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Poetic Terms > Poetic Terms > Flashcards

Poetic Terms Flashcards

1
Q

The repetition of identical consonant sounds, most often the sounds beginning words, in close proximity. Example: pensive poets, nattering nabobs of negativism.

A

Alliteration

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2
Q

Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of a line throughout a work or the section of a work.

A

Anaphora

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3
Q

Unacknowledged reference and quotations that authors assume their readers will recognize.

A

Allusion

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4
Q

Speaker in a poem addresses a person not present or an animal, inanimate object, or concept as though it is a person. Example: Wordsworth–“Milton! Thou shouldst be living at this hour / England has need of thee”

A

Apostrophe

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5
Q

The repetition of identical vowel sounds in different words in close proximity. Example: deep green sea.

A

Assonance

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6
Q

Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Example: Shakespeare’s plays

A

Blank verse

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7
Q

A short but definite pause used for effect within a line of poetry. Carpe diem poetry: “seize the day.” Poetry concerned with the shortness of life and the need to act in or enjoy the present. Example: Herrick’s “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time”

A

Caesura

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8
Q

A “crossing” or reversal of two elements; antimetabole, a form of chiasmus, is the reversal of the same words in a grammatical structure. Example: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask wyat you can do for your country. Example: You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

A

Chiasmus (antimetabole)

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9
Q

Iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter. Other example: “Amazing Grace” by John Newton http://www.constitution.org/col/amazing_grace.htm

A

Common meter or hymn measure (Emily Dickinson)

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10
Q

The counterpart of assonance; the partial or total identity of consonants in words whose main vowels differ. Example: shadow meadow; pressed, passed; sipped, supped. Owen uses this “impure rhyme” to convey the anguish of war and death.

A

Consonanceis

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11
Q

Two successive rhyming lines. Couplets end the pattern of a Shakespearean sonnet.

A

Couplet

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12
Q

Is usually used to describe the level of formality that a speaker uses.

A

Diction

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13
Q

Proper, elevated, elaborate, and often polysyllabic language. This type of language used to be thought the only type suitable for poetry

A

Diction (formal or high)

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14
Q

Relaxed, conversational and familiar language.

A

Diction (informal or low)

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15
Q

A type of poem, derived from the theater, in which a speaker addresses an internal listener or the reader. In some dramatic monologues, especially those by Robert Browning, the speaker may reveal his personality in unexpected and unflattering ways.

A

Dramatic monologue

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16
Q

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

A

End-stopped line

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17
Q

A line having no end punctuation but running over to the next line.

A

Enjambment

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18
Q

A measured combination of heavy and light stresses. The numbers of feet are given below. monometer (1 foot) dimeter (2 feet) trimeter (3 feet) tetrameter (4 feet) pentameter (5 feet) hexameter (6 feet) heptameter or septenary (7 feet)

A

Foot (prosody)

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19
Q

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

A

Heroic couplet

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20
Q

Quatrains of iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter rhyming a b a b.

A

Hymn meter or common measure

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21
Q

Exaggeration for effect; litotes is understatement for effect, often used for irony.

A

Hyperbole (overstatement) and litotes (understatement)

22
Q

An unstressed stressed foot. The most natural and common kind of meter in English; it elevates speech to poetry.

A

Iambic pentameter

23
Q

Images are 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.

A

Image

24
Q

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.”

A

Internal rhyme

25
Q

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).

A

Metaphor

26
Q

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”

A

Metaphysical conceit

27
Q

The number of feet within a line of traditional verse. Example: iambic pentameter.

A

Meter

28
Q

The first eight lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet, unified by rhythm, rhyme, and topic.

A

Octave

29
Q

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

A

Onomatopoeia

30
Q

A rhetorical figure embodying a seeming contradiction that is nonetheless true.

A

Paradox

31
Q

Attributing human characteristics to nonhuman things or abstractions.

A

Personification

32
Q

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.

A

Petrarchan sonnet

33
Q

Repeated word or series of words in response or counterpoint to the main verse, as in a ballad.

A

Refrain

34
Q

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

A

Rhyme

35
Q

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

A

Double rhyme or trochaic rhyme

36
Q

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

A

Eye rhyme

37
Q

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

A

Slant rhyme

38
Q

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

A

Rhyme scheme

39
Q

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

A

Rhyme royal

40
Q

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. (Go to the “Introduction to Prosody” page or try the scansion quiz.). Stressed syllables are in caps.

A

Scan (scansion)

41
Q

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

A

Spondee

42
Q

Stressed unstressed. Example: “Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright”

A

Trochee (trochaic)

43
Q

A six-line stanza or unit of poetry.

A

Sestet

44
Q

A fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter, composed of three quatrains and a couplet rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.

A

Shakespearean sonnet

45
Q

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

A

Simile

46
Q

A closed form consisting of fourteen lines of rhyming iambic pentameter.

A

Sonnet

47
Q

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

A

Shakespearean or English sonnet

48
Q

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)

A

Petrarchan or Italian sonnet

49
Q

A group of poetic lines corresponding to paragraphs in prose; the meters and rhymes are usually repeating or systematic.

A

Stanza

50
Q

A rhetorical figure that describes one sensory impression in terms of a different sense, or one perception in terms of a totally different or even opposite feeling. Example: “darkness visible” “green thought”

A

Synaesthesia

51
Q

Word order and sentence structure.

A

Syntax

52
Q

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

A

Volta

Poetic Terms (1 decks)

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