Exam 2 Flashcards
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE-FL
The use of words, phrases, symbols, and ideas in such as way as to evoke mental
images and sense impressions. Figurative language is often characterized by the
use of figures of speech, elaborate expressions, sound devices, and syntactic
departures from the usual order of literal language.
IMAGERY-FL
The elements in a literary work used to evoke mental images, not only of the
visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well.
FIGURE OF SPEECH-FL
A mode of expression in which words are used out of their literal meaning or out
of their ordinary use in order to add beauty or emotional intensity or to transfer
the poet’s sense impressions by comparing or identifying one thing with another
that has a meaning familiar to the reader. Some important figures of speech are:
simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and symbol.
SIMILE-FL
A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two
essentially unlike things, usually using like, as or than.
METAPHOR-FL
A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one object or idea
is applied to another, thereby suggesting a likeness or analogy between them.
PERSONIFICATION-FL
A type of metaphor in which distinctive human characteristics, e.g., honesty,
emotion, volition, etc., are attributed to an animal, object, or idea, as “the haughty
lion surveyed his realm” or “my car was happy to be washed” or “‘Fate frowned
on his endeavors.” Personification is commonly used in allegory.
HYPERBOLE-FL
A bold, deliberate overstatement, e.g., “I’d give my right arm for a piece of pizza.”
Not intended to be taken literally, it is used as a means of emphasizing the truth of
a statement.
SYMBOL-FL
An image transferred by something that stands for or represents something else,
like flag for country, or autumn for maturity. Symbols can transfer the ideas
embodied in the image without stating them.
SYNESTHESIA-FL
The perception or description of one kind of sense impression in words normally
used to describe a different sense, like a “loud aroma” or a “velvety smile.”
LINE
A unit in the structure of a poem consisting of one or more metrical feet arranged
as a rhythmical entity.
STANZA
A division of a poem made by arranging the lines into units separated by a space,
usually of a corresponding number of lines.
STANZA FORMS
The names given to describe the number of lines in a stanzaic unit, such as:
couplet (2), tercet (3), quatrain (4), quintet (5), sestet (6), septet (7), and octave
(8).
END-STOPPED
Denoting a line of verse in which a logical or rhetorical pause occurs at the end of
the line, usually marked with a period, comma, or semicolon.
ENJAMBMENT
The continuation of the sense and therefore the grammatical construction beyond
the end of a line of verse or the end of a couplet.
COUPLET
Two lines
TERCET
Three lines
QUATRAIN
Four lines
QUINTET
Five lines
SESTET
Six lines
SEPTET
Seven lines
OCTAVE
Eight lines
CADENCE
The recurrent rhythmical pattern in lines of verse; also, the natural tone or
modulation of the voice determined by the alternation of accented or unaccented
syllables.
RHYTHM
An essential of all poetry, the regular or progressive pattern of recurrent accents in
the flow of a poem as determined by the arses and theses of the metrical feet, i.e.,
the rise and fall of stress. The measure of rhythmic quantity is the meter.
METER or METRE
A measure of rhythmic quantity; the organized succession of groups of syllables
at basically regular intervals in a line of poetry.
