 | Term | Definition |
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Anaphora |
repetition of a word for emphasis |
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Apostraphe |
speaking to a person not present, and inanimate object, something personified |
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Allegory |
sybolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning often generlized and moral |
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Aliteration |
repetition of a constant souns especially at the beginning of words |
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Allusion |
A reference to a person, event, or literary work outside the poem |
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Assonance |
the repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry as in "i rOse and tOld him my wOe" |
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Ballad |
a narrative poem written in four-line stanzas, characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style |
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Blank verse |
a line of poetry or prose in unrymed iambic pentameter |
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Connotation |
the personal and emotional assiciations called up by a word |
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Couplet |
a pair of unrymed lines that may or may not constitute a seperate stanza in a poem |
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Denotation |
the dictionary meaning of a word |
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Diction |
the selection of words in a literary work |
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Dramatic monologue |
a type of poem in which a speaker adresses a silent listener |
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Enjambment |
a run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next |
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Figurative language |
a form of language use in which writers and speakers intend something other than the literal meaning of their words |
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Foot |
a metrical unit composed of stressed and unsressed syllables, a group of syllables |
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Free verse |
poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme |
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Hyperbole |
a figureof speech involving exaggeration |
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Iamb |
an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in today |
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Irony |
a constrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen: verbal, irony of circumstance, dramatic |
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Metaphor |
a comparison between essentially unlike things without a words such as like or as |
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Meter |
the measured pattern or rhythmic accents in poems |
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Metonymy |
a figure of speeech in which a closelt related term is substituted for an object or idea: "nice ride, good hops, loyal to crown" |
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Octave |
an eight line unit, which may constitute a stanza or a section of a poem as in the octave of a sonnet |
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Ode |
a long stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form. usually a serious poem on an exalted subject |
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Onomatopoeia |
the use of awods to imitate the sounds they describe. buzz, crack |
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Oxymoron |
a fugure of speech consisting of two words that seem to contradict each other. joyous pain |
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Paradox |
a situation or phrase that appears contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering |
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Parody |
a humorous mocking imitation of a literary work |
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Personification |
the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities |
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Quatrain |
a four line stanza in a poem |
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Rhyme |
the matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. masculine:end with stressed syllable. feminine:unstressed. approx.-slant/near rhymes. internal-:within line. end:end of line. Perfect:same # of syllables and stresses while same vowel/ consanent counds |
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Rhythm |
the recurrence of accent or stress in liknes of verse |
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Satire |
a literary form that criticizes human misconduct and ridicules vice, stupidity, and folly |
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Sestet |
a six line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem, the last 6 lines of an italian sonnet |
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Simile |
a figure of speech involving a comparison between inllike things using like or as |
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Sonnet |
a fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter. Shakespearean/english-3 quatrains and a couplet, italian/petrarchan- 8 line octave, 6 line sestet |
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Stanza |
a division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form- with similar or identical patterns of rhyme and meter |
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Style |
diction + syntax |
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Symbol |
an object or action in a literary work that means more than itself, stands for something beyond itself |
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Synecdoche |
a figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole, or whole for the part: lend me a hand, give me a kleenox, heed of cattle |
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Synesthesia |
an attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of the other |
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Syntax |
the grammatical order of words in a sentence or line of verse or dialogue |
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Tercet |
three line stanza |
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Theme |
idea of a literal work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and expressed in the form of a generalization |
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Tone |
the implied attitude of a poet toward the subject and materials of a poem |
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Troche |
a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable as in story |
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Understatement |
a figure of speech in which a writer or speaker says less than what he or she means, the converse of exaggeration or hyperbole |
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Image |
a concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling or idea, imagery refers to the pattern of related details in a work |
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tri, tetra, panta,-meter |
3,4,5 metric feet in a line |
