Poetry literary terms

Question 1

Blank Verse

Answer 1

Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter

Question 2

Iambic Pentameter

Answer 2

Lines of prose or poetry that follow an unstressed/stressed rhythm that consists of 10 syllables total

Question 3

Prose

Answer 3

Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical rhythm or structure.

Question 4

Pun

Answer 4

A play on words, using two meanings of the same word, or two words that sound similarly

Question 5

Soliloquy

Answer 5

A dramatic element in which a character reveals his/her thoughts or thinking he/she is alone; the dramatic art of talking to oneself.

Question 6

Paradox

Answer 6

A statement that seems absurd but makes sense after consideration.

Example: Sun-showers, she laughed till she cried; freezer burn.

Question 7

Dramatic Irony

Answer 7

The contrast between what a character knows and what the audience knows-usually the audience has more knowledge-and which can result in a tragic or comic effect.

Question 8

Monologue

Answer 8

A long speech made by one character

Question 9

Allusion

Answer 9

In literature, a usually indirect reference to another person, place, or work of literature.

Question 10

Metaphor

Answer 10

Comparison without using like or as

Question 11

Caesura

Answer 11

Pause made in between a sentence or line with a comma, dash or any type of indentation to create the sense of a pause.

Question 12

Oxymoron

Answer 12

a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true ).

Question 13

Couplet

Answer 13

two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit.

Question 14

Heroic Couplet

Answer 14

a rhyming couplet, or pair of lines with end rhymes in iambic pentameter

Question 15

Aside

Answer 15

a short comment, often seen as a fourth wall break, delivered while other characters are onstage