Poetry Terminology Flashcards
Alliteration
The repetition of identical consonant sounds, most often the sounds of beginning words, in close proximity.
e.g. dashing dogs
Allusion
Unacknowledged reference and quotations that authors assume their readers will recognise.
Anaphora
Repetition of the same word or phrase at the beginning of a line throughout a work or the section of a work.
Apostrophe
Speaker in a poem addresses a person not present or an animal, inanimate object, or concept as though it is a person.
Assonance
The repetition of identical vowel sounds in different words in close proximity.
e.g. deep green sea
Ballad
A narrative poem composed of quatrains (iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic trimeter) rhyming x-a-x-a. May use refrains.
Blank verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
e.g. Shakespeare’s plays
Caesura
A short but definite pause used for effect within a line of poetry.
Chiasmus (antimetabole)
A ‘crossing’ or reversal of two elements; antimetabole, a form of chiasmus, is the reversal of the same words in a grammatical structure.
e.g. Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
Consonance
The counterpart of assonance; the partial or total identity of consonants in words whose main vowels differ. Used as half or ‘impure’ rhyme.
e.g. shadow, meadow/ pressed, passed/ sipped, supped
Couplet
Two successive rhyming lines.
Diction
Used to describe the level of formality that a speaker uses.
Dramatic monologue
A type of poem, derived from the theatre, in which a speaker addresses an internal listener or the reader.
End-stopped line
A line ending in a full pause, usually indicated with a full stop or semicolon.
Enjambement
A line having no end punctuation but running over to the next line.
Explication
A complete and detailed analysis of a work of literature, often word-by-word and line-by-line.
Hyperbole
Overstatement - exaggeration for effect.
Litotes
Understatement - for effect, often used for irony.
Iambic Pentameter
An unstressed stressed foot.
Image
References that trigger the mind to fuse together memories of senses.
Internal Rhyme
An exact rhyme within a line of poetry.
Metaphor
A comparison between two unlike things, this describes one thing as if it were something else.
Metaphysical conceit
An elaborate and extended metaphor or simile that links two apparently unrelated fields or subjects in an unusual and surprising conjunction of ideas.
e.g. stiff twin compasses… the joining together of lovers like legs of a compass.
Onomatopoeia
A blending of consonant and vowel sounds designed to imitate or suggest the activity being described.
