Poetic terms

Question 1

Alliteration

Answer 1

the repetition of consonant sounds

Question 2

Allegory

Answer 2

narrative with two levels of meaning, one stated and one unstated

Question 3

Allusion

Answer 3

unacknowledged reference and quotations that authors assume their readers will recognize

Question 4

Apostrophe

Answer 4

direct address to an absent or otherwise unresponsive entity

Question 5

Assonance

Answer 5

the repetition of vowel sounds

Question 6

Ballad

Answer 6

a narrative poem composed of quatrains (iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter) rhyming x-a-x-a. Ballads may use refrains. Examples: “Jackaroe,” “The Long Black Veil”

Question 7

What is common meter or hymn measure and who in the syllabus uses it

Answer 7

iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter

Emily Dickinson

Question 8

End-stopped line

Answer 8

a line ending in a full pause, usually indicated with a period or semicolon

Question 9

Enjambment

Answer 9

a line having no end punctuation but running over to the next line

Question 10

Heroic couplet

Answer 10

two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter; the second line is usually end-stopped

Question 11

Hyperbole (overstatement) and litotes (understatement)

Answer 11

hyperbole is exaggeration for effect; litotes is understatement for effect, often used for irony

Question 12

Iamb (iambic)

Answer 12

an unstressed stressed foot

Question 13

Iambic pentameter

Answer 13

the most natural and common kind of meter in English; it elevates speech to poetry. Five iambs (often then ten syllables).

Question 14

Image

Answer 14

references that trigger the mind to fuse together memories of sight (visual), sounds (auditory), tastes (gustatory), smells (olfactory), and sensations of touch (tactile). Imagery refers to images throughout a work or throughout the works of a writer or group of writers

Question 15

Internal rhyme

Answer 15

an exact rhyme (rather than rhyming vowel sounds, as with assonance) within a line of poetry: “Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary.”

Question 16

Metaphor

Answer 16

a comparison between two unlike things, this describes one thing as if it were something else. Does not use “like” or “as” for the comparison (see simile)

Question 17

Metaphysical conceit

Answer 17

an elaborate and extended metaphor or simile that links two apparently unrelated fields or subjects in an unusual and surprising conjunction of ideas. The term is commonly applied to the metaphorical language of a number of early seventeenth-century poets, particularly John Donne. Example: stiff twin compasses//the joining together of lovers like legs of a compass. See “To His Coy Mistress”

Question 18

Onomatopoeia

Answer 18

a blending of consonant and vowel sounds designed to imitate or suggest the activity being described. Example: buzz, slurp

Question 19

Paradox

Answer 19

a rhetorical figure embodying a seeming contradiction that is nonetheless true

Question 20

Parallelism

Answer 20

where parts of a phrase that are grammatically similar, often repeating a specific word, phrase, or idea, to another phrase

Question 21

Personification

Answer 21

attributing human characteristics to nonhuman things or
abstractions

Question 22

Petrarchan sonnet

Answer 22

a sonnet (14 lines of rhyming iambic pentameter) that divides into an octave (8) and sestet (6). There is a “volta,” or “turning” of the subject matter between the octave and sestet

Question 23

Rhyme

Answer 23

the repetition of identical concluding syllables in different words, most often at the ends of lines. Example: June–moon

Question 24

Double rhyme or trochaic rhyme

Answer 24

rhyming words of two syllables in which the first syllable is accented (flower, shower)

Question 25

Triple rhyme or dactylic rhyme

Answer 25

rhyming words of three or more syllables in which any syllable but the last is accented. Example: Macavity/gravity/depravity

Question 26

Eye rhyme

Answer 26

words that seem to rhyme because they are spelled identically but pronounced differently. Example: bear/fear, dough/cough/through/bough

Question 27

Slant rhyme

Answer 27

a near rhyme in which the concluding consonant sounds are identical but not the vowels. Example: sun/noon, should/food, slim/ham

Question 28

Rhyme scheme

Answer 28

the pattern of rhyme, usually indicated by assigning a letter of the alphabet to each rhyme at the end of a line of poetry

Question 29

Rhyme royal

Answer 29

stanza form used by Chaucer, usually in iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme ababbcc. Example: Wordsworth’s “Resolution and Independence”

Question 30

Scan (scansion)

Answer 30

the process of marking beats in a poem to establish the prevailing metrical pattern. Prosody, the pronunciation of a song or poem, is necessary for scansion

Question 31

Anapest

Answer 31

unstressed unstressed stressed. Also called “galloping meter.”
Example: ‘Twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas, and ALL through the HOUSE/ Not a CREAture was STIRring, not EVen a MOUSE.”

Question 32

Dactyl (dactylic)

Answer 32

stressed unstressed unstressed. This pattern is more common (as dactylic hexameter) in Latin poetry than in English poetry. (Emphasized syllables are in caps. Some of the three-syllable words below are natural dactyls: firmaments, practical, tactical

Example: GRAND go the YEARS in the CREScent aBOVE them/WORLDS scoop their ARCS/ and FIRMaments ROW (Emily Dickinson, “Safe in their Alabaster Chambers”)

Question 33

Spondee

Answer 33

stressed stressed. A two-syllable foot with two stressed accents. The opposite of a pyrrhic foot, this foot is used for effect

Question 34

Trochee (trochaic)

Answer 34

stressed unstressed.

Example: “Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright”

Question 35

Sestet

Answer 35

a six-line stanza or unit of poetry

Question 36

Simile

Answer 36

a direct comparison between two dissimilar things; uses “like” or “as” to state the terms of the comparison

Question 37

Sonnet

Answer 37

a closed form consisting of fourteen lines of rhyming iambic pentameter

Question 38

Shakespearean (English) sonnet

Answer 38

3 quatrains and a couplet, often with three arguments or images in the quatrains being resolved in the couplet. Rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Question 39

Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet

Answer 39

8 lines (the “octave”) and 6 lines (the “sestet”) of rhyming iambic pentameter, with a turning or “volta” at about the 8th line. Rhyme scheme: abba abba cdcdcd (or cde cde)

Question 40

Syntax

Answer 40

word order and sentence structure

Question 41

Volta

Answer 41

the “turning” point of a Petrarchan sonnet, usually occurring between the octave and the sestet