Poetry Terms

Question 1

Modern 5 line poetry form developed by American poet Adelaide Crapsey with increasing syllabies in the first four lines before returning for 2 syllables in the last (2, 4, 6, 8, 2)

Answer 1

cinquain

Question 2

poetry written in paired, often rhyming lines with the same meter

Answer 2

couplet

Question 3

The Maigue poets are thought to have developed the form, and Edward Lear is probably the best known practitioner. Irish five line form often on a humorous subject. Rhyme scheme is AABBA

Answer 3

limerick

Question 4

Originally developed by Boccaccio, 8 line form. Byron and Yeats are the best known English language proponents. Rhyme scheme is ABABABCC

Answer 4

Ottava Rima

Question 5

Introduced to English poetry by Chaucer, this is a 7 line form. He also used it in four of the Cantebury Tales. It can either by tera rima followed by two couplets (ABA BB CC) or a quatrain followed by a tercet (ABAB BCC)

Answer 5

rhyme royal

Question 6

Basho is considered the master, and the form was repopularized in the 19th century by Shiki. Traditionally contain both a kigo (word denoting a season) and a kireji (word that provides a grammatical break between lines). It is a traditional Japanese poetric form consisting of 17 ons (roughly translated as syllables) and 3 lines (5,7,5 ons, respectivelyl)

Answer 6

haiku

Question 7

Best known example is John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields”. 15 line French Form

Answer 7

rondeau

Question 8

39 line poetry form consisting of six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (3 line stanza). The same 6 words end each line of the 6-line stanzas

Answer 8

sestina

Question 9

Invented by Spenser for his “The Faerie Queen, it is a 9 line form. Consists of 8 lines of iambic pentameter followed by one Alexandrine (12 line syllable) line of iambic hexameter.

Answer 9

Spenserian stanza

Question 10

Dante invented the form for his Divine Comedy. Form that uses three lines interlocking stanzas of the form “ABA BCB CDC DED” etc. There is no limit to the number of stanzas

Answer 10

terza rima

Question 11

Invented by French poet Jean Passerat, it is a 19 line French form. Dyan Thomas used the form for his “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” It consist of 5 tercets and a concluding quatrain

Answer 11

villanelle

Question 12

a foot with a stressed syllable, one unstressed syllable, and another stressed syllable as in “give and take”

Answer 12

amphimacer

Question 13

a literary movement among novelists at the end of the nineteenth century and the early decades on the twentieth century. they tended to view people as hapless victims of immutable natural law

Answer 13

naturalism

Question 14

a long, formal lyric poem with a serious theme that may have a traditional stanza structure

Answer 14

ode

Question 15

use of words that imitate sounds

Answer 15

onomatopoeia

Question 16

a figure of speech that combines two opposing or contradictory ideas

Answer 16

oxymoron

Question 17

a brief story, usually with human characters, that teaches a moral lesson

Answer 17

parable

Question 18

a statement that seems to be contradictory, but that actually presents the truth

Answer 18

paradox

Question 19

a humorous interpretation of a literary work it exaggerates or distorts the characteristic features of the original

Answer 19

parody

Question 20

a figure of speech in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics

Answer 20

personification

Question 21

the presentation in it are of the detail of actual life. It was also a literary movement that began during the 19th century and that stressed the actual as opposed to the imagined or the fanciful

Answer 21

realism

Question 22

a repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song

Answer 22

refrain

Question 23

the tendency among certain authors to write about specific geographical areas

Answer 23

regionalism

Question 24

literary and artistic movement of the 19th century, on that arose in reaction against 18th century neoclassicism and that placed a premium on fancy, imagination, individuality, and exotica

Answer 24

romanticism

Question 25

writing that ridicules or ciriticizes other individuals, ideas, institutions, social conventions, or other works of literature

Answer 25

satire

Question 26

a figure of speech that makes a direct comparison between two subjects using like or as

Answer 26

simile

Question 27

in a play or prose work is a long speech made by a character who is alone and who reveals his or her private thoughts and feelings to the audience

Answer 27

soliloquy

Question 28

a 14 line lyric poem focused on a single theme

Answer 28

sonnet

Question 29

a group of lines in a poem, considered as a unit

Answer 29

stanza

Question 30

a narrative technique that presents thoughts as if they were coming directly from a character’s mind

Answer 30

stream of consciousness

Question 31

a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole thing

Answer 31

synecdoche

Question 32

an American literary and philosophical movement of the 19th century. The followers, who were based in New England, believed that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” the experience and thus are better guides to truth than are the senses and logical reason

Answer 32

transcendentalism

Question 33

the ordinary language of people in a particular region

Answer 33

vernacular

Question 34

a 19 line poem with only two rhymes that follows a strict pattern popular in traditional French poetry

Answer 34

villanelle