Poetry Terms Flashcards
Literature in verse form.
A controlled arrangement of lines and stanzas.
Poems use concise, musical, and emotionally charged language to express multiple layers of meaning
Poetry
A grouping of lines in a poem
Stanza
Language that is used imaginatively rather than literally
Some common types of figurative language are simile, metaphor, and personification.
Figurative Language
Uses like, as, than, or resembles to compare two essentially unlike things
Ex: She runs like the wind.
Simile
Speaks of one thing in terms of another (using is, are, was, or were)
Ex: All the world is a stage.
Metaphor
Gives human traits to nonhuman things
Ex: The ocean snarled.
Ex. The wind cried as it ran across the field.
Personification
Extreme exaggeration for effect
Ex: My brother exploded when he saw the damage to his car.
Hyperbole
A word whose sound suggests its meaning
Ex: The alarm clock buzzed its signal.
Onomatopoeia
Repeating a word, phrase, etc. to emphasize an idea or create an effect
Repetition
A reference to a mythological, literary, or historical person, place, or thing.
Ex. He had the strength of Hercules.
Allusion
Poetry that tells a story and has a plot, characters, and setting
Narrative Poetry
The rhythmical, repeating pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
Ex. So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
(Iambic Pentameter - a type of meter where a line of verse consists of five pairs of unstressed and stressed or accented syllables.)
Meter
Repetition of identical sounds in the last syllables of words
Rhyme
Repetition of the initial consonant sounds of words
Ex: The little, light lady….
Ex. The twisting trout twinkled below the surface.
Alliteration
Poetry that tells a story about the feats of gods or heroes
Epic
End rhyme—occurs at the ends of the lines
Internal rhyme—occurs within the lines
Slant rhyme—is approximate rhyme, the words don’t exactly rhyme but are close
Rhyme scheme— the pattern of the rhyming of the final syllables of a line, usually designated by alphabet letters such as ABBA, CDDC, etc.
Types of Rhyme
Repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words
Ex: The day began to fade as we rode in the sleigh.
Assonance
Repetition of consonant sounds in nearby words
Ex: The boy could not walk past the milk.
Ex. And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds
Consonance
A songlike narrative poem that has short stanzas and a refrain (a regularly repeated line or lines)
Ballad
Poetry that tells a story using a character’s own thoughts or spoken statements
Dramatic Poetry
Poetry that expresses the feelings of a single speaker
Lyric Poetry
Poetry with neither a set pattern of rhythm nor rhyme
Free Verse
A fourteen line poem with formal patterns of rhyme, rhythm, and line structure
Sonnet
