Poetic Terms and Devices

Question 1

Allegory

Answer 1

A story or narrative that works symbolically through explicit details in the text to suggest a secondary meaning

Question 2

Alliteration

Answer 2

The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words

Question 3

Assonance

Answer 3

The repetition of vowel sounds in a line of poetry or a sentence of prose

Question 4

Blank Verse

Answer 4

Poetry written in unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter

Question 5

Caesura

Answer 5

A pause within a line of poetry. May be represented by blank space(forced caesura) but does not have to be

Question 6

Couplet

Answer 6

A pair of rhymed line, as in the envoi(final couplet) of a Shakespearian sonnet. A heroic couplet is in iambic pentameter

Question 7

Diction

Answer 7

Word choice. Typically you would explain how the diction of a poem or a story lends it a specific tone. Diction employed in dialogue might help us to understand a character better

Question 8

Elegy

Answer 8

A lyric poem that laments the dead or some other loss

Question 9

Elision

Answer 9

The omission of an unstressed vowel to maintain a particular meter. Phyllis Wheatly uses elision in “On Being Brought from Africa to America.”

Question 10

Enjambment

Answer 10

The use of a line break between two parts of what should be grammatically continuous line. There is no end-stop or punctuation between two enjambed lines.

Question 11

Epic

Answer 11

A very long poem that usually details the exploits of a hero and explains the founding of a civilization and its essential values. The Odyssey, The Aneid, and Paradise Lost are prime examples

Question 12

Figurative Language

Answer 12

Any use of language to imply something other than the literal meaning of the words and phrases used. Figurative language is a large category that encompasses sarcasm, irony, hyperbole, understatement (liotes), metaphor, simile, synecdoche, and metonymy

Question 13

Free Verse

Answer 13

Poetry without regular meter or rhyme- essentially, any poem that is not written in a closed form

Question 14

Hyperbole

Answer 14

Exaggeration

Question 15

Image

Answer 15

A representation in language of something that can be sensed. This can take the form of a description of a sight, a sound , a smell, a ractile sensation, or even a taste. Images can be used figuratively through metaphor, simile, metonymy, or synecdoche. aAnd image can symbolize things other than what it literally represents, but an image and a symbol are not interchangeable term

Question 16

Imagery

Answer 16

A pattern of related images throughout a work of literature

Question 17

Lyric Poem

Answer 17

A short poem that typically uses highly condensed language in order to express a feeling. Typically less narrative, though there can be narrative elements in a lyric

Question 18

Metaphor

Answer 18

A comparison between two essentially unlike and separate things. Metaphors do not contain words of comparison(like,as); they simply equate two unlike things: love IS a rose

Question 19

Metonymy

Answer 19

A strategy of substitution where a closely related object is substituted for another object or idea. “To fight for the flag” is a good example because flag substitutes for country or nation

Question 20

Narrative Poem

Answer 20

A poem that tells a story

Question 21

Onomatopoeia

Answer 21

The use of words to imitate a literal sound, such as Emily Dickenson’s “I heard a fly buzz when I died.”

Question 22

Personification

Answer 22

The endowing of human characteristics to non-human objects or beings.

Question 23

Sestina

Answer 23

A thirty-nine line poem consisting of six sextets and terminating in an envoi of three longer lines, usually written in iambic pentameter, in which the same six words end each line of each stanza. In the envoi, two words appear in each line.

Question 24

Simile

Answer 24

A comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as”

Question 25

Sonnet

Answer 25

A fourteen line poem written in rhyming iambic pentameter. There are different variations ( Shakespearian, Petrarchan, Spenserian) that require different rhyme schemes and stanza lengths.

Question 26

Stanza

Answer 26

A division in a poem represented by the grouoins of lines. For example, a four line stanza is known a quatrain

Question 27

Symbol

Answer 27

An object or action that represents more than its literal meaning. Images often take on symbolic meaning within a text. For example, the circle imagery in Donne’s “Valediction: Forbidden Mourning” can take on symbolic meaning

Question 28

Synecdoche

Answer 28

Another strategy of substitution in which a part of something is taken for the entire thing. “ Taking someone’s hand in marriage” is an example of synecdoche

Question 29

Syntax

Answer 29

The grammatical order of words in a sentence or line of poetry

Question 30

Theme

Answer 30

An idea suggested by the whole of a literary work– its characters, its language, its imagery, its plot or narrative

Question 31

Tone

Answer 31

The writer’s (or character;s or speaker’s ) implied attitude to characters or ideas expressed in the work. Syntax, diction, and certain kinds of figurative language can help us determine what a writer or speaker’s tone is

Question 32

Understatement

Answer 32

An instance when a writer, speaker, or character says considerably less than what he or she means. This is also known as “Litotes”