Poetry Strategies Flashcards
Conceit
Unconventional, logically complex, surprising metaphors.
Ex: Notion that a pair of lovers’ separation takes place in the fertile days of summer and fall as opposed to winter.
Metaphor
Comparison between 2 unlike objects.
Simile
Essentially a metaphor using “like” or “as.”
Metonymy
Long-term metaphor using a physical object to represent actual object associated with it.
Ex: He is nothing but a suit. The White House… The Crown.
Synecdoche
Using a body part to represent greater ideas.
Ex: Lend me your ears!
Symbol
Something that means more than what it is; an object, person, situation, action that has both a literal and metaphorical meaning.
Image
Description of something or someone; it is a picture captured in words.
Idiom
Language specific to a dialect and cultural conventions.
Diction
Style of expression, patterns of language, actual words selected.
Allusion
A reference, explicit or implicit, to something in previous literature or history.
End Stop
When a line stops in the middle. Often is marked by a semi-colon, colon, or period.
Enjambment
Run-on sentence in poetry (sentence or phrase runs into next line).
Caesura
Pause or breath Ina a poetic line. Look for commas, semi-colons, colons, periods, and other punctuation marks.
Foot
2 syllables.
Iamb
Ba BUM.
Trochee
Metrical foot: accented syllables followed by unaccented syllable.
BA Bum.
Spondee
Two equally accented syllables in a metrical foot.
BUM BUM.
Dactyl
Metrical foot with one accented syllable followed by two unaccented.
BUM Ba Ba.
Anapest
Metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable.
Ba Ba BUM.
Pentameter
5 feet.
Di-Meter
Two metrical feet.
Regular Meter
Consistent meter; you can hear a regular beat.
Irregular Meter
Inconsistent meter; you cannot hear a regular beat.
Blank Verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Free Verse
No structure.
End Rhyme
Rhyming last words of lines.
Eye Rhyme
Imperfect rhyme but has similar vowel sounds.
Slant Rhyme (Half Rhyme)
Last words kind of rhyme, close enough.
Internal Rhyme
Rhyme within a line.
Couplet
Two lines rhyming.
Consonance
Repeating consonant sounds at beginning or end of words.
Ex: Bed and bad; bud and dab.
Assonance
Repeating vowel sounds with no repeating consonants.
Ex: Leaping, deep people.
Alliteration
Repeating sound of one specific consonant that is stressed and comes at the start of the words.
Ex: Sally sells seashells down by the seashore.
Repetition
Repeating words.
Onomatopoeia
Using words that sound like the sounds.
Ex: “Buzz.”
Euphony
Pleasing, harmonious sounds.
Cacophony
Displeasing, unharmonious sounds.
Parallelism
Repeating grammar and syntax.
Antithesis
Opposites.
Anastrope
Inversion of usual syntax for rhetorical effect.
Parentheses
( )
Apposition (Appositive)
Noun or noun phrase that describes the preceding noun further.
Ex: My mother, the baker, breadwinner, and best friend.
Ellipsis
…
Asyndenton
Omission of conjunctions that ordinarily join clauses or sentences.
Polysyndenton
Repetition of conjunctions to join clauses or sentences.
Anaphora
Repetition of phrases typically at the beginning of line/phrase for rhetorical effect.
Ex: Mad world, mad dog!
Climax
Arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in order of increasing importance.
Apostrophe
Addressing someone or something absent from text rhetorically.
Puns
Play on words.
Personification
Imbuing abstractions or inanimate objects with human qualities.
Hyperbole
Deliberate use of exaggeration.
Litotes
Deliberate use of understatement, typically phrased in the negative; “That’s not unreasonable considering the options.”
Rhetorical Question
Asking a question not for the purpose of electing an answer, but to assert or deny something.
Irony
Incongruity between what is presented and what is meant; use of language to mean the opposite of its literal meaning.
Oxymoron (Paradox)
An apparently contradictory statement that nevertheless contains truth.
Aubade
Poem greeting the morning.
Ballad
Popular narrative song usually passes down, usually rhyming.
Dirge
Song of grief usually given at a funeral; shorter and less meditative than an elegy.
Elegy
Laments someone’s death but ends with consolation and comfort.
Hymn
Spiritual poem typically praising God.
Ode
Tribute to something that is still present.
Pastoral
Poem dealing with rural life.
Petrarchan (Italian) Sonnet
14 lines: Octave, sestet, NO rhyming couplet.
8-6 or 4-4-3-3
Shakespearean Sonnet
14 lines: 3 quatrains with rhyming couplet at end.
4-4-4-2
Villanelle
Five 3-line stanzas and a final quatrain, with the first and third lines of the first stanza repeating alternately in the following stanzas.
Dramatic Monologue
Speaker addresses someone specific who is present but not speaking (not intending for audience).
Soliloquy
Usually mostly in drama, when a speaker shares inner thoughts and feelings with the audience.
Narrative Poem
Tells a story.
Sestina
A lyrical fixed form consisting of six 6-line (usually unrhymed) stanzas in which the end words of the first stanza recur as end words of the following five stanzas in a successively rotating order and as the middle and end words of the three verses of the concluding tercet.
