Definitions Flashcards
Theme
The governing idea (or ideas) of a poem, conveyed through the details of the poem.
Lyric Poem
Express an individual speaker’s feelings or thoughts. Usually a short(ish) poem.
End-rhyme
Identical or similar sounds repeated at the end of the lines of poetry.
Confessional Poetry
Emphasizes personal, intimate, embarrassing or uncomfortable details of personal life.
Alliteration
Repetition of the beginning sounds of words linked closely together.
Allusion
Implied reference to literary/historical sources.
Apostrophe
When a speaker directly addresses an object or dead/absent person as if the imagined audience were actually listening.
Bathos
Effect of moving from elevated subject/style/tone to a more trivial one (within a line-in close proximity)
Beat Writing
Experimental works from 1950s to 1960s promoting a rebellious and anti-establishment view of the world.
Blank Verse
Unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter.
Conceit
Unusually elaborate metaphor or simile extending beyond original tenor and vehicle - sometimes becoming a “master”-analogy for the entire poem. Ingenious or fanciful images and comparison, especially popular with metaphysical poets.
Couplet
A pair of rhyming lines in poetry usually with the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed, a complete unit of thought/grammatically complete) or run-on (open).
Dramatic Monologue
A lyric poem that takes the form of an individual speaker addressing a silent listener. The speaker usually reveals more than he or she intends to. Often studies of exceptional, insane, historical, or mythical figures.
Enjambment
When the sense of an idea in a poem does not stop at the end of a line. No pause is created by punctuation, but pause is given by the line.
Free Verse
Does not follow any regular meter, rhyme scheme, or line length.
Iambic Pentameter
Lines of five iambs (two syllables, one unstressed followed by a stressed), the most common metre in English poetry.
Imagery
Representation in words of things perceived by senses. Not only pictures but sounds, tastes, touches, smells, sensory words. More important when repeated/consistent or strange.
Imagism
A poetic movement, popular mainly in the 1910s-1920s. The idea is to represent emotions or impressions through highly concentrated imagery. Images, not explanations.
Metaphor
Comparison between two unrelated things without using “like” or “as”
Mock-Epic
A type of satire, basically “gentle” satire of epic poetry.
Ode
Deals with personal, reflective, literary themes - almost always serious tone, usually employ a pattern of repeated stanzas.
Pastoral
Poem about idyllic rural country life.
Personification
Any reference to an inanimate object, idea, or animal as if it were human
Quatrain
Four-line stanza, usually rhymed
