Literary Terms

Question 0

Homeric epithet

Answer 0

Rosy-fingered dawn

Question 1

Hudibrastic

Answer 1

Bad, Ill-rhythmed, Ill-rhymed poetry; from Samuel Butler’s Hudibras; rhymed tetrameter lines

Question 2

Litotes

Answer 2

Understatement due to double negative - “I am a Jew from Tarsus … no ordinary city”

Question 3

Feminine rhyme

Answer 3

Rhyming the 2 last syllables of lines; stressed-unstressed pattern for 2 last syllables; “painted/acquainted”

Question 4

Epithalium

Answer 4

Work or poem meant to celebrate a wedding

Question 5

Doggerel

Answer 5

Derogatory term for bad poetry; used by Dromio twins in Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors

Question 6

Euphuism

Answer 6

Writing consciously laden with elaborate speech - “neither borrower nor lender be” (Polonius, in Hamlet)

Question 7

Hamartia

Answer 7

Greek - tragic flaw

Question 8

Georgic

Answer 8

Poetry about laboring in countryside (not pastoral, which idealizes countryside)

Question 9

Alexandrine

Answer 9

Line of iambic hexameter (12 syllables). Final line of a Spenserian stanza is Alexandrine

Question 10

Anthropomorphism

Answer 10

Giving human attributes to animals or plants (Orwell - Animal Farm)

Question 11

Masculine Rhyme

Answer 11

Rhyme ending on final stressed syllable (aka a regular rhyme)

Question 12

Metonymy

Answer 12

A term or phrase that refers to person/object by one important feature of that object (“The pen Is mightier than the sword” - from Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s play Richlieu)

Question 13

Neoclassical Unities

Answer 13

Principles of dramatic structure derived from Aristotle’s Poetics. Popular in neoclassical mvt in 17th/18th century.

1) to observe unity of time, a work should take place in one day
2) unity of place - work set in one locale
3) unity of action - a single plot, no subplots

Question 14

Pastoral Elegy

Answer 14

Poem that is elegiac (a lament for the dead) and sung by a shepherd. Shepherd is a stand in for the poet, and the elegy is for another poet. (Shelley’s “Adonais” is for John Keats)

Question 15

Pastoral lit

Answer 15

Deals with shepherds in the countryside/nature

Question 16

Pathetic Fallacy

Answer 16

Term coined by John Ruskin; refers to ascribing emotion and agency to inanimate objects (“the cruel crawling foam” -Ruskin)

Question 17

Picaresque

Answer 17

Tales that move from adventure to adventure, incident to incident. (Huck Finn, Moll Flanders by Defoe, Tales of Perceval)

Question 18

Skeltonics

Answer 18

Humorous poetry, uses short rhymed lines with pronounced rhythm. Popularized by John Skelton. Skelton vs doggerel? Quality of thought expressed

Question 19

Sprung Rhythm

Answer 19

Created and used by Gerard Manley Hopkins in 19th century; fits varying number of unstressed syllables in a line - only stresses count in scansion.

Question 20

Synesthaesia

Answer 20

Interplay of senses; “hot pink”

Question 21

Synecdoche

Answer 21

Phrase that refers to person or object by single important feature

Question 22

Ballad

Answer 22

Rhyme: abcb
Length of lines determined by stressed syllables (like sprung rhythm)
“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by S. T. Coleridge

Question 23

In memorial

Answer 23

A stanza of 4 lines, iambic tetrameter, rhymes ABBA

Question 24

Ottava Rima

Answer 24

8-line stanza (usually iambic pentameter) Rhyme: ABA BAB CC Lord Byron's Don Juan

Question 25

Rhyme Royal

Answer 25

Seven line iambic pentameter | Rhyme: ABABBCC

Question 26

Spenserian Stanza

Answer 26

Created for the Faerie Queen; 9 lines. First 8 are iambic Pentameter. Last is alexandrine, or iambic hexameter. Rhyme: ABABBCBCC

Question 27

Terza Rima

Answer 27

Rhymes ABA BCB CDC DED, etc.

Question 28

Blank verse

Answer 28

Unrhymed iambic pentameter | Alfred Lord Tennyson's "Ulysses"

Question 29

Free verse

Answer 29

Unrhymed and unmetered verse | Whitman - Song of myself

Question 30

Old English Verse

Answer 30

Internal alliteration of lines and strong midline break/pause called a caesura Ex: Beowulf

Question 31

Italian/Petrarchan Sonnet

Answer 31

14 line poem, octave + sestet (2 tercets) rhymes: ABBAABBA CDECDE Iambic pentameter lines

Question 32

Shakespearean/English Sonnet

Answer 32

14 lines, octave + sestet (has final couplet!) Rhymes: ABAB CDCD EFEF GG Iambic pentameter lines

Question 33

Spenserian Sonnet

Answer 33

14 line poem Rhymes: ABAB BCBC CDCD EE Has a couplet at the end, and 2 couplets in the body (BB and CC) Starts like Shakespearean but has overlapping rhyme

Question 34

Villanelle

Answer 34

19 line form, rhymes ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA Repeats 1st and 3rd lines throughout the poem Dylan Thomas's "Do not go gentle into that good night"

Question 35

Sestina

Answer 35

39 lines, 6 stanza of 6 lines + 3 lines called an envoi | No rhyme, but uses repeated end words.