Literary Poetic Terms

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

a narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning because its events, actions, characters, settings, and objects represent specific abstractions or ideas.

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

the repetition of the same consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words.

Question 3

Allusion

Answer 3

a brief reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature.

Question 4

Anagrams

Answer 4

words made from the letters of other words, such as read and dare.

Question 5

Anapest

Answer 5

a foot of poetry going from two unstressed to one stressed syllables.

Question 6

Apostrophe

Answer 6

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.

Question 7

Assonance

Answer 7

the repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words.

Question 8

Ballad

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

Ballad Stanza

Answer 9

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).

Question 10

Blank Verse

Answer 10

unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Question 11

Carpe Diem

Answer 11

“Seize the day,” a common literary theme that emphasizes the shortness of life, and suggests that one should make the most present pleasures.

Question 12

Caesura

Answer 12

a pause within a line of poetry.

Question 13

Clichés

Answer 13

ideas or expressions that have become trite and tired from overuse.

Question 14

Colloquially

Answer 14

in a conversational manner that may include using slang expressions not used by the culture at large.

Question 15

Connotations

Answer 15

associations and implications that go beyond a word’s literal meanings and are based on context.

Question 16

Consonance

Answer 16

an identical consonant sound preceded by a different vowel sound. (home –> same, worth –> breath, trophy –> daffy)

Question 17

Controlling Metaphor

Answer 17

runs through an entire work and determines the form or nature of that work.

Question 18

Conventional Symbol

Answer 18

something that is recognized by many people to represent certain ideas (roses, spring, the moon).

Question 19

Cosmic Irony

Answer 19

a writer uses God, destiny, or fate to dash the hopes and expectations of a character or of humankind in general.

Question 20

Couplet

Answer 20

two lines that usually rhyme and have the same meter.

Question 21

Dactyl

Answer 21

a foot of poetry going from one stressed to two unstressed syllables.

Question 22

Denotations

Answer 22

literal, dictionary meanings of a word.

Question 23

Dialect

Answer 23

a type of informal diction that is spoken by definable groups of people from a particular geographic region, economic group, or social class.

Question 24

Diction

Answer 24

choice of words.

Question 25

Didactic Poetry

Answer 25

poetry designed to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson.

Question 26

Dimeter

Answer 26

line containing two metrical feet.

Question 27

Doggerel

Answer 27

lines whose subject manner is trite and whose rhythm and sounds are monotonously heavy-handed.

Question 28

Dramatic Irony

Answer 28

a discrepancy between what a character believes or says and what the reader or audience member knows to be true.

Question 29

Dramatic Monologue

Answer 29

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.