AP/IB English Poetry Terms (70) Flashcards
A reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work.
Allusion
The repetition of identical or similar sounds, normally at the beginnings of words.
Alliteration
A figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas, as in “Man proposes; God disposes.”
Antithesis
A figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present.
Apostrophe
The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.
Assonance
A four-line stanza rhymed ABCD with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four.
Ballad meter
Unrhymed iambic pentameter
Blank verse
A harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones. It may be an unconscious flaw in the poet’s music
Cacophony
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.
Caesura
An indigenous and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things.
Conceit
The repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words.
Consonance
A two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same
Couplet
The techniques of deploying the sounds of words, especially in poetry. Amount devices of sounds are rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia.
Devices of sound
The use of words in a literary work.
Diction
A poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson.
Didactic poem
A poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends.
Dramatic poem
A sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditations upon death or another solemn theme.
Elegy
A line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines
End-stopped
The continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next.
Enjambment
An implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem.
Extended metaphor
A style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. The opposite of cacophony.
Euphony
Rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation.
Eye rhyme
A rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as”waken” and “forsaken”. Also called double rhyme.
Feminine rhyme
Writing that uses figures of speech, such as metaphor, irony, and simile.
Figurative language
Poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical.
Free verse
Two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-lined unit.
Heroic couplet
A deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious or comic effect.
Hyperbole
The images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the figurative language of a work.
Imagery
