Glossary of Poetic Devices Flashcards
Allegory
An extended metaphor in which the characters, places and objects in a narrative carry figurative meaning.
Allusion
A brief, intentional reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, or movement.
Anadiplosis
The repetition of the last word of one clause or sentence at the beginning of the next.
Anaphora
Often used in political speeches and occasionally in prose and poetry, anaphora is the repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines to create a sonic effect.
Anthropomorphism
A form of personification in which human qualities are attributed to anything inhuman, usually a good, animal, object, or concept.
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called vowel rhyme.
Aysndeton
The omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence, as in “I came, I saw, I conquered”.
Blank verse
Unrhyming iambic pentameter, also called heroic verse. This 10-syllable line is the predominant rhythm of traditional English dramatic and epic poetry, as it is considered the closest to English speech patterns.
Caesura
A stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary.
Chremamorphism
Chremamorphism is giving characteristics of an object to a person.
Dramatic monologue
A poem in which an imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually not the reader.
Eclogue
A brief, dramatic pastoral poem, set in an idyllic rural place but discussing urban, legal, political, or societal issues.
End-stopped
A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break - such as a dash or closing parenthesis - or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a full stop.
Enjambment
The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped.
Free verse
Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition.
Fricative
A consonant sound such as English f or v, produced by bringing the mouth into position to block the passage of airflow, but not making complete closure so that air moving through the mouth generates audible friction.
Imagery
Elements of a poem that invoke any of the five senses to create a set of mental images.
Litotes
A deliberate understatement for effect; the opposite of hyperbole.
Motif
A central or recurring image or action in a literary work and may serve an overall theme.
Onomatopoeia
A figure of speech in which the sound of a word imitates it’s sense.
Oxymoron
A figure of speech that brings together contradictory words for effect, such as “deafening silence”.
Panegyric
A poem of effusive praise. Its origins are Greek, and it is closely related to the eulogy and the ode.
Persona
A dramatic character, distinguished from the poet, who is the speaker of the poem.
Personification
A figure of speech in which the poet describes an abstraction, a thing, or a nonhuman form as if it were a person.
Plosive
Sounds usually associated with the letters p, t, k, b, d, g, in which air flow from the lungs is interrupted by a complete closure being made in the mouth.
Polysyndeton
The use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially where some could otherwise be omitted, as in “he ran and jumped and laughed for joy”.
Quatrain
A four-line stanza, rhyming.
Refrain
A phrase or line repeated at intervals within a poem, especially at the end of a stanza.
Synesthesia
In description, a blending or intermingling of different sense modalities.
Tercet
A poetic unit of three lines, rhymed or unrhymed.
