Poetry Terms Flashcards
Subject
Main thing/character; not always the same as the theme
Theme
Emotion or insight at the heart of a poem
Means
Rhythms and verbal wordplay, kind of language, poetic form, suggestions of other poems or music/paintings poets use, sometimes also called “elements”
Alliteration
Repetition of the same sounding letters; if it’s the first letter of the words and it’s a consonant, it’s called initial alliteration
Assonance
Repetition of vowel sounds within a phrase
Onomatopoeia
Word sounds like the noise it describes
Rhyme
Similarity of sounds
Eye rhyme
Words that look similar but when pronounced aloud, aren’t
Perfect rhyme
The sound of the two words is exactly alike
Near/Slant Rhyme
The sound if the two words is close but not exact
End rhyme
The rhyme is at the end of the line
Masculine rhyme
The accent on rhyming words is on a final strong syllable
Feminine rhyme
Accent of rhyming words is on a weak syllable
Accent
The strong syllable in a word
Internal rhyme
rhyme in the middle of line of poetry (rhymes WITH the end of the same line)