ENL Vocab Flashcards
(42 cards)
Content: What the poem says and means
- Its topics, themes, and ideas
- The meanings of the words
- What entities (objectives, humans, animals, etc.) are represented in the poem
Form: How the poem says or means (the “literary devices” or “formal elements”)
- Semantic literary devices such as metaphor, allusion, personification, imagery, metonymy
- Visual literary devices and elements such as lines, stanza, shape, font, etc.
- Sonic literary devices such as rhyme, alliteration, cadence, stress, etc.
- Grammatical choices (pronouns, syntax, verbs, nouns, prepositions, etc.)
Apostrophe (Form)
The speaker’s direct address to a person, creature, inanimate objects, divine entity or personified abstract concept not in the presence of the speaker and who does not act the poem
Rhetorical Questions (Form)
A question that is asked without an expected reply. These questions are usually designed to make the reader consider their answers themselves
Juxtaposition (Form)
Two or more things placed together for a rhetorical effect. That effect can be dramatic, ironic, comparison, a contrast, or for some other reason. The “things” that can be juxtaposed are anything: words, images, stanzas, sentences, etc.
Irony (Form)
A type of juxtaposition between an (often implicit) idea that we might expect and the idea we actually read or is true in the text
Catalogue (Form)
A long list of juxtaposition items, not providing explicit logical relations between listed items but implying similarity or cohesiveness within the logic of the list itself
Cadence
Is the visual literary devices the poet uses to guide the tempo and pauses of the voice when reading the text aloud. Common visual literary devices used for cadence include periods, commonas, and dashes; line breaks; and unusually long spaces within a line. Cadence can affect what elements of a stance or line are emphasized and a statement’s tone.
Line
Line: One (usually) horizontal unit of words across the page. A visual literary device and often a feature of cadence. Often (but not always) a line is intended to be spoken in one breath. Sometimes there is an intended pause between lines, sometimes not. There is no clear rule to follow to know whether this is so or not unfortunately!
Line break, end-stopped line, enjambment (form)
- The “line break” is where the line ends.
- Sometimes, a line ends on a complete grammatical clause, phrase, or sentence. This is called an end-stopped line.
- The end of a line that breaks unnaturally in the middle of a clause or phrase is called an enjambment.
Symbol (form)
Something physical and real is a sign for abstract or spiritual ideas. The referent of the symbol is usually not made evident in the poem. Symbols often carry multiple referents or meanings.
Hyperbole (form)
A deliberately exaggerated statement or claim that is not intended to be taken literally. Hyperbole can be used for serious, comic, or ironic effects.
Euphemism (form)
A term with a negative connotation is replaced by a term with a more positive or neutral connotation.
Dysphemism (form)
A term with a positive or neutral connotation is replaced by a term with a more negative connotation.
Speaker (form)
The speaker of a poem is the identified or unidentified voice(s) or persona(s) speaking the words of the poem. The speaker may or may not be the poet themself. As a general rule, assume that the speaker is not the poet. Regardless, the speaker often attempts to draw you into their imagination through the poet’s use of literary devices and formal elements, through ideas, and through the emotions and overall experience the poet attempts to shape for you.
Parataxis (form)
A type of juxtaposition in which there at first seems to be no logical relationship between items juxtaposed, whether cause-effect, chronology, contrast, similarity, or some other logical relation. Often there is no consistent agent, action, or frame of reference.
Sonnet: “A little song”
- Elizabeth Sonnet / Shakespearean Sonnet
-Petrarchan Sonnet / Italian Sonnet
Rhyme, end-rhyme, internal rhyme, slant rhyme (form)
- Rhyme is the correspondence of vowel and consonant sound at the endings of words.
- End-rhyme: rhymes that occur at the ends of lines
- Internal rhyme: rhymes that occur within one line
- Slant-rhyme (or half rhyme): rhymes that have slightly different vowel sounds
Turn
A turn is a significant turning point or change that occurs in a poem. When annotating, look for a turning point in the poem, as this can be a key moment to understanding what is most important to a poem and to analyzing it.
Volta
A volta is a turn that occurs in a sonnet. It is conventional for a sonnet to have something called a “volta,” which means “turn” in Italian (the genre from which the sonnet derived). “Volta” is only used to describe the turn in a sonnet, not in any other form of poetry.
Simile (form)
A comparison between two things using “like” or “as.” While other devices of comparison such as metaphor or symbol might present two things as though they are inherently linked, simile preserves a space of difference between things compared.
Paradox (form)
A statement that contradicts itself, is impossible, or that must be both true and untrue at the same time.
Imagery (form)
The poet writes with the five senses to make the reader imagine an entity, event, idea, or action (all elements of content) in a specific concrete way. The point of imagery is to manipulate the reader’s imagination such that they experience the content of the poem in a specific sensual mode that is important to the poem’s meanings.
Metaphor (form)
A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two seemingly unlike things, asserting that one of the terms is essential to understanding the other. While simile holds space of difference between things; metaphor collapses them, asserting an identical quality between items compared. One item is subordinated to another; that is, its presence in the poem is only figurative, while the other item is part of the literal action or situation.
