AP Poetry Terms Flashcards
the repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the beginning of words. EX. Gnus never know pneumonia.
Alliteration
a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work. EX: Love story by Taylor Swift
allusion
a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas, as in: Man proposes; God disposes. A balancing of one term against another for emphasis or stylistic effectiveness. The second line of the following couplet by Alexander Pope is an example of antithesis:
The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,
And wretches hang that jury-men may dine.
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. Following are two examples:
Papa Above!
Regard a Mouse.
-Emily Dickinson
Milton! Thou shouldst be living in this hour;
England hath need of thee . . ..
-William Wordsworth
apostrophe
the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.
A land laid waste with all its young men slain repeats the same “a” sound in “laid,” “waste,” and “slain.”
assonance
a four-line stanza rhymed abcd with four accented syllables in lines one and three and three accented syllables in lines two and four.
O mother, mother make my bed.
O make it soft and narrow.
Since my love died for me today,
I’ll die for him tomorrow.
ballad meter
unrhymed iambic pentameter. The meter of most of Shakespeare’s plays, as well as that of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
blank verse
a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones. It may be an unconscious flaw in the poet’s music, resulting in harshness of sound or difficulty of articulation, or it may be used consciously for effect, as Browning and Eliot often use it. See, for example, the following line from Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra”:
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. For example, one would naturally pause after “human” in the following line from Alexander Pope:
To err is human, to forgive divine.
caesura
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, but it also may form the framework of an entire poem.
conceit
the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. The term usually refers to words in which the ending consonants are the same but the vowels that precede them are different. Found in the following pairs of words: “add” and “read,” “bill and ball,” and “born” and “burn.”
consonance
a two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same.
couplet
the techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially in poetry. Among devices of sound are rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia. The
devices are used for many reasons, including to create a general effect of pleasant or of discordant sound, to imitate another sound, or to reflect a meaning.
devices of sound
the use of words in a literary work. may be described as formal, informal, colloquial, or slang.
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. The dramatic monologue is an example.
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.
EX: True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance,
As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
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. Its opposite is cacophony.
Ex:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
euphony
rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation. Examples include “watch” and “match,” and “love” and “move.”
eye rhyme
a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as “waken” and “forsaken” and “audition” and “rendition.” Sometimes called double rhyme.
feminine rhyme
writing that uses figures of speech (as opposed to literal language or that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, irony, and simile.
figurative language
