Poetry Literary Terms

Question 1

Genre

Answer 1

A category or type of literature; literature is commonly divided into 3 major genres: poetry, prose, and drama. Each major genre is in turn divided into smaller genres.

Question 2

Prose

Answer 2

The ordinary form of written language, most writing that is not poetry, drama, or song is considered prose. Prose is one of the major genres of literature and occurs in two forms: fiction and nonfiction

Question 3

Poetry

Answer 3

One of the 3 major types of literature, the others being prose and drama. Most poems make use of highly concise, musical, and emotionally charged language. Many also make use of imagery, figurative language, and special devices of sound such as rhyme. Poems are often divided into lines and stanzas and often employ regular rhythmic patterns, or meters. However, some poems are written out just like prose while others are written in free verse.

Question 4

Blank Verse

Answer 4

Poetry written in unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter (traditional English), widely used by Shakespeare

Question 5

Free Verse

Answer 5

Poetry not written in a regular pattern of meter or rhyme

Question 6

Rhyme

Answer 6

The repetition of sounds at the ends of words (end rhyme, internal rhyme, exact rhyme, approximate/slant rhyme)

Question 7

Rhyme Scheme

Answer 7

The pattern of rhymes at the end of each line

Question 8

Poetic Structure

Answer 8

The basic structures of poetry are lines and stanzas

Question 9

Line

Answer 9

A group of words arranged in a row. May break, or end, in different ways

Question 10

End-stopped Line

Answer 10

A line in which both the grammatical structure and sense are complete at the end of the line

Question 11

Run-on or enjambment

Answer 11

A line in which both the grammatical structure and the sense continue past the end of the line

Question 12

Stanza

Answer 12

A grouping of two or more lines in a poem that often share a pattern of rhythm and rhyme. Sometimes identified by the number of lines they have

Question 13

Couplet

Answer 13

A pair (2) of rhyming lines, usually of the same length and meter. Often found in poems and in plays written in verse

Question 14

Quatrain

Answer 14

A stanza or poem make up of 4 lines, usually with a definite rhythm and rhyme scheme

Question 15

Sestet

Answer 15

A stanza with 6 lines

Question 16

Octave

Answer 16

A stanza with 8 lines

Question 17

Alliteration

Answer 17

The repetition of initial consonant sounds. Writers use alliteration to give emphasis to words, to imitate sounds, and to create musical effects

Question 18

Consonances

Answer 18

The repetition of final consonant sounds in stressed syllables with different vowel sounds (hat and sit)

Question 19

Assonance

Answer 19

The repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonants in 2 or more stressed syllables

Question 20

Onomatopeia

Answer 20

The use of words that imitate sounds (whirr, thud, hiss, etc.)

Question 21

Repetition

Answer 21

The use of any element of language (a sound, a word, a phrase, a clause, or a sentence) more than once. Poets use many different types of repetition (alliteration, assonance, rhyme, and rhythm - repetitions of certain sounds and sound patterns). a refrain is a repeated line/group of lines. In both prose and poetry, repetition is used for musical effects and for emphasis

Question 22

Mood

Answer 22

(AKA atmosphere) the feeling created in the reader by a literacy work or passage. the mood is often suggested by descriptive details. often the mood can be described in a single word (lighthearted, frightening, despairing, etc.)

Question 23

Tone

Answer 23

The writer’s attitude toward his/her audience and subject

Question 24

Imagery

Answer 24

The descriptive or figurative language used in literature to create word pictures for the reader. These pictures, or images, are created by details of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, or movement

Question 25

Metaphor

Answer 25

A figure in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else. unlike a simile, which compares two things using an explicit word of comparison such as “like” or “as”, a metaphor implies a comparison between them

Question 26

Extended Metaphor

Answer 26

When a writer speaks or writes of a subject as though it were something else. An extended metaphor sustains the comparison for several lines or for an entire poem

Question 27

Personification

Answer 27

The giving of human qualities to an animal, object, or idea