Literary Poetic Terms Flashcards
To help with the poetry analysis on the AP Lit test.
Allegory
a narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning because its events, actions, characters, settings, and objects represent specific abstractions or ideas.
Alliteration
the repetition of the same consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words.
Allusion
a brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature.
Anagrams
words made from the letters of other words, such as read and dare.
Anapest
a foot of poetry going from two unstressed to one stressed syllables.
Apostrophe
a rhetorical figure in which the speaker addresses either someone who is absent and therefore cannot hear the speaker or something that is nonhuman and cannot comprehend.
Assonance
the repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words.
Ballad
a song transmitted orally from generation to generation, that tells a story and that eventually is written down. Typically, ballads are dramatic, condensed, and impersonal narratives.
Ballad Stanza
a four-line stanza ,known as a quatrain, consisting of alternating eight-and-six-syllable lines. Usually only the second and fourth lines rhyme (abcb pattern).
Blank Verse
unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Carpe Diem
“Seize the day,” a common literary theme that emphasizes the shortness of life, and suggests that one should make the most present pleasures.
Caesura
a pause within a line of poetry.
Clichés
ideas or expressions that have become trite and tired from overuse.
Colloquially
in a conversational manner that may include using slang expressions not used by the culture at large.
Connotations
associations and implications that go beyond a word’s literal meanings and are based on context.
Consonance
an identical consonant sound preceded by a different vowel sound. (home –> same, worth –> breath, trophy –> daffy)
Controlling Metaphor
runs through an entire work and determines the form or nature of that work.
Conventional Symbol
something that is recognized by many people to represent certain ideas (roses, spring, the moon).
Cosmic Irony
a writer uses God, destiny, or fate to dash the hopes and expectations of a character or of humankind in general.
Couplet
two lines that usually rhyme and have the same meter.
Dactyl
a foot of poetry going from one stressed to two unstressed syllables.
Denotations
literal, dictionary meanings of a word.
Dialect
a type of informal diction that is spoken by definable groups of people from a particular geographic region, economic group, or social class.
Diction
choice of words.
Didactic Poetry
poetry designed to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson.
Dimeter
line containing two metrical feet.
Doggerel
lines whose subject manner is trite and whose rhythm and sounds are monotonously heavy-handed.
Dramatic Irony
a discrepancy between what a character believes or says and what the reader or audience member knows to be true.
Dramatic Monologue
a type of poem in which a character (the speaker) addresses a silent audience in such a way as to reveal unintentionally some aspect of his or her temperament or personality.
