Definitions

Question 1

Theme

Answer 1

The governing idea (or ideas) of a poem, conveyed through the details of the poem.

Question 2

Lyric Poem

Answer 2

Express an individual speaker’s feelings or thoughts. Usually a short(ish) poem.

Question 3

End-rhyme

Answer 3

Identical or similar sounds repeated at the end of the lines of poetry.

Question 4

Confessional Poetry

Answer 4

Emphasizes personal, intimate, embarrassing or uncomfortable details of personal life.

Question 5

Alliteration

Answer 5

Repetition of the beginning sounds of words linked closely together.

Question 6

Allusion

Answer 6

Implied reference to literary/historical sources.

Question 7

Apostrophe

Answer 7

When a speaker directly addresses an object or dead/absent person as if the imagined audience were actually listening.

Question 8

Bathos

Answer 8

Effect of moving from elevated subject/style/tone to a more trivial one (within a line-in close proximity)

Question 9

Beat Writing

Answer 9

Experimental works from 1950s to 1960s promoting a rebellious and anti-establishment view of the world.

Question 10

Blank Verse

Answer 10

Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.

Question 11

Conceit

Answer 11

Unusually elaborate metaphor or simile extending beyond original tenor and vehicle - sometimes becoming a “master”-analogy for the entire poem. Ingenious or fanciful images and comparison, especially popular with metaphysical poets.

Question 12

Couplet

Answer 12

A pair of rhyming lines in poetry usually with the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed, a complete unit of thought/grammatically complete) or run-on (open).

Question 13

Dramatic Monologue

Answer 13

A lyric poem that takes the form of an individual speaker addressing a silent listener. The speaker usually reveals more than he or she intends to. Often studies of exceptional, insane, historical, or mythical figures.

Question 14

Enjambment

Answer 14

When the sense of an idea in a poem does not stop at the end of a line. No pause is created by punctuation, but pause is given by the line.

Question 15

Free Verse

Answer 15

Does not follow any regular meter, rhyme scheme, or line length.

Question 16

Iambic Pentameter

Answer 16

Lines of five iambs (two syllables, one unstressed followed by a stressed), the most common metre in English poetry.

Question 17

Imagery

Answer 17

Representation in words of things perceived by senses. Not only pictures but sounds, tastes, touches, smells, sensory words. More important when repeated/consistent or strange.

Question 18

Imagism

Answer 18

A poetic movement, popular mainly in the 1910s-1920s. The idea is to represent emotions or impressions through highly concentrated imagery. Images, not explanations.

Question 19

Metaphor

Answer 19

Comparison between two unrelated things without using “like” or “as”

Question 20

Mock-Epic

Answer 20

A type of satire, basically “gentle” satire of epic poetry.

Question 21

Ode

Answer 21

Deals with personal, reflective, literary themes - almost always serious tone, usually employ a pattern of repeated stanzas.

Question 22

Pastoral

Answer 22

Poem about idyllic rural country life.

Question 23

Personification

Answer 23

Any reference to an inanimate object, idea, or animal as if it were human

Question 24

Quatrain

Answer 24

Four-line stanza, usually rhymed

Question 25

Rhyme

Answer 25

Repetition of identical or similar sounds, usually in pairs and generally at the end of metrical lines

Question 26

Satire

Answer 26

A work that holds human failure up to ridicule and censure

Question 27

Simile

Answer 27

Explicit comparison using “like” or “as”

Question 28

Slant Rhyme

Answer 28

Imperfect or partial rhyme in which the final consonants match but the vowel sounds do not.

Question 29

Sonnet

Answer 29

A 14 line poem, usually with iambic pentameter, that follows one of two rhyme schemes: Italian/Petrarchan [abba abba cde cde] or Shakespearean/English [abab cdcd efef gg].

Question 30

Tenor

Answer 30

Primary subject, thing being compared.

Question 31

Tone

Answer 31

Speaker’s attitude or author’s attitude toward subject or audience.

Question 32

Vehicle

Answer 32

Thing to which the subject is being compared.