Poetry Terms Flashcards
apostrophe
addressing speech to something insensate
assonance
the use of similar vowel sounds repeated in successive or proximate words containing different consonants
ballad meter
four lines of alternating iambic tetrameter and iambic trimester
blank verse
unrhymed iambic pentameter
caesura
a pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry
elegy
a poem eulogizing the dead
end stopped
a line that has a natural pause at the end (period, comma, etc.)
enjambment
the running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run on-line
eye rhyme
words whose spellings would lead one to think that they are rhymed (slough, tough, cough)
foot
the basic unit of meter
free verse
poetry that has no pattern of rhyme or rhythm
heroic couplet
two lines of rhyming iambic pentameter
iamb
a set of two syllables in which the accent is on the second syllable
internal rhyme
rhyme within a line of poetry
metonymy
a figurative device that uses a closely associated object etc. to stand in for the person or thing that is the real subject
musical device
techniques that can be used to create a desired “sound” to a passage of language, such as alliteration, onomatopoeia, repetition, rhyme, and rhythm
octave
a set or stanza of eight lines generally rhymed abbabba
ode
dignified or elaborately structured lyric poem praising and glorifying an individual, commemorating an event, or describing nature intellectually rather than emotionally
onomatopoeia
words that mimic the sounds of the objects they name
synecdoche
the use of the whole to represent one of its parts or the use of a part to represent the whole.
