Poetry Literary Terms

Question 1

Alliteration

Answer 1

The repetition of an initial consonant sound

Question 2

Assonance

Answer 2

The repetition of a vowel sound in a line or verse of poetry

Question 3

Connotation

Answer 3

What a word suggests beyond its basic definition; the thoughts and emotions that are associated with a word

Question 4

Consonance

Answer 4

The repetition of consonant sounds (doesn’t have to be the initial consonant sound)

Question 5

Couplet

Answer 5

A pair of successive rhyming lines, usually of the same length.

Question 6

Denotation

Answer 6

The dictionary definition of a word

Question 7

Diction

Answer 7

Word choice of the author

Question 8

Enjambment

Answer 8

When a sentence within a poem runs from line to line

Question 9

Extended metaphor

Answer 9

A version of metaphor that extends over the course of multiple lines, paragraphs, or stanzas of prose or poetry

Question 10

Free verse

Answer 10

Nonmetrical, non-rhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech

Question 11

Imagery

Answer 11

language that appeals to the senses

Question 12

Metaphor

Answer 12

A comparison of two dissimilar things not using “like” or “as”

Question 13

Meter

Answer 13

The rhythmical pattern of a piece of verse

Question 14

Mood

Answer 14

The feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage object, or a concept

Question 15

Onomatopoeia

Answer 15

A word like pop or thump that sounds like what it means

Question 16

Personification

Answer 16

A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an
object, or a concept

Question 17

Quatrain

Answer 17

A four-line stanza, often with various rhyme schemes

Question 18

Repetition

Answer 18

The use of any element of language—a sound, a word, a phrase, a clause, a sentence—more than once

Question 19

Rhyme

Answer 19

Repetition of sounds at the ends of words

Question 20

Simile

Answer 20

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

Question 21

Stanza

Answer 21

A group of lines of verse. The stanza is the unit of structure in a poem

Question 22

Symbol

Answer 22

An object, animate or inanimate, which represents or “stands for” something else

Question 23

Theme

Answer 23

The message the author is trying to show in the literary work

Question 24

Tone

Answer 24

The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward a subject