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Poetry Terms
Poetry Terms for Exam 2
51
English
Undergraduate 1
03/25/2012

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Term
Ballad
Definition
A song that tells a story.
Term
Accent
Definition
An emphasis or stress placed on a syllable in speech.
Term
Alliteration
Definition

The repetition of two or more consonant sounds in successive words in a line of cerse or prose

 

"cool cats"

 

"In kitchen cups concupiscent curds"

Term
Assonance
Definition

The repetition of two or more vowel sounds in successive words, which creates a kind of rhyme. Creates a more mermorable phrase

 

Initially "awful augeries"

 

Internally "white liliacs"

Term
Blank Verse
Definition

The most common and well-known meter of unrhymed poetry in English

 

Contains five iambic feet per line and is never rhymed. (Shakespeare, Frost's Mending Wall)

Term
Cacophony
Definition

A harsh, discordant sound often mirroring the meaning of the context in which it is used.

 

"Grate on the scrannel pipes of wretched straw"

 

Opposite of euphony

Term
Closed Form Poetry
Definition

A generic term that describes poetry written in some preexisting pattern of meter, rhyme, line or stanza.

 

Closed forms include the sonnet, sestina, villanelle, ballade and rondeau.

Term
Concrete Poetry
Definition
A visual poetry composed exclusively for the page in which a picture or image is made of printed letters and words.
Term
connotation
Definition

An association or additional meaning that a word, image, or phrase may carry, apart from its literal denotation or dictionary definition.

 

Example: Owls are wise.

Term
Couplet
Definition

A two-line stanza in poetry, usually rhymed, which tends to have lines in equal length.

 

Example:

Give my love fame faster than time wastes life;So though prevent'st his scythe and crooked knife

Term
Denotation
Definition
The literal, dictionary meaning of a word.
Term
Dialect
Definition
A particular variety of language spoken by an identifiable regional group or social class of persons.
Term
Diction
Definition
Word choice or vocabulary.
Term
Abstract Diction
Definition
Words that express general ideas or concepts.
Term
Concrete Diction
Definition
Involves a highly specific word choice in the naming of something or someone.
Term
Didactic Poetry
Definition
A narrative that intends to teach a specific moral lesson or model for proper behavior.
Term
Double entendre
Definition
A figure of speech in which a spoken phrase is devised to be understood in either of two ways
Term
Dramatic Monologue
Definition

A poem written as a speech made by a character at some decisive movement.

Examples

T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock"

Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess"

Term
End Rhyme
Definition
Rhyme that occurs at the ends of lines, rather than within them. Most common.
Term
Euphony
Definition
A pronunciation of letters and syllables which is pleasing to the ear
Term

 

exact rhyme

 

Definition
A full rhyme in which the sounds following the initial letters of the words are identical in sound, as in follow and hollow, go and slow, disband and this hand.
Term
extended metaphor
Definition
A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph or lines in a poem
Term
Eye Rhyme
Definition
Rhyme in which the spelling of the words appears alike, but the pronunciations differ, as in laughter and daughter, idea and flea.
Term
Sight Rhyme
Definition
Words which are similar in spelling but different in pronunciation, like mow and how or height and weight
Term
Figurative Language
Definition
Describing something by comparing it with something else
Term

 

haiku

 

Definition
A japanese verse form that has three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables
Term
Hyperbole
Definition
the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. Overstatement.
Term
Imagery
Definition
The collective set of images in a poem or other literary work.
Term
Internal Rhyme
Definition
Rhyme that occurs within a line of poetry as oppesed to end rhymes.
Term
Jargon
Definition
Language that is characterized by uncommon or pretentious vocabulary
Term
Lyric Poem
Definition
A short poem expressing the thoughts and feelings of a single speaker. Often written in first person. Usually Songlike.
Term
Metaphor
Definition
A statement that one thing is something else which in a literal sense it is not. "Richard is a pig"
Term
Meter
Definition
A recurrent regular ryhthmic pattern in verse. When stresses recr at fixed intervals, the result is meter.
Term
Near Rhyme
Definition
rhyming consonances on the final consonants of the words involved (e.g. ill with shell). Many half/slant rhymes are also eye rhymes
Term
Slant Rhyme
Definition
rhyme in which either the vowels or the consonants of stressed syllables are identical, as in eyes, light; years, yours
Term
Occasional Poetry
Definition
A poem written for a particular occasion, such as a dedication, birthday, or victory
Term

 

onomatopoeia

 

Definition

A literary device that attempts to represent a thing or action by the word that imitates the sound associated with it.

(Bang, crash, pitter-patter, buzz)

Term
Open Form Poetry/Open Verse
Definition
Verse that has no set formal scheme-- no mtere, rhyme or even set stanzaic pattern. Open form is always in free verse.
Term
Paradox
Definition
A statement that at first strikes one as self contradictory but that on reflection reveals some deeper sense.
Term
Paraphrase
Definition
The restatement in one's own words of what we understand a literary work to say.
Term
Persona
Definition
Latin for "mask". A fictitious character created by an author to be the speaker of a poem, story or novel.
Term
Personification
Definition
A figure of speech in which a thing, an animal, or an abstract term is endowed with human characteristics.
Term
Pun
Definition
A play on words in which one word is substitued for another similar or identical sound but of very different meaning.
Term
Rhyme
Definition
Two or more words that contain an identical or similar vowel sound.
Term
rhythm
Definition
The pattern of stresses and pauses in a poem. A fixed and recurring rhythm in a poem is called meter.
Term
Simile
Definition
A comparison of two things, indicated by some connective, usually like, as than or a verb such a resembles. "Cool as a cucumber"
Term
Sonnet
Definition
Fixed form of fourteen lines, traditionally written in iambic pentameter, usually made up of an octave (first 8 lines) and a sestet (six lines).
Term
stanza
Definition
A recurring pattern of two or more lines of verse, poetry's equivalent to the paragraph in prose.
Term
Syntax
Definition
the way in which linguistic elements (as words) are put together to form phrases or clause
Term
Tone
Definition
The attitude toward a subject conveyed in a literary work.
Term
Visual imagery
Definition
a word or sequence of words that refers to the sense of sight or presents something one may see.
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