Poetry Terms Flashcards
metaphor
a comparison between two things that does NOT use any helping words.
simile
a comparison made between two things that use helping words such as “like,” “as,” “than,” or “resembles.”
conceit
an extended metaphor with complex logic, or a startling comparison, that governs poetic passage or an entire poem.
personification
a special kind of metaphor that gives human attributes to a nonhuman object, such as an animal, object, or concept.
apostrophe
when a poem’s speaker addresses someone absent, someone dead, or something nonhuman as if it were present and could respond.
synechdoche
the use of the part for the whole.
metonymy
the use of something losely related for the thing actually meant.
paradox
an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true.
hyperbole
an overstatement or extravagant exaggeration, so far exaggerated that it cannot be taken literally.
understatement
a poem says less than it means. It can sometimes coexist with verbal irony.
sarcasm
literature that ridicules human folly or vice in order to bring about somekind of reform.
situational irony
a discrepancy between actual circumstances and thos would seem appropriate or expected.
verbal irony
to say the opposite of what you mean. It is unlike sarcasm, which aims to hut, or satire, which aims to change, its goal is to be figurative–to say more than it seems.
dramatic irony
when the audience knows something that a character does not.
alliteration
the repetition of the INITIAL CONSONANT sounds.
consonance
the repetition of final consonant sounds.
assonance
the repetition of vowel sounds.
anaphora
a type of refrain device, where the first word or phrase is repeated in a series of lines.
onomatopoeia
the use of words which sound like they mean.
enjambment
when a line does not stop at the end of the line, but continues onto the next line without pause or punctuation.
caesura
a pause within a line of a verse.
juxtaposition
the act of place two or more things side by sid to compare or contrast something, or create an interesting effect.
imagery
the representation through language of sense experience.
tone
the emotional meaning behond lines of poetry.
pun
a play on words, where the author employs a word a word that has a second meaning or that sounds to a similar word, and both meanings can be applied.
denotation
the dictionary definition of a word.
connotation
the implied or associative meaning of a word.
inversion
a technique in which the normal order of the words is reversed.
allusion
a bried and direct reference to a person, place, thing, or idea of historical, cultural, literary, or political significance.
symbol
any image or thing that stand for something else.
repetition
repeated use of sounds, words, or ideas for effect and emphasis.
