Alliteration
The repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the beginning of words
"Gnus never knew pneumonia
Allusion
A reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work
Antithesis
Characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas
"Man proposes; God disposes
Apostrophe
Someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present
Assonance
The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds
"A land laid waste with all it's young men slain
Ballad meter
A 4 line stanza rhymed abcb with 4 feet in lines one and three and 3 feet in lines two and four
Bildungsroman
class of novel derived from German literature that deals with the formative years of the main character whose moral and psychological development is depicted; typically ends on a positive note; ex) Jane Eyre, Catcher in the Rye
Blank verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter; meter of most of SHAKESPEARE'S plays & Milton's Paradise Lost
Cacophony
a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds/tones; it may be an unconscious flaw in the poet's music or it may be used consciously for effect
Caesura
a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line and often greater than the normal pause; "To err is human, to forgive divine
Conceit
an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things; may be a brief metaphor or an entire poem
Consonance
the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words; usually refers to words in which the ending consonants are the same but the vowels that precede them are different; "add and read" "bill and ball" "born and burn
Couplet
a 2 line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same
Devices of sound
rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia
Diction
the use of words in a literary work; formal/informal/colloquial/slang
Didactic poem
a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson; difficult distinction
Dramatic poem
a poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends; ex) dramatic monologue
Elegy
a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet's meditations upon death or another solemn theme
End-stopped
a line with a pause at the end; end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark; "True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance,/As those move easiest who have learn'd to dance
Enjambment
the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next
Extended metaphor
an implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem
Euphony
a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate
Eye rhyme
rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation; ex) "watch and match" "love and move
Feminine rhyme
a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed; sometimes called double rhyme; "waken and forsaken" "audition and rendition
Figurative language
metaphor, irony, simile, etc.
Free verse
poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical; Walt Whtiman
Heroic couplet
two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit
Hyperbole
exaggeration--used for either serious or comic effect
Imagery
the images of a literary work; the sensory details; visual auditory or tactile images evoked by the words of a literary work
Irony
the contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning; verbal irony=figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning, lighter & less harsh than sarcasm in its wording though in effect p
Internal rhyme
rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end
Lyric poem
any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings; sonnets and odes are lyric poems
Masculine rhyme
rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme-words "keep and sleep" "glow and no" "spell and impel
Metaphor
comparison is expressed without using as, like, or than
Meter
the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry; emphasizes the musical quality of language; each unit of meter is known as a foot
Metonymy
characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself; NOT part of the object; king="crown"; every synecdoche is a metonymy, but NOT every metonymy is a synecdoche
Mixed metaphors
the mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous; "I smell a rat. I see it floating in the air. I shall nip it in the bud.
Narrative poem
a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative whether simple or complex, long or short; ex) epics and ballads
Octave
an 8 line stanza
Onomatopoeia
CRASH BOOM BANG
Oxymoron
a form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms int o a single expression; shocking the reader into awareness; "wise fool" "sad joy" "eloquent silence
Paradox
a situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense
Parallelism
a similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry
Paraphrase
a restatement of ideas
Personification
a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics
Poetic foot
a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it
Iambic
u/
Trochaic
/u
Anapestic
uu/
Dactylic
/uu
Pyrrhic
uu
Spondaic
//
Pun
a play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings; serious or humorous uses
Quatrain
a 4 line stanza with any combination of lines
Refrain
a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza
Rhyme
close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse "fan and ran
Rhyme royal
a 7 line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc; Chaucer and other medieval poets
Rhythm
the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables
Sarcasm
a type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it; purpose: to injure or to hurt
Satire
writing that seeks to arouse a reader's disapporval of an object by ridicule; usually comedy that exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly
Scansion
a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and type(s) of feet per line; most common types: monometer, dimeter, etc.; "scanned"= marked to indicate stressed or unstressed syllables
Sestet
6 line stanza
Simile
comparison with like, as, or than
Sonnet
14 line iambic pentameter poem
Stanza
usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme
Strategy/rhetorical strategy
the management of language for a specific effect; planned placing of elements to achieve an effect
Structure
the arrangement of materials within a work; relationship of parts of a work to the whole; logical division of a work; line & stanza
Style
the mode of expression in language; characteristic manner of expression of an author
Symbol
something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else
Synecdoche
mentioning a part signifies a whole
Syntax
the ordering of words into patterns or sentences
Tercet
a stanza of 3 lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme
Terza rima
a 3 line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc
Theme
the main thought expressed by a work
Tone
the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning
Understatement
the opposite of hyperbole; a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is; Macbeth "Twas a rough night
Villanelle
19 line poem divided into 5 tercets and a final quatrain