Final Flashcards
Synthesia
An attempt to fuse different senses by describing one kind of sense impression in words normally used to describe another.
Haiku
A Japanese form of poetry consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables.
Limerick
A light or humorous form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which lines one, two, and five are three feet and lines three and four are two feet, with a rhyme scheme of aabba.
Pun
Word play in which words with totally different meanings have similar or identical sounds.
ex: Like a firefly in the rain, I’m de-lighted.
Denotation
The dictionary definition of a word.
Hyperbole
An outrageous exaggeration used for effect.
ex: He weighs a ton.
Cacophony
A discordant series of harsh, unpleasant sounds that helps to convey disorder. This is often furthered by the combined effect of the meaning and the difficulty of pronunciation.
ex: My stick fingers click with a snicker, And, chuckling, they knuckle the keys…
Onomatopoeia
Words that sound like their meanings.
ex: boom, buzz, pop, hiss, whir, sizzle
Repitition
The purposeful re-use of words and phrases for an effect.
ex: Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward…
Rhyme
Words that have different beginning sounds but those endings sound alike
ex: time, slime, mime
Tone and mood
The means by which a poet reveals attitudes and feelings, in the style of language or expression of thought used to develop the subject.
Simile
A direct comparison using “like” or “as”
ex: He’s as dumb as an ox
Assonance
Repeated vowel sounds in words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines. These should be in sounds that are accented or stressed.
ex: He’s a bruisin’ loser.
Metaphor
A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one IS the other.
ex: He’s a burro.
Sight rhymes
Words that are spelled the same (as if they rhymed), but are pronounced differently.
ex: enough, cough, bough, through
Rhythm
Verbal stresses in a regular pattern of accented syllables seperated by unaccented syllables. Rhythm helps to distinguish poetry from prose.
ex: i THOUGHT i SAW a PUSsyCAT
Near Rhyme
The final vowel sounds are the same, but the final consonant sounds are slightly different.
ex: poem/goin’
Verse
One single line of a poem arranged in a metrical pattern.
Synecdoche
Indicating a person, object, etc. by letting only a certain part represent a whole.
ex: all hands on deck
Stanza Forms
The names given to describe the number of lines in a stanzaic unit, such as: couplet, tercet, quatrain, quintet, sestet, septet, and octave
Enjambment
The continuation of the logical sense- and therefore the grammatical construction- beyond the end of a line of poetry. This is sometimes done with the title, which in effect becomes the first line of the poem.
Metonymy
A figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing is referred to by something closely associated with it.
ex: The White House stated today that…
The Crown reported…
Allegory
A representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning. Often, it is a symbolic narrative that has not only a literal meaning, but a larger one understood only after reading the entire story or poem.
Consonance
Repeated consonant sounds at the ending of words placed near each other, usually in sounds that are stressed for a pleasing kind of near-rhyme.
ex: cool soul
Irony
A contradictory statement or situation to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true.
ex: Wow, thanks for the expensive gift… let’s see, did it come with a Fun Meal, or the Burger King equivalent?
Imagery
The use of vivid language to generate ideas and/or evoke metal images, not only for the usual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well. While most commonly used in reference to figurative language, imagery can apply to any component of a poem that evokes sensory experience and emotional response, and also applies to the concrete things so brought to mind.
Form
The arrangement or method used to convey the content, such as free verse, ballad, or haiku.
Rhyme Scheme
The pattern established by the arrangement of rhymes in a stanza or poem, generally described by using letters to denote the recurrence of rhyming lines.
ex: ababbcc
Shakespearean Sonnet
A style of sonnet used by Shakespeare that followed the rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg.
Sonnet
A fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed rhyme scheme, its subject was traditionally love.
Line
The line is fundamental to the perception of poetry, it is a unit of poetry.
Contrast
Closely arranged things with strikingly different characteristics.
ex: He was dark, sinister, and cruel; She was radiant, pleasant, and fine.
Personification
Attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, animal, or abstract idea.
ex: The days crept by slowly, sorrowfully.
Paradox
A statement in which a seeming contradiction may reveal an unexpected truth.
ex: The hurrier I go The behinder I get.
Stanza
A group of verses; a division of a poem created by arranging the lines in to a unit.
Apostrophe
Speaking directly to a real or imagined listener or inanimate object; adressing that person or thing by name.
ex: O Captain! O Captain! our fearful trip is done…
Parallelism
A type of repitition, where each phrase contains a different key word.
ex: Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them…
Analogy
A comparison, usually to something familiar
ex: The plumbing took a maze of turns where even water got lost.
Scansion
The concious measure of the pattern of stressed and un-stressed syllables in a line of poetry.
Euphony
A series of musically pleasant sounds, conveying a sense of harmony and beauty to the language.
ex: The oars divide the ocean,
Too silver for a seam-
Or butterflies, off Banks of Noon
Leap, plashless as they swim
Free Verse
Has lines with no prescribed pattern or structure- the poet determines all the variables as seems appropriate for each poem.
Lyrics
Derived from the Greek word for lyre, lyric poetry was originally designed to be sung.
Epigram
A pithy, sometimes satiric, couplet or quatrain comprising a single thought or event and often aphoristic with a witty or humorous turn of thought.
Oxymoron
A combination of two words that appear to contradict each other
ex: bittersweet
Fixed Form
A poem which follows a set pattern of meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form, and refrain.
Alliteration
Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines.
ex: fast and furious
Rhetorical Questions
A question solely for effect, doesn’t require an answer.
Ode
Any of several stanzaic forms more complex than the lyric, with intricate rhyme schemes and irregular number of lines, generally of considerable length, always written in a style marked by a rich, intense expression of an elevated thought praising a person or object.
Ambiguity
A word or phrase that can mean more than one thing, even in its context. Poets often search out such words to add richness to their work. Often, one meaning seems quite readily apparent, but other, darker/deeper meanings await those who contemplate the poem.
Euphemism
An understatement, used to lessen the effect of a statement; substituting something innocuous for something that might be offensive or hurtful.
ex: She is at rest (meaning- she’s dead)
Symbol
An ordinary object, event, animal, or person to which we have attatched extraordinary meaning and significance.
ex: a flag to represent a country
Allusion
A brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological situation or character.
Cliche
Any figure of speech that was once clever and original, but through overuse has become outdated.
ex: busy as a bee
Connotation
The emotional, psychological or social overtones of a word; its implications and associations apart from its literal meaning.
Point of View
The authors POV concentrates on the vantage point of the speaker of the story/poem.
1st person POV
The story is narrated by one character at a time. This character may be speaking about him/herself or sharing events that he/she is experiencing.
2nd person POV
The protagonist or another main character is referred to by second-person personal pronouns and other kinds of addressing forms, for example the English second-person pronoun “you.”
3rd person POV
Limited: The narrator only knows the thoughts and feelings of one character. All characters are described using pronouns, such as ‘they,’ ‘he,’ and ‘she.’ But, one character is closely followed throughout the story, and it is typically a main character.
Omniscient: The narrator knows the thoughts and feelings of all of the characters in the story, as opposed to third person limited, which adheres closely to one character’s perspective.
