Literary Terms Flashcards
Poet
The poet is the author of the poem
Poetry
A type of literature that expresses ideas, feelings, or tells a story in a specific form (usually using lines and stanzas)
Speaker
The speaker of the poem is the “narrator” of the poem
Form
The appearance of the words on the page
Line
A group of words together on one line of the poem
Stanza
A group of lines arranged together
A two line stanza
Couplet
A three line stanza
Triplet/Tercet
A four line stanza
Quatrain
A five line stanza
Quintet
A six line stanza
Sestet/Sextet
A seven line stanza
Septet
An eight line stanza
Octave
Rhythm
The beat is created by the sounds of the words in the poem
Rhythm can be created by meter, rhyme, alliteration, and refrain
Meter
A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables
Meter occurs when
the stresses and unstressed syllables of the words in a poem are arranged in a repeating pattern
______have to rhyme
Does NOT
End Rhyme
A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line
Rhyme Scheme
A rhyme scheme is a pattern of rhyme (usually end rhyme, but not always)
Labeling a rhyme scheme using letters of the alphabet (a,b,c) to visually see the pattern
Onomatopoeia
Words that imitate the sound they are naming
Ex: BUZZ
Alliteration
Consonant sounds repeated at the beginning of words
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
Idiom
An expression where the literal meaning of the words is not the meaning of the expression. It means something other than what it actually says.
Ex. It’s raining cats and dogs
