Poetic Terms Y10 Flashcards
Alliteration
The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words.
Characterisation
The means by which writers present and reveal character.
Cliffhanger
A dramatic ending to a piece on writing, leaving the audience in suspense and often anxious.
Denouement
The resolution of the plot of a literary work.
Enjambment
A run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next.
Foreshadowing
Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story.
Hyperbole
A figure of speech involving exaggeration.
Irony
A contrast or discrepancy between what is said and what is meant or between what happens and what is expected to happen in life and in literature. In verbal irony, characters say the opposite of what they mean.
Methpohar
A comparison between essentially unlike things without an explicitly comparative word such as like or as. An example is “My love is a red, red rose,”
Onomatopoeia
The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz and crack are onomatopoetic.
Personification
The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.
Protagonists
The main character of a literary work–Macbeth on Romeo in the plays named after them
Quatrain
A four-line stanza in a poem
Rhythm
The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse often creating a beat.
Similie
A figure of speech involving a comparison between unlike things using like, as, or as though. An example: “My love is like a red, red rose.”
