POETRY TERMS 36-70

Question 1

Mixed metaphors

Answer 1

The mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous

Question 2

Narrative poem

Answer 2

A non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short.

Ex: epics and ballads

Question 3

Octave

Answer 3

An eight-line stanza; the first division of an Italian sonnet

Question 4

Onomatopoeia

Answer 4

The use of words whose sound suggests their meaning

Question 5

Oxymoron

Answer 5

A form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms into a single expression

Question 6

Paradox

Answer 6

A situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least makes sense

Question 7

Parallelism

Answer 7

A similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry

Question 8

Paraphrase

Answer 8

A restatement of an idea in such a way as to retain the meaning while changing the diction and form

Question 9

Personification

Answer 9

A kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics

Question 10

Poetic foot

Answer 10

A group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it

Ex: iambic u /

Question 11

Pun

Answer 11

A play on words that are identical or similar in sound it have sharply diverse meanings

Question 12

Quatrain

Answer 12

A four-line stanza with any combination of rhymes

Question 13

Refrain

Answer 13

A group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza

Question 14

Rhyme

Answer 14

Close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of a verse

Question 15

Rhyme royal

Answer 15

A seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc, used by Chauncer and other medieval poets

Question 16

Rhythm

Answer 16

The recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables, leads to heightened emotional response

Question 17

Sarcasm

Answer 17

A type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it; its purpose is to injure or to hurt

Question 18

Satire

Answer 18

Writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by ridicule; usually comedy that exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly

Question 19

Scansion

Answer 19

A system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the types of feet per line

Ex: iambic pentameter, anapestic tetrameter

Question 20

Sestet

Answer 20

A six-line stanza; the second division of an Italian sonnet

Question 21

Simile

Answer 21

A directly expressed comparison; a figure of speech comparing two objects using like or as

Question 22

Sonnet

Answer 22

Normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem

Can be rhymed abba abba cde cde
Can be rhymed abab cdcd efef gg

Question 23

Stanza

Answer 23

Usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme

Question 24

Strategy (rhetorical strategy)

Answer 24

The management of language for a specific effect; the planned placing of elements to achieve an effect

Ex: convincing a loved one to return to the speaker’s love

Question 25

Structure

Answer 25

The arrangement of materials within a work; the relationship of the parts of the work to the whole; the logical division of a work

Ex: line and stanza

Question 26

Style

Answer 26

The mode of expression in language; the characteristic manner of expression of an author

Question 27

Symbol

Answer 27

Something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else

Ex: winter and darkness=death

Question 28

Synecdoche

Answer 28

A form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole

Ex: foot soldiers=infantry
Ex: field hands= manual laborers

Question 29

Syntax

Answer 29

The ordering of words into patterns or sentences

Question 30

Tercet

Answer 30

A stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme

Question 31

Terza rima

Answer 31

A three-line stanza rhymed aba bcb cdc

Ex: dante’s inferno

Question 32

Theme

Answer 32

The main thought expressed by a work

Question 33

Tone

Answer 33

The manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning

Question 34

Understatement

Answer 34

The opposite of hyperbole; irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is

Question 35

Villanelle

Answer 35

A nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain

Rhyme: aba aba aba aba aba abaa

Line 1 is repeated on 6,12,18
Line 3 is repeated on 9,15,19