Poetry Terms Flashcards
Allegory
Narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one
Alliteration
Repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words
Allusion
Reference, explicit or implicit to something in previous literature or history
Anaphora
Repetition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines
Apostrophe
Figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as it were alive and present
Assonance
Repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words
Aubade
Poem about dawn, a morning love song, or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn
Ballad
Fairly short narrative poem written in a songlike stanza form
Blank verse
Unrimed iambic pentameter
Cacophony
Harsh, discordant, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds
Caesura
Natural pause, unmarked by punctuation, introduced by phrasing or syntax of a line
Connotation
Suggestion of a word beyond its basic definition
Consonance
Repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words
Continuous form
Form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning
Couplet
Two successive lines linked by rhyme, usually in the same meter
Denotation
Basic definition of a word
Didactic poetry
Having teaching or preaching as the primary purpose
Dramatic framework
Situation, whether actual or fictional, realistic or fanciful, in which an author places his or her characters in order to express the theme
Dramatic irony
Device by which the author implies a different meaning from that intended by the speaker in a literary work
English (Shakespearean) sonnet
Sonnet riming ababcdcdefefgg. Its content or structure ideally parallels the rime scheme, falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet; but it is often structured, like the Italian sonnet, into octave and sestet, the principal break in though coming at the end of the eighth line
Euphony
Smooth, pleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds
Extended figure
Figure of speech (usually a metaphor, simile, personification, or apostrophe) sustained or developed thought a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem
Figurative language
Language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken literally or only literally
Fixed form
Form of poem in which the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage or tradition, such as sonnet, limerick, villanelle, haiku, and so on
Form
External pattern or shape of a poem, describable without reference to its content, as continuous form, stanzaic form, fixed form (and other varieties), free verse, and syllabic verse
Free verse
Nonmetrical verse, arranged in lines, may be more or less rhythmical, but has no fixed metrical pattern or expectation
Gustatory imagery
Imagery describing gut feelings
Haiku
Three-line poem, conceived of fixed lines that are 5, 7, 5 syllables respectively, generally concerned with nature and a single image
Hyperbole
Overstatement, figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth
Imagery
Representation of language through sense experience
Implied metaphor
That in which the literal term is implied and the figurative term named
Internal rhyme
Rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme-words occur within the line
Irony
Situation or use of language involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy
Situational irony
Situation in which there is an incongruity between actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate or between what is anticipated and what actually comes to pass
Italian (Petrachan) sonnet
Sonnet consisting of an octave riming abbaabba and of a sestet using any arrangement of two or three additional rhymes, such as cdcdcd or cdecde
Kinesthetic imagery
Movement, physical tension
Limerick
Fixed form consisting of five lines of anapestic meter, the first two trimeter, the next two dimeter, the last line trimeter, riming aabba; used exclusively for humorous or nonsense verse
Metaphor
Figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. No like or as. Implied. figure of speech broadly any way of saying something other than the ordinary way, more narrowly a way of saying one thing or meaning another
Meter
Regularized rhythm; an arrangement of language in which the accents occur at apparently equal intervals in time
Metonymy
Figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience (the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant)
Named metaphor
In which the literal term is named and figurative term implied
Octave
1.) An 8 line stanza 2.) The first 8 lines of a sonnet, especially one structure in the manner of an Italian sonnet
Olfactory imagery
Imagery describing smells
Onomatopoeia
Use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound
Organic imagery
Inside of you imagery, internal sensation, hunger, thirst, fatigue, sickness
Overstatement
Hyperbole, figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth
Oxymoron
Compact paradox in which two successive words seemingly contradict each other
Paradox
Statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements
Paraphrase
Restatement of the content of a poem designed to make its prose meaning as clear as possible
Personification
Figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept
Poetry
Literary work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinctive style and rhythm
Prose
Nonmetrical language; the opposite of verse
Prose meaning
Part of poem’s total meaning that can be separated out and expressed through paraphrase
Quatrain
1.) 4 line stanza. 2.) 4 line division of a sonnet marked off by its rhyme scheme
Refrain
Repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines, normally at some fixed position in a poem written in stanzaic form
Rhetorical poetry
Uses artificially eloquent language, that is, language too high-flown for its occasion and unfaithful to the full complexity of human experience
Rhythm
Any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound
Rhyme
Repetition of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds in important or importantly positioned words
Run-on line
Line which has no natural speech pause at its end, allowing the sense to flow uninterruptedly into the succeeding line
Sarcasm
Bitter or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed
Satire
Kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the purpose of brining about reform or of keeping others from falling into a similar folly or vice
Sentimentality
Aimed primarily at stimulating the emotions rather than at communicating experience honestly and freshly
Simile
Figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. the comparison is made by using words such as like or as, than, similar too
Sonnet
Fixed form of fourteen lines, normally iambic pentameter, with a rime scheme conforming to or approximating one of two main types - the Italian or the English
Stanza
Group of lines whose metrical pattern (and usually its rime scheme as well) is repeated throughout a poem
Structure
Internal organization of a poem’s content
Symbol
Figure of speech in which something (object, person, situation, or action) means more than what it is. a symbol may be read literally and metaphorically
Synechdoche
Figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole. In this book it is subsumed under metonymy
Synesthesia
Presentation of one sense experience in terms usually associated with another sensation
Tactile imagery
Describes feeling something (like with your hands)
Tercet
3 line stanza
Terza rima
Interlocking rhyme scheme with the pattern aba bcb cdc, etc
Theme
Central theme of a literary work
Tone
Writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward his subject, his audience, or himself
Total meaning
Total experience communicated by a poem, it includes all those dimensions of experience by which a poem communicates sensuous, emotional imaginative and intellectual and it can be communicated in no other words than those of the poem itself
Understatement
Figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants
Verbal irony
Figure of speech in which what is meant is the opposite of what is said
Verse
Metrical language; the opposite of prose
Villanelle
Nineteen-line fixed form consisting of five tercets rhymed aba and a concluding quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercent serving as rerains in an alternating pattern through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19
Accent, stress
Syllable given more prominence in pronunciation
Foot
Basic unit used in the measurement of metrical verse
