Poetry - Key Terms

Question 1

Volta:

Answer 1

aka turn - a rhetorical gift or dramatic change in thought and/or emotion

Question 2

Verse:

Answer 2

a succession of words arranged according to natural or recognised rules of prosody (patterns of rhythm and sound) and forming a complete metrical line

Question 3

Stanza:

Answer 3

a group of lines of verse arranged according to a definite scheme which regulates the number of lines, the metre, and (in rhymed poetry) the sequence of rhymes

Question 4

Simile:

Answer 4

A figure of speech involving a direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using the words “like” or “as” to draw the connection

Question 5

Sibilance:

Answer 5

a type of literary device and figure of speech wherein a hissing sound is created in a group of words through the repetition of ‘s’ sounds

Question 6

Refrain:

Answer 6

a repeated line, phrase of group of lines, which recurs at regular intervals through a poem - usually at the end of a stanza

Question 7

Quatrain :

Answer 7

A verse stanza of 4 lines, often rhyming ABAB

Question 8

Onomatopoeia:

Answer 8

The use of sounds that are similar to the noise they represent for a rhetorical or artistic effect

Question 9

Octave:

Answer 9

• a verse form consisting of 8 lines of iambic pentameter
• most common rhyme scheme for an octave is ABBA ABBA

Question 10

Metre:

Answer 10

A regular patterned recurrence of light and heavy stresses in a line of verse

Question 11

Metaphor:

Answer 11

a comparison or analogy stated in such a way as to imply that one object is another one, figuratively speaking

Question 12

Juxtaposition:

Answer 12

the arrangement of 2 or more ideas, characters, actions, settings, phrases or words side-by-side or in similar narrative moments for the purpose of comparison, contrast, rhetorical sect , suspense of character development

Question 13

Imagery:

Answer 13

the ‘mental pictures’ that readers experience with a piece of literature

Question 14

Iambic pentameter:

Answer 14

a line of verse with 5 metrical feet, each consisting of 1 short/unstressed syllable followed by 1 long/stressed syllable

Question 15

Figurative language:

Answer 15

a deviation from what speakers of a language understand as the ordinary or standard. use of words in order to achieve some special meaning/effect

Question 16

Enjambment:

Answer 16

a line having no pause or end punctuation but having uninterrupted grammatical meaning continuing into the next line

Question 17

End-stopped:

Answer 17

a line ending in a full pause, often indicated by appropriate punctuation e.g. full-stop , semi-colon

Question 18

Couplet:

Answer 18

• a rhymed pair of lines, which are usually the same length
• if these are iambic pentameter it is termed a heroic couplet

Question 19

Consonance:

Answer 19

a type of alliteration in which the repeated patterns of consonants is marked by changes in the intervening vowels

Question 20

Caesura:

Answer 20

a pause separating phrases within lines of poetry

Question 21

Assonance:

Answer 21

the repetition of vowel sounds within a short passage of verse or prose

Question 22

Alliteration:

Answer 22

repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound