Unit 4 Flashcards
allegory
A fictional story or narrative poem that conveys a message, idea, or concept that exists outside of the text; the message can’t be found in the literal meaning of the story.
allusion
A brief reference to a person, place, or event that readers are expected to recognize. Through the association with the reference, the meaning of the work becomes enhanced.
aubade
A poem written about the morning (usually a love song). This type of poem sings to the situations of lovers in the morning.
ballad
The ballad was originally a narrative song. The speaker of a ballad relates a story in stanza form, usually in quatrains. Ballads often have a consistent meter (same rhythm pattern in each stanza) and repeat key phrases.
dramatic monologue
A type of poem that is delivered by a speaker who describes himself or herself or relates an event he or she saw or participated in.
elegy
A lyric poem that praises a dead person or persons. It may focus on the subject’s significance as an individual or treat the subject as a symbol of larger themes such as sorrow or human mortality. The subject may or may not be personally known to the poet.
epic
A long narrative poem on a momentous subject in which divine, semidivine, or human characters perform heroic actions.
free verse
A type of verse that isn’t constrained by a rhythm or rhyme scheme. Free verse is the predominate form for poetry now being written.
lyric
The term “lyric” is used to classify poems that aren’t clearly narrative. In a lyrical poem, a single speaker conveys a thought, emotion, or sensory impression. Originally meant to be sung, a lyric poem can be any length.
ode
A lyric poem that celebrates its subject. It is an elaborate, emotional poem about a single theme, topic, or person.
sonnet
A fixed verse form that is defined by its length and rhyme scheme. The two most well-known forms are Elizabethan and Petrarchan.
Elizabethan sonnet
A type of sonnet that contains 14 lines and follows the rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg.
Petrarchan sonnet
A type of sonnet that contains 14 lines and follows the rhyme scheme: abba abba cde cde.
speaker
One who speaks in a conversation or is the voice of narration in a written text.
attitude
The feeling or disposition presented in the poem.
blank verse
A type of poetry that has a meter but no rhyme scheme.
colloquial
Language found in everyday speech.
continuous form
In continuous form, the lines follow each other without formal grouping. Visual concrete poems fall in this category.
dramatic monologue
A type of poem that is delivered by a speaker who describes himself or herself or relates an event he or she saw or participated in.
ellipsis
The omission of clearly implied words.
fixed form
A pattern that applies to the entire poem. Rondeaus, villanelles, sestinas, ballads, sonnets, and limericks are all fixed forms since they have a designed structure.
inverted sentence
A type of sentence that follows object-verb-subject or complement-verb-subject, which is the opposite of normal syntactic order for English sentences. Sometimes, word order is inverted to call attention to the idea the sentence expresses.
irony
The use of words to describe contradictions between what is expected and what actually happens. When a discrepancy exists between what words say and what they really mean, irony is present.
dramatic irony
In this type of irony, the characters have only a partial or incorrect understanding of their situation. In plays, dramatic irony occurs when the audience knows more than the characters; in poems, there is a discrepancy between what the speaker says and what the poem means.
situational irony
This type of irony occurs when there’s a discrepancy between the actual circumstances and what one would anticipate.
verbal irony
Characters use this type of irony when they deliberately say something that they don’t mean — something that reveals through their tone what they really feel.
juxtaposition
The act or an instance of placing items side by side.
mood
The feeling or atmosphere in the work that is created by the author’s choice of details, images, and sounds.
parallel/parallelism
Repetition of the same grammatical forms.
rhyme
The repetition of an end sound.
sound devices
Examples include alliteration and onomatopoeia.
stanza
A group of lines that form a division of the poem.
stanzaic form
This type of form designates four things: the rhyme scheme, the position of the refrain, the prevailing metrical foot, and the number of feet in each line.
syntax
An element of tone that refers to the grammatical structure of one’s writing. Like diction, it can be formal or informal.
tone
A story’s tone reflects the author’s attitudes toward the people, places, and events in the story. It is important for establishing ethos or persona. Diction and syntax are two important elements of tone.
alliteration
The re-echoing of sounds to create effect and meaning in poetry.
assonance
The repetition of a vowel sound that can occur either initially or internally.
caesura
A natural pause within a line of poetic verse.
consonance
The repetition of a consonant sound that can occur at the beginning or in the middle of words (referred to as initially or internally, respectively).
couplet
A pair of lines of verse that rhyme and are of the same length.
foot (feet)
A group of syllables with a fixed metrical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
iambic pentameter
The most natural metrical pattern in the English language. It consists of an unstressed syllable, followed by a stressed syllable. The two are then repeated five times in a row: da DAH, da DAH, da DAH, da DAH, da DAH.
imagery
Figurative language that asks the reader to create associations between the words on the page and his or her experience.
meter
The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables. It is measured by feet.
octave
A stanza with eight lines.
Petrarchan (or Italian) sonnet
This type of sonnet has one octave and one sestet. It is named for the 14th-century poet Petrarch.
quatrain
A stanza that contains four lines of verse.
rhyme scheme
The pattern of rhymes in a poem in which a letter is assigned to each ending word sound.
rhythm
An ordered recurrent alteration of strong and weak elements that depends on the establishment of a pattern and its return. In a poem, rhythm has two main effects: It gives pleasure, and it reveals the speaker. Overall, rhythm helps determine a poem’s mood and, along with other elements, the poem’s meaning.
scansion
The process of labeling stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.
sestet
Stanzas with six lines.
Shakespearean (or English) sonnet
A sonnet that contains three quatrains (stanzas of four lines of verse), followed by a rhymed couplet. It follows the rhyme scheme: abab, cdcd, efef, gg.
Spenserian sonnet
A sonnet that is characterized by three linked quatrains, abab/bcbc/cdcd, and ends with a rhymed couplet, ee. It is named after the 16th-century English poet Edmund Spenser.
stressed
The emphasis of a syllable.
synedoche
A type of symbolism that uses a part of an object or idea to stand for, or “symbolize,” the whole, or a whole to symbolize a part.
tercets
Three-lined stanzas.
unstressed
The unemphasized syllable.
villanelle
A verse form that weaves together a tightly constructed rhyme scheme of five tercets (three lined stanzas) of “aba” and ends with a quatrain of “abaa.”
