  43. rhythm: the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in to a pattern
  44. scansion: analysis of literature in terms of meter
  45. sestet: six line stanza
  46. simile: comparison made between two things through the use of a specific word of comparison such as like or as
  47. sonnet: fourteen line lyric poem, usually written in iambic pentameter
  48. speaker: persona or person speaking in the poem
  49. stanza: verse of a poem
  50. synecdoche: a figure of speech that substitutes a part for the whole
  51. theme: the general idea or insight about life that a writer wishes to express in a literary work
  52. tone: attitude demonstrated by the writer toward his or her subject
  53. verbal irony: discrepancy between what is said and what is meant