Poetry Terms

Question 1

What is rhythm?:

Answer 1

Rhythm is produced by a recurring pattern of stressed syllables and pauses.

Question 2

What is metric pattern?:

Answer 2

The accents of the syllables in the words fall at regular intervals, like the beat of music.

Question 3

What is meter?:

Answer 3

The beat of poetry feet.

Question 4

1 foot:

Answer 4

monometer

Question 5

2 feet:

Answer 5

dimeter

Question 6

3 feet:

Answer 6

trimeter

Question 7

4 feet:

Answer 7

tetrameter

Question 8

5 feet:

Answer 8

pentameter

Question 9

6 feet:

Answer 9

hexameter

Question 10

7 feet:

Answer 10

heptameter

Question 11

8 feet:

Answer 11

octameter

Question 12

9 feet:

Answer 12

nonameter

Question 13

What is end-stopped?:

Answer 13

A pause at the end of a line

Question 14

What is caesura?:

Answer 14

A pause that occurs within a line

Question 15

What in enjambment?:

Answer 15

A line that “runs over” to the next line without a pause

Question 16

What does euphony mean?:

Answer 16

good sound

Question 17

What does cacophony mean?:

Answer 17

bad sound

Question 18

What is a sight (eye) rhyme?:

Answer 18

two words look alike but don’t sound alike. such as “LOVE” and “JOVE” or “DAUGHTER” and “LAUGHTER”. NOTE: sometimes what is now a sight rhyme was once a true rhyme, but pronunciation changes have occurred, such as “AGAIN” and “RAIN”.

Question 19

What is a slant (imperfect) rhyme?:

Answer 19

two words are nearly rhymed, but have a slight variation in vowel sound, such as “LAKE” and “FATE”

Question 20

What is identical rhyme (rime riche)?:

Answer 20

two words are spelled differently but have the same pronunciation (also called homonyms), such as “TWO” and “TOO” or “RITE” and “RIGHT”

Question 21

What is end rhyme?:

Answer 21

the rhyming words occur at the end of lines of poetry

Question 22

What is internal rhyme?:

Answer 22

the rhyme occurs inside the line, such as “Let’s BEAT the HEAT.”

Question 23

What is alliteration?:

Answer 23

the repetition of similar sounds in closely associated words or syllables

Question 24

What is consonantal alliteration?:

Answer 24

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers

Question 25

What is vowel alliteration?:

Answer 25

Apt alliteration’s artful aid is often an occasional ornament in prose

Question 26

What is internal alliteration?:

Answer 26

The moan of doves in immemorial elms, and murmuring of innumerable bees

Question 27

Assonance:

Answer 27

the repetition of identical vowel sounds in syllables that have different consonant sounds, such as “LAKE” and “FAKE” or “In Xanadu did Kulba Khan” (which repeats only vowel sounds)

Question 28

Consonance:

Answer 28

the repetition of identical consonant sounds in syllables that have different vowel sounds, such as “BILL” and “BALL” or “BORN” and “BURN”.

Question 29

Onomatopoeia:

Answer 29

the use of words which sound like their meanings, such as “HISS”, “MURMUR”, “BUZZ”, and so on. A really skillful poet may merely use S-sounds in a poem about a snake, rather than the word “HISS”.

Question 30

What is denotation?:

Answer 30

the literal meaning of a word

Question 31

What is connotation?:

Answer 31

the figurative meaning of a word

Question 32

What is imagery?:

Answer 32

the use of figures of speech which are concrete – it always refers to a sensory experience

Question 33

What is an analogy?:

Answer 33

a comparison of two things, alike in certain aspects – a simile is an expressed analogy; a metaphor is an implied one

Question 34

What is a metaphor?:

Answer 34

two unlike things compared directly, implying several similar qualities, such as “The river is a snake which coils on itself.”

Question 35

What is a simile?:

Answer 35

two unlike things compared using “like” or “as”, implying only one similar quality, such as “The man paced like a hungry lion.”

Question 36

What is personification?:

Answer 36

giving human qualities to inanimate objects or non-human creatures, such as “The trees danced in the breeze”.

Question 37

What is apostrophe?:

Answer 37

addressing some abstract object as if it were animate, such as “O world! Tell me thy pain!” Thus, it is a kind of person

Question 38

What is allusion?:

Answer 38

Referring metaphorically to persons, places, or things from history or previous literature, with which the reader is expected to have enough familiarity to make extended associations, such as “The new kid is mean as Grendel an twice as ugly” or “He must think he is some kind of superman.”

Question 39

What is allegory?:

Answer 39

a form of extended or elaborate metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself, such as “Everyman”. Special kinds of allegories include the fable and the parable.

Question 40

What is conceit?:

Answer 40

an extended or elaborate metaphor which forms the framework of an entire poem with all comparisons being interrelated in some way such as “What is Our Life?” by Raleigh.

Question 41

What is symbolism?:

Answer 41

the use of one object to represent or suggest another object or an idea. Thus, a rose might be used to symbolize the loved one or love in general, depending on the context.

Question 42

What is metonymy?:

Answer 42

substitution of one word for another closely related word, such as “The pot’s boiling” or “The White House announced

Question 43

What is synecdoche?:

Answer 43

substitution of a part for a whole, such as “All hands on deck.”

Question 44

What is synaesthesia?:

Answer 44

substitution of one sensory response for another (or the concurrent stimulation of several senses), such as “a blue note” or “cool green” or “The blind man turned his face t feel the sun.”

Question 45

What is hyperbole?:

Answer 45

saying more than is true, an over-exaggeration, such as “He wore his fingers to the bone”.

Question 46

What is meiosis?:

Answer 46

saying less than is true, an under-exaggeration, such as “The reports of my death have been exaggerated”.

Question 47

What is irony?:

Answer 47

saying the opposite to what is true, such as “war is kind”

Question 48

What is antithesis?:

Answer 48

using contrasts for an accumulative effect, such as “Man proposes; God disposes”

Question 49

What is oxymoron?:

Answer 49

an antithesis that brings together two sharply contradictory terms, such as “wise fool,” “little big man,” “eloquent silence,” and “loving hate”.

Question 50

What is litotes?:

Answer 50

a form of understatement in which as thing is affirmed by stating the negative of its opposite, such as “He was not unmindful” which actually means he was mindful

Question 51

What is a paradox?:

Answer 51

a statement which while seemingly contradictory or absurd may actually be well-founded and true; a “logical twist”, such as “Everything I say is a lie.”

Question 52

What is a pun?:

Answer 52

a play on words based on the similarity of sound between two words with different meanings, such as “she offered her honour; he offered her honour; and all night long he was on her and off her.”

Question 53

What is a portmanteau word?:

Answer 53

a word concocted for deliberate effect, such as “jorts” from “jeans” and “shorts” or “spork” from “spoon” and “fork”. Some words actually become a part of the language, such as “smog”, “brunch”, or “motel”. Sometimes called a coined word or neologism.

Question 54

What is anaphora?:

Answer 54

in writing or speech, the deliberate repetition of the first part of the sentence in order the achieve an artistic effect, such as Martin Luther King’s speech, “I Have a Dream”

Question 55

What is chiasmus?:

Answer 55

a rhetorical device in which two or more clauses are balanced against each other by the reversal of their structures in order to produce an artistic effect, such as “Never let a Fool Kiss You or a Kiss Fool You.”