Poetic Methods

Question 1

Antithesis

Answer 1

A person/thing that is the direct opposite of something else.

Question 2

Allegory

Answer 2

A kind of extended metaphor in which objects, persons or actions stand for another meaning.

Question 3

Alliteration

Answer 3

Alliteration happens when words that begin with the same sound are placed close to one another.

Question 4

Allusion

Answer 4

Calling something to mind without referencing it explicitly.

Question 5

Anaphora

Answer 5

(Repetition) the repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses or sections.

Question 6

Assonance

Answer 6

Resemblance of sound between syllables of nearby words.

Question 7

Archaic

Answer 7

Lexis used no longer in everyday use but sometimes used to impart an old-fashioned flavour.

Question 8

Blank Verse

Answer 8

A verse without rhyme, especially that which uses iambic pentameters.

Question 9

Caesura

Answer 9

A pause near the middle of a line.

Question 10

Couplet

Answer 10

A pair of successive lines of verse, typically rhyming and of the same length.

Question 11

Cyclical Structure

Answer 11

Coming full circle, returning to the idea of the first stanza in the last.

Question 12

Didactic

Answer 12

Teaching/having moral instruction as an ulterior motive.

Question 13

Ellipses

Answer 13

Used in narratives to omit some parts of a sentence or event.

Question 14

Enjambment

Answer 14

When a phrase carries over a line-break without a major pause.

Question 15

Extended Metaphor

Answer 15

A central metaphor that acts like an “umbrella” to connect other metaphors or comparisons within it. It can span several lines or an entire poem.

Question 16

Free Verse

Answer 16

A poetic style that lacks a regular meter or rhyme scheme.

Question 17

Fatalistic

Answer 17

Characteristic of the belief that all events are predetermined and therefore inevitable.

Question 18

Hyperbole

Answer 18

A hyperbole is a gross exaggeration.

Question 19

Iambic Pentameter

Answer 19

A rhythmic pattern that consist of five iambs per line. It’s the most common rhythm in English poetry and sounds like five heartbeats: ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM, ba-DUM.

Question 20

Imagery

Answer 20

Intense, descriptive language in a poem that helps to trigger our senses and our memories when we read it.

Question 21

Irony

Answer 21

Irony involves saying one thing while really meaning another.

Question 22

Juxtaposition

Answer 22

Two things close together with contrasting effect. (Opposites).

Question 23

Metaphor

Answer 23

A metaphor happens when one thing is described as being another thing.

Question 24

Omniscient Narrator

Answer 24

Third-person narration in which the teller of the tale, who often appears to speak with the voice of the author himself, assumes an omniscient (all-knowing) perspective on the story being told.

Question 25

Oxymoron

Answer 25

An oxymoron is the combination of two terms ordinarily seen as opposites.

Question 26

Paradox

Answer 26

A statement that contradicts itself and nonetheless seems true.

Question 27

Pathetic Fallacy

Answer 27

Attributes human qualities and emotions to nature e.g. weather.

Question 28

Personification

Answer 28

Personification involves giving human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to non-living objects (things, colours, qualities, or ideas).

Question 29

Quatrain

Answer 29

A stanza with four lines. Quatrains are the most common stanza form.

Question 30

Rhetorical Question

Answer 30

Rhetorical questions involve asking a question for a purpose other than obtaining the information requested.

Question 31

Rhyming Couplet

Answer 31

A pair of verses that rhyme, usually the same length.

Question 32

Tercet

Answer 32

A set or group of three lines of verse rhyming together or connected by rhyme with an adjacent triplet.

Question 33

Unreliable Narrator

Answer 33

A narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised.

Question 34

Superlative

Answer 34

Indicates that something has more of a quality than anything else in a group.

Question 35

Inconclusive Ending

Answer 35

When the poem does not finish on an end-stop.

Question 36

Temporal Marker

Answer 36

Used to highlight the most important shifts in their narratives, or to mark intermediate breaks, or to signal a locus of high continuity.

Question 37

Symbolism

Answer 37

Use of symbols in order to represent something

Question 38

Synecdoche

Answer 38

A figure of speech in which a part is substituted for a whole or a whole for a part.

Question 39

Syntax

Answer 39

The ways that words can be put together, or are put together, in order to make sentences.

Question 40

Neologism

Answer 40

A new word or expression in a language, or a new meaning for an existing word or expression.

Question 41

Apostrophe

Answer 41

Directly addressing a dead or absent person/thing.

Question 42

Ellision

Answer 42

Omission of unstressed symbols; e.g. ‘ere’ for ever.

Question 43

Litotes

Answer 43

Opposite of hyperbole; very deliberate understatement.

Question 44

Metonymy

Answer 44

When a related term is substituted for the word itself; e.g. ‘the British monarch is often referred to as the crown’.

Question 45

Villanelle

Answer 45

A French verse form consisting of 5, 3-line stanzas and a final quatrain.