Figurative Language & Poetry Flashcards
Anapestic Meter
Meter that is composed of feet that are uul– used in limericks or whimsical poetrry
Aphorism
A wise saying, usually short
Apostrophe
A turn from the general audience to address a specific group of persons or a personified abstraction that is present or absent “O Death!”
Assonance
repetition of vowel sounds within words to create internal rhyming
Blank verse
Does not rhyme, but has meter. Usually iambic pentameter
Caesura
A break or natural pause in a line of verse marked in prosody by ‘’
Characterization
A method an author uses to let readers know more about the characters and their traits
Consonance
Repetition of consonant sound in words with different vowel sounds– stroke of luck. Pitter Patter. (Alliteration is consonance of initial consonant)
Couplet
A stanza made up of 2 rhyming lines. “Heroic” if in iambic pentameter
Types of Diction
Archaic Colloquial Dialect Jargon Profanity Slang Vulgarity
End Rhyme
Rhyming of the ends of lines of verse
Enjambment
A run-on line of poetry that continues into the next line to complete meaning
Existentialism
A literary movement/philosophy that holds that thinking begins with the human subject and her feelings of confusion and disorientation towards an absurd and seemingly random world
Foot
A metrical foot is defined as one stressed and a varying number of unstressed syllables (0–4)
Types of Metrical Feet
Iambic: u/
Trochaic: /u
Anapestic: uu/
Dactylic: /uu
Poetic Line Lengths
By number of feet: 1- monometer 2- dimeter 3- trimeter 4-tetrameter 5-pentameter 6-hexameter 7-septameter 8-octameter
Free verse
no rhyme or meter scheme (vers libre)
Internal rhyme
Rhyme that occurs within a line of verse
Irony– Types
Dramatic: reader sees character’s errors, character doesn’t
Verbal: writer says one thing, means another
Situation: the purpose/intent of an action differs greatly from the result
Metaphor
comparison is implied but not stated. She is a beast.
Meter
Rhythmical pattern in verse
Paradox
Hegel: Man learns from history that man learns nothing from history
POV types
First person– story told from POV of one character
Third person– told by someone outside the story
Omniscient–The narrator of the story shares thoughts feelings all characters
Limited Omniscient– Narrator shares thoughts/feelings of one character
Camera View– Narrator records action from their pov with no awareness of other characters’ thoughts/feelings
Transcendentalism
philosophy focused on refuting puritan ethic and materialism. Valued individualism, freedom, experimentation, nature, and spirituality. Includes Nathaniel Hawthorne, Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes
Ballad
short poem, often anonymous, comprised of short verses intended to be sung or recited. Four line stanzas. Often alternating between iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter with a rhyme scheme of ABCB
Metaphysical Poets
John Donne- known for strange extended metaphors, often witty… Idea that the mingling of their blood inside a flea makes two lovers one.
Elegy
Mournful poem lamenting the dead
Haiku
5-7-5 syllables. Expresses single thought.
Limerick
Humorous verse of 5 anapestic feet with a rhyme scheme of aabba
Lyric
short poem about personal feelings and emotions
Sonnet
14 line poem, usually in iambic pentameter with a varied rhyme scheme. Petrarchian/Italian (opens with an octave containing a proposition and ends with a sestet that states the solution) or Shakespearean/English (3 quatrains and a couplet)
Stanzas
Couplet: 2 lines Triplet: 3 lines Quatrain: 4 lines Quintet: 5 lines Sestet: 6 lines Septet: 7 lines Octave: 8 lines
Sestina
A sestina (Occitan: sestina [sesˈtinɔ]; Catalan: sextina [sə(k)sˈtinə] or [se(k)sˈtina]; also known as sestine, sextine, sextain or sesta rima) is a structured 39-line poetic form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a three-line stanza, known either as an envoi, tornada, or tercet.
Terza Rima
Terza rima is a three-line stanza using chain rhyme in the pattern A-B-A, B-C-B, C-D-C, D-E-D. There is no limit to the number of lines, but poems or sections of poems written in terza rima end with either a single line or couplet repeating the rhyme of the middle line of the final tercet. The two possible endings for the example above are d-e-d, e or d-e-d, e-e. There is no set rhythm for terza rima, but in English, iambic pentameter is generally preferred. First used by Dante in Divine Comedy
Frame Tale
A narrative technique in which main story is composed primarily for purpose of organizing a set of shorter stories, each of which is a story within a story. Canterbury Tales, Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Wuthering Heights.
Legend
Narrative about human actions that is perceived by teller/audience to have taken place within human history and possess certain qualities that give the appearance of truth/reality
Myth
Narrative fiction that involves gods/heroes or has a theme that expresses a culture’s ideology.
Romance
A novel comprised of idealized events far removed from everyday life. Includes subgenres of gothic romance (Frankenstein) and medieval romance
Tragedy
Literature, often drama, ending in a catastrophic event for the protagonist(s)after he or she faces several problems or conflicts
Villanelle
19 line poem with 5 triplets and a concluding quatrain. Rhyme scheme of only A & B. Lines 1 and 3 repeated throughout
Sestina
A poem of 6 sextets. Repeats end words rather than rhyming lines.
Pantoum (Malay in origin)
Poem composed of a series of quatrains with repeating lines. The 2nd and 4th lines of 1 quatrain are the 1st and 3rd lines of the next.
No limit to number of quatrains, but 4 is common number.
The last quatrain gets crazy: The 1st and 3rd lines of the last stanza are the 2nd and 4th of the penultimate; the first line of the poem is the last line of the final stanza, and the third line of the first stanza is the second of the final.
spondee/spondaic
foot of 2 stressed syllables // ex: football racetrack drop-dead
pyhrric
foot of 2 sort unstressed syllables uu ex: When the blood creeps and the nerves prick (when the, and the)
prosody
study of the rhythm and meter of language
apophasis
Raising of an issue by claiming not to mention it.
bathos
sudden appearance of the commonplace, triteness, sentimentality
doggerel
loosely styled or irregular prose, especially for comic or burlesque effect.
coda
a concluding section– usually of a musical piece but now applied to texts, films, etc.
Middle English
Used between 12th and 15th Centuries. Developed out of Late Old English (Norman English). Used by Chaucer and Langland, became the language of early English literature… represented shift from Anglo-Saxon after Norman Conquest.
