Poetry terms Flashcards
Auto-biographical
A poem about the poet’s life and experiences
Ballad
A form of poetry often set to music
Blank verse
Verse with no rhyme - usually ten syllables
Dramatic monologue
A character speaks to the reader
Epic poem
Tragic/heroic story poems
First person
Poem written from the poet’s viewpoint or perspective using ‘I’
Free verse
No regular rhyme/rhythm
Lyrical
Emotional and beautiful
Narrative
A form of poetry that tells a story
Ode
Lyrical poem often addressed to one person
Rhetoric
Persuasive
Sonnet
14 line poem often to do with love
Third person
A detached perspective (someone who isn’t directly involved in the action) explains everything that is happening
Anaphora
A device that consists of repeating a sequence of words at the beginning of neighboring sentences
Caesura
A pause in a line of poetry
Enjambment
A thought or sense, phrase or clause, in a line of poetry that does not come to an end at the line break, but moves over to the next line
Epistrophe
A device that can be defined as the repetition of phrases or words at the ends of the clauses or sentences
Juxtaposition
the act of placing two things side by side for comparison
Quatrain
A set of four lines
Rhyme
Close similarity in the final sounds of two or more words or lines of writing
Stanza
A stanza is a division of four or more lines in a poem
Volta
The turning point of a poem
Abstract
An idea rather than a real thing
Alliteration
The occurrence of the same sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words
Assonance
Resemblance of sound between syllables of nearby words, arising particularly form the rhyming of two or more stressed vowels, but not consonants
Authentic
Seems genuine or truthful
Colloquial language
Informal, casual language
Emotive language
Language used to make you feel a specific emotion
Euphemism
Alternative words to make something nasty sound less harsh or blunt
Extended Metaphor
Refers to a comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of sentences in a paragraph, or lines in a poem
Hyperbole
Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally
Imagery
Descriptive or figurative language
Irony
A device or event in which what appears, on the surface, to be the case, differs radically from what is actually the case
Metaphor
A way of comparing by saying something is something else even though it isn’t
Mood
Another word for atmosphere
Onomatopoeia
The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named
Personification
The attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something non-human, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form
Plosive
A consonant that is produced by stopping the airflow using the lips, teeth, or palate, followed by a sudden release of air
Rhetorical Question
A question that does not have an answer
Semantic field
Groups/categories of words
Sibilance
Sibilance is a more specific type of alliteration that relies on the repetition of soft consonant sounds in words to create a hissing sound in the writing
Simile
Comparing something using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’
Symbolism
The use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities
Tone/Voice
Attitude of a writer toward a subject or audience
