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Poetry Terminology > Literary Devices R-Z > Flashcards

Literary Devices R-Z Flashcards

1
Q

Define REALISM

A
  • Literary Realism was a movement that went on mostly in the 19thC and talked about life plainly.
    -Instead of romanticising things, these guys just told it like it was
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2
Q

Define REFRAIN

A

a refrain in poetry is a regularly recurring phrase or verse, especially at the END of each stanza or division of a poem

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3
Q

Define RHETORIC

A
  • rhetoric is the art of argument; that is, persuading someone to see your POV
  • Aristotle had lots to say about how to do just that, and many of these rhetorical principles from the classical period remain today
  • When we try to PERSUADE people, we use rhetorical devices like rhetorical Qs, parallelism, and hyperbole
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4
Q

Define INTERNAL RHYME

A
  • rhyme that occurs WITHIN a line of poetry
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5
Q

Define END RHYME

A
  • rhyme that occurs only at the ENDS of lines
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6
Q

Define PERFECT RHYME

A
  • a rhyme that rhymes perfectly, ex: cat and sat
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7
Q

Define SLANT RHYME

A
  • rhymes that are CLOSE, but not quite there: dear and door OR soul and all
  • also known as half rhyme, imperfect rhyme, or weak rhyme
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8
Q

Define EYE RHYMES

A

-look alike, but don’t sound alike: tough and bough, mint and pint

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9
Q

Define RHYME SCHEME

A
  • are patterns of end rhymes in poems
  • to talk about rhyme schemes, we use capital letters
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10
Q

Define RHYTHM

A
  • it’s all about SOUND
  • how does language create that beat? By creating (and then riffing off of) a pattern
  • That pattern can be made up of any number of things- repeated phrases, a MIX of stressed and unstressed syllables, periodic pauses, and even RHYME
  • EASIER to define it by what it is NOT
    1) it is NOT METER:
    ~meter can often be used to create rhythm, but meter refers to a formal and specific pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables
    2) it is NOT CADENCE
    ~ cadence too, is a part of rhythm, but it refers specifically to the moments the language SPEEDS up or SLOWS down
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11
Q

-Define RISING ACTION

A
  • it’s the road to the climax
  • it’s all the stuff that sets the stage for the bigger, more exciting moment in the book
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12
Q

Define SESTET

A
  • is the LAST 6 lines of a sonnet, and you can’t have a Petrarchan sonnet without one
  • last 8 lines: OCTAVE
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13
Q

Define SIBILANCE

A
  • alliteration that employs ONLY the soft consonant sounds
    -EX:
    ~s, sh, ch, th, x, z, f, c (soft c)
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14
Q

Define SOLILOQUY

A
  • an important monologue given by a character in a play is ALONE on the stage
  • because they are alone when they deliver these speeches, a character might reveal some v key thoughts, feelings and opinions to the audience during a soliloquy
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15
Q

Define SPONDEE

A
  • a metrical foot consisting of 2 consecutive stressed syllables: DUM-DUM
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16
Q

Define SONNET

A
  • Sonnets typically have:
    ~ 14 lines
    ~ a rhyme scheme
    ~ IP
    ~ a volta, somewhere around line 8/9, where the poem takes a new direction or changes its argument in some way
17
Q

Define Petrarchan Sonnet

A
  • divided into 2 sections:
    1) an octave
    2) followed by a sestet

The RHYME SCHEME for the octave is usually ABBAABBA
While the rhyme scheme for the sestet is a little more flexible- some go with CDECDE or CDCDCD
In a PS the volta comes at line 9, at the BEGINNING of the sestet
Typically the octave would present some sort of pickle that the sestet would SOLVE, or describe some sort of state of affairs that the sestet would then comment on

18
Q

Define SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET

A
  • Usually WS (and his successors) would arrange his sonnet into 3 QUATRAINS, followed by a final COUPLET
  • Usually the volta would come around the BEGINNING of the 3rd quatrain
  • rhyme scheme: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG
19
Q

Define SPENSERIAN SONNET

A
  • Like the WS Sonnet, these usually have 3 quatrains, followed by a final couplet
  • UNLIKE the PS, there’s not necessarily any volta going down
  • They are unique for using an INTERLOCKING rhyme scheme: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE
20
Q

Define STRUCTURALISM

A
  • according to the Structuralists:
    1) ALL lit works abide by some larger structure
    2) In order to read a lit work, you need to think it in terms of this more universal structure:
    ~ what is this structure? Anything really, as long as it’s something that can be applied to MULTIPLE TEXTS: i.e. genres, narrative patterns, archetypal characters, etc
    3) Nothing is ever new- it’s just a combo of already-created things
    4) Individual texts do NOT create meaning of their own
    EX: Christopher Booker’s 7 Basic Plot Structures: argues that stories fall into 7 categories
    EX: Joseph Campbell’s stages of the hero’s journey

HOWEVER, it doesn’t always work- Foucault, Derrida, Barthes: didn’t like what they saw in structuralism, and they became known as the post-Structuralists. They thought that Structuralists IGNORED the whole concept of a changing history or social influence

21
Q

Define SYNECDOCHE

A
  • is a form of metonymy, but instead of a “part for a part”, the writer substitutes “a part for a whole”
  • i.e. they represent an object with ONLY a distinct part of the object: EX: “car” becomes “a nice set of wheels”
22
Q

Define SYNESTHESIA

A
  • where you mix the senses in order to create a more complex or meaningful description of something
    EX: a loud shirt= loud is an adj that pertains to sound, and shirts do not make sounds.
23
Q

Define SYNTAX

A
  • it’s all about sentence structure- how words and phrases relate to each other
  • can refer to the order of the words in a sentence
24
Q

Define TENOR

A
  • in a metaphor, the TENOR is the subject
    i.e. the tenor is what’s getting reimagined by the other part of the metaphor (the vehicle)
  • EX: “Seals are total angels”
    tenor: seals
    vehicle: angels
    -EX: “I devoured The Kite Runner”
    tenor: “reading” (A word not used here)
    vehicle: devoured
25
Q

Define Theatre of The Absurd

A
  • Sisyphus (rock guy) is at the heart of the Theatre of the Absurd, a drama movement whose devotees believed that humans’ thirst for truth and the meaning of life was ABSURD: i.e. as pointless as Sisyphus pushing that stone up the mountain over and over again
  • Albert Camus first introduced the idea of the Absurd in his 1942 essay “THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS”
  • the movement was all the rage in Europe post- WW2.
  • How to know if a play is a part of the movement?
    ~ look out for repetitive dialogue, nonsense language and cliches; mysteries that never get solved; a cloudy sense of time, place, or plot; characters asking huge philosophical Qs; and a general sense of chaos
26
Q

Define TONE

A
  • tone is an author’s attitude: the emotions and feelings conveyed by the work of lit
  • tone refers to attitude, while style refers to the techniques employed by the author
    EX: One book can be optimistic in tone and another negative, but they could both be written in a stream-of-consciousness style
27
Q

Define TROPE

A
  • another term for a figurative language
  • the term trope just means your’e using words to mean something other than their literal meaning
28
Q

Define TROCHEE

A
  • a metrical foot made up of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed:
    DUM-da
  • opposite of an iamb (da-DUM)
29
Q

Define TREATISE

A
  • a long, formal (i.e. organised) discussion of any given topic
    EX: Adam Smith’s ‘The Wealth of Nations’; Charles Darwin’s ‘On The Origin of Species’
30
Q

Define VEHICLE `

A
  • In a metaphor, the vehicle is the image OR idea that represents the subject
  • i.e. the vehicle is giving us a new way to imagine the tenor or subject
31
Q

Define VERISIMILITUDE

A
  • refers to the RESEMBLANCE a work bears to REALITY
  • i.e. if a work has verisimilitude, it has a certain likeness to actual life
  • but is verisimilitude something authors should aspire to? Do stories have to resemble real life in order to ring true?
32
Q

Define ZEUGMA

A
  • pronounced zoyg-muh
  • you don’t often see it in comtemp lit; was much more common in ancient poetry
  • occurs when one verb is used to mean 2 different things for 2 different object:
    EX: “He ate some pasta and my heart out”
    ~ to eat pasta and someone’s heart out are 2 v different definitions for “ate”=
    1) one consumption= PHYSICAL
    2) the other= CONCEPTUAL
  • by putting 2 very unalike objects or concepts, zeugmas make us laugh
  • plus, the pairing also invites comparison: how does nutritional consumption compare to emotional consumption?

Poetry Terminology (6 decks)

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