Poetry Vocab Flashcards
Alliteration
the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.
“Clary closed her cluttered clothes closet.”
Allusion
an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.
“That’s my Achilles heel!” “Too be or not to be…”
Anadiplosis
the repetition of the last word of a preceding clause
“She opened a café, a café that ruined her financially.”
Anaphora
the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
“I wish I may; I wish I might.”
Antithesis
a figure of speech in which an opposition or contrast of ideas is expressed by parallelism of words that are the opposites of, or strongly contrasted with, each other
“hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all sins”
Apostrophe
When poets direct speech to an abstract concept or a person who is not physically present
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee / Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.”
Assonance
in poetry, the repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in non rhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible
“I tried to light a fire tonight.”
Asyndeton
the omission or absence of a conjunction between parts of a sentence.
“Reduce, reuse, recycle.”
Cacophony
a harsh discordant mixture of sounds.
“dishes crashing on the floor, or horns blaring and people yelling in a traffic accident”
Caesura
any interruption or break.
“but how of Cawdor? / The Thane of Cawdor lives.”
Chiasmus
a rhetorical or literary figure in which words, grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same or a modified form
“She has all my love; my heart belongs to her”
Connotation
An idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning
“She’s feeling blue.”
Consonance
the recurrence of similar sounds, especially consonants, in close proximity (chiefly as used in prosody).
“Sharp as a blade covered in blood.”
Diction
The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.
“The professor relishes erudite conversations with his pupils.”
Didactic poetry
poems that present a direct message to the reader, a bit like the ‘moral’ of a story
“John Milton’s epic Paradise Lost”
Ellipsis
The omission from speech or writing of a word or words that are superfluous or able to be understood from contextual clues.
“I want to go but I can’t’ instead of `I want to go but I can’t go.”
Enjambment
the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza.
“I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills”
Epithet
an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned.
“Dirty old men”
Epistrophe
the repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses or sentences.
“government of the people, by the people, for the people,shall not perish from the earth”
Euphony
the quality of being pleasing to the ear, especially through a harmonious combination of words
“mists, mellow, close, sun, bless, vines and eves”
Hyperbole
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
“I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse”
Jargon
special words or expressions that are used by a particular profession or group and are difficult for others to understand.
“elbow, ABS, sweating the pipes, reducer, flapper, snake, and rough-in”
Metaphor
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
“He’s a couch potato”
Onomatopoeia
the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named
°Buzz, ding, pow!”
Oxymoron
a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction
“Old news, deafening silence”
Paradox
seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.
“The person after me is lying.”
“The person before me is telling the truth.”
Personification
the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.
“The rainbow smiled at me”
Polysyndeton
the repeated use of coordinating conjunctions to connect different items in a sentence with the intention of emphasizing something
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.”
Simile
a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid
“Brave as a lion”
Zeugma
a figure of speech in which a word applies to two others in different senses
“She stole his last name and his heart.”
