Glossary terms

Question 1

Diction

Answer 1

choice of words and/or grammatical constructions (i.e., formal, colloquial, jargon, slang,
etc.)

Question 2

Connotation

Answer 2

suggested or associated meaning. (skeleton = death)

Question 3

Denotation

Answer 3

-dictionary definition. (skeleton = bony structure)

Question 4

Imagery

Answer 4

• sensory content of poems; appeals to the five senses.

Question 5

Tone

Answer 5

the attitude of the author, evident from the diction, use of symbolism, irony, and figures of
speech. (Tone can be described as playful, sad, happy, humorous, etc.).

Question 6

simile

Answer 6

items from different classes are compared by a connective such as “like,” “as,” or
“than” or by a verb such as “appears” or “seems.” If the objects compared are from the same
class, e.g., “New York is like Chicago,” no simile is present. An appropriate simile: “She is like
the rose.”

Question 7

metaphor

Answer 7

items from different classes are implicitly compared, WITHOUT a connective
such as “like” or “as.” (“She is the rose, the glory of the day.”)

Question 8

metonymy

Answer 8

something is named that replaces something closely related to it. (In the
following passage, James Shirley names certain objects [“Scepter and crown,” “scythe
and spade”], using them to replace social classes [powerful people and poor people]
to which they are related:

Question 9

synecdoche

Answer 9

the whole is replaced by the part, or the part by the whole. (“He has a
new set of WHEELS.” “Give me a HAND.”)

Question 10

personification

Answer 10

giving human qualities to abstractions or inanimate objects such as love,
beauty, etc. (“The cat, disappointed, wondered where I’d been all day.” ; “When love calls,
wild hearts fly.”)

Question 11

apostrophe

Answer 11

an address to a person or thing not literally listening. (“O Santa, bring me that
Porsche I’ve always wanted….” “O lovely rose, your perfume fills the air.”)

Question 12

Irony

Answer 12

without using figures of speech, speakers may use this device, saying things that are
not to be taken literally, forming a contrast.

Question 13

verbal irony

Answer 13

• contrast between what is said and what is meant.

Question 14

sarcasm

Answer 14

heavy, mocking verbal irony. Almost never found in literature.

Question 15

understatement

Answer 15

saying less than what is meant. (to Bill Clinton: “I suppose you have
a FEW things on y our mind….”)

Question 16

hyperbole (overstatement)

Answer 16

exaggeration. (“He died a thousand deaths.”

Question 17

situational irony

Answer 17

contrast between what is intended and what is accomplished.

Question 18

Paradox

Answer 18

an apparent contradiction. (“He who would save his life must lose it” or “The child
is father of the man.”)

Question 19

Allusion

Answer 19

• a reference in a literary work to a person, place, or thing in history or another
  work of literature.

Question 20

Symbol

Answer 20

an image loaded with significance beyond literal definition; suggestive rather than
definitive.

Question 21

natural symbols

Answer 21

symbols recognized as standing for something in particular even by
people from different cultures. (Rain usually stands for fertility or the renewal of life; a
forest–mental darkness or chaos; a mountain–stability, etc.).

Question 22

conventional symbols

Answer 22

symbols which people have agreed to accept as standing for
something other than themselves (a poem about the cross would probably be about
Christianity; similarly, the rose has long been a symbol for love).

Question 23

Stanza

Answer 23

a rhythmical unit in which lines of poetry are commonly arranged (from an Italian word
meaning “room” or “stopping-place”).

Question 24

Meter

Answer 24

a pattern of stressed (accented) sounds in English poetry (meter from the Greek word for
“measure”).

Question 25

rhyme

Answer 25

the repetition of sounds

Question 26

alliteration

Answer 26

• sometimes defined as the repetition of initial sounds (“All the awful auguries,”
  or “Bring me my bow of burning gold”), and sometimes as the prominent repetition of a
  consonant (“after life’s fitful fever”).

Question 27

assonance

Answer 27

the repetition, in words of proximity, of identical vowel sounds preceded and
followed by differing consonant sounds. (Whereas tide and hide are rhymes, tide and mine
are assonantal.)

Question 28

consonance

Answer 28

the repetition of identical consonant sounds and differing vowel sounds in
words in proximity (fail/feel, rough/roof, pitter/patter). Sometimes consonance is more
loosely defined as the repetition of a consonant (fail/peel).

Question 29

Onomatopoeia

Answer 29

the use of words that imitate sounds, such as hiss or buzz.

Question 30

couplet

Answer 30

a stanza of two lines, usually, but not necessarily, with end-rhymes.

Question 31

triplet (or tercet)

Answer 31

a three-line stanza, usually with one rhyme

Question 32

quatrain

Answer 32

a four-line stanza, rhymed or unrhymed

Question 33

sonnet

Answer 33

a closed, fixed form. A fourteen-line poem, predominantly in iambic pentameter.

Question 34

villanelle

Answer 34

a closed, fixed French form; 5 tercets and a quatrain.

Question 35

blank verse

Answer 35

English poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Question 36

free verse

Answer 36

rhythmical lines varying in length, adhering to no fixed metrical
pattern, and usually unrhymed. Seems formless but is not. Form or pattern often largely
based on repetition and parallel grammatical structure.

Question 37

Lyric poem

Answer 37

rie. Whereas a narrative is set in the past, telling what happened, a
lyric is set in the present, catching a speaker in a moment of expression. (A lyric can, of
course, glance forward or backward.)

Question 38

elegy

Answer 38

a lyric poem that is melancholy or mournfully contemplative; sometimes
laments a death.

Question 39

ode (hymn)

Answer 39

a lyric poem that is long, elaborate, and on a lofty theme such as
immortality or a hero’s victory.

Question 40

Narrative poem

Answer 40

a poem whose main purpose is to tell a story.