Figurative Language and Poetry Flashcards
apostrophe
the addressing of a usually absent person or a usually personified thing rhetorically - “Love, who needs you?”
conceit
an elaborate or strained metaphor - “Life is a bowl of cherries”
hyperbole
extravagant exaggeration - “I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse.”
metonymy
a figure of speech consisting of the use of the name of one thing for that of another of which it is an attribute or with which it is associated - referring to the president as the White House
synecdoche
a figure of speech in which a part is put for the whole - “hungry mouths to feed” “new set of wheels”
synesthesia
a subjective sensation or image of a sense other than the one being simulated - “From what I’ve tasted of desire” Robert Frost
assonance
relatively close juxtaposition of similar sounds especially of vowels; repetition of vowels without repetition of consonants - “He fell asleep under the cherry tree”
ballad
a narrative composition in rhythmic verse suitable for singing; four line stanzas; passed down orally - “I Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” by Elvis Presley
blank verse
poetry written in unrhymed but metered lines written in Iambic Pentameter - “To die-to sleep. To sleep-perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub!” Shakespeare
consonance
recurrence or repetition of consonants especially at the end of stressed syllables without the similar correspondence of vowels - “Mike likes his new bike.”
heroic couplet
a pair of rhyming iambic pentameters, much used by Chaucer and the poets of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Alexander Pope - “Cooper’s Hill” by Sir John Denham
iamb
a metrical foot consisting of one short syllable followed by one long syllable or of one unstressed soluble followed by one stressed syllable - amuse, portray, delight
iambic pentameter
a line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short syllable followed by one long syllable - “Her vestal livery is but sick and green
elegy
a song or poem expressing sorrow or lamentation especially for one who is dead; a poem in elegiac couplets - “Lycidas” by John Milton
enjambment
the running over of a sentence from one verse or couplet into another so that closely related words fall in different lines - “I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I / Did, till we loved” John Donne
epic poetry
a long, narrative poem that is usually about heroic deeds and events that are significant to the culture of the poet - “The Iliad” by Homer
free verse
poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter; no rules - “so much depends / upon / a red wheel / barrow / glazed with rain / water / beside the white / chickens” “The Red Wheelbarrow” by William Carlos Williams
lyric poetry
a short, highly musical verse that conveys powerful feelings; rhyming; emotional - “I felt a funeral, in my brain” by Emily Dickenson
ode
a lyric poem usually marked by exaltation of feelings and style, varying length of line, and complexity of stanza forms; celebrates something, is a lyric poem - “America” by Robert Creeley
slant rhyme
a type of rhyme with words that have similar, but not identical sounds - worm and swarm
terza rima
an arrangement of triplets, especially in iambs, that rhyme - “Shall we go dance the hay, the hay? / Never pipe could ever play / Better shepherd’s roundelay” in “Country Song” by Nicholas Breton
villanelle
a chiefly French verse form running on two rhymes and consisting typically of five tercets and a quatrain in which the first and third lines of the opening tercet recur alternately at the end of the other tercets and together as the last two lines of the quatrain; 19 lines: 5 tercets, 1 quatrain, STRICT- “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke
