Intro to Poetry: Vocab Flashcards
(38 cards)
What is symbolism?
A common literary device; use of symbols to express a deeper meaning.
ex: red rose=love, four leaf clover=luck
What is a paradox?
A common literary device; a statement or situation with seemingly contradictory elements.
ex: end of the beginning, beginning of the end, I save my money by spending it
What is a hyperbole?
A common literary device; an exaggeration
ex: I’m so hungry I could eat a horse
What is litotes?
(Li-to-tes) A common literary device; an understatement (with some irony)
ex: It’s not rocket science, it’s not the best weather today (while there’s a hurricane)
What is an allusion?
A common literary device; an indirect reference; reference to another work within a work.
ex: His smile is like kryptonite to me, they felt like they won the golden ticket
What is an apostrophe?
A common literary device; a direct statement to a person or thing that is not present.
ex: In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet says, “Oh Romeo, oh Romeo.”
What are the literary devices that we confuse with one another?
- Metaphor vs Simile
- Connotation vs Denotation
- Personification vs Anthropomorphism (an·thro·po·mor·phism)
- Synecdoche (sin-ec-do-key) vs Metonymy (me·ton·y·my)
Metaphor vs Simile
Metaphor - Implicit comparison not using “like” or “as”.
ex: She’s a late bloomer, they’re the black sheep
Simile - Explicit comparison using “like” or “as”
ex: He is as sly as a fox, blind as a bat
Connotation vs Denotation
Connotation - Suggestive meaning of a word.
ex: Blue = feeling sad, he’s such a dog
Denotation - Literal definition of a word
ex: Blue = color blue, the dog is a mutt
Personification vs Anthropomorphism
Personification - gives particular human traits to nonhuman or abstract things.
ex: The dog smiled, the cat danced, the wind was howling
Anthropomorphism (an·thro·po·mor·phism) - refers to something nonhuman behaving as human.
ex: The teapot sang
Synecdoche vs Metonymy
Synecdoche (sin-ec-do-key) - Literary device that represents the whole or visa versa.
ex: Asking for someone’s hand in marriage
Metonymy (me·ton·y·my) - Represent something by something closely related
ex: FEDS to represent cops
List and explain the three main types of irony.
- Dramatic - Reader knows what’s going to happen but character doesn’t.
- Situational - When opposite of what’s expected happens.
- Verbal - The language.
What is irony?
Language or a situation that contradicts our expectations
ex: A fire station burns down, police station gets robbed
List and define the 7 types of imagery.
Visual - sight Olfactory - smell Tactile - touch Gustatory - taste Auditory - hearing Kinesthetic - movement Organic - feelings (emotional)
What is a line?
A line of writing in a poem.
What is a stanza?
A paragraph in a poem
What is an endstop?
A period.
What is an enjambment?
A continuation of a sentence.
What are the names of groups of lines
2 - Couplet 3 - Tercet 4 - Quatrain 5 - Cinquain 6 - Sestet 7 - Heptastitch 8 - Octave
What is a scansion?
Determining the pattern of a line or verse.
What is stress in poetry?
A syllable with greater emphasis than other syllables
What is a foot in poetry?
A repeated sequence made up of stressed and unstressed ‘beats’.
What are the types of meter in poetry?
1 foot - Monometer 2 feet - Dimeter 3 feet - Trimeter 4 feet - Tetrameter 5 feet - Pentameter 6 feet - Hexameter
What are the four patterns of stress?
- Iambic
- Trochaic
- Anapestic
- Dactylic
