Poetic Devices

Question 1

Define Alliteration

Answer 1

Repeated consonant sounds at the beginning of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines.

Question 2

Define Assonance

Answer 2

Repeated vowel sounds in words placed near each other, usually on the same adjacent lines.

Question 3

Define Consonance

Answer 3

Repeated consonant sounds at the ending of words placed near each other, usually on the same or adjacent lines.

Question 4

Define Cacophony

Answer 4

Discordant series of harsh, unpleasant sounds to help to convey disorder.

Question 5

Define Euphony

Answer 5

Series of musically pleasant sounds, conveying a sense of harmony and beauty to the language.

Question 6

Define Onomatopoeia

Answer 6

Words that sound like their meanings.

Question 7

Define Repetition

Answer 7

Purposeful re-use of words and phrases for an effect.

Question 8

Define Rhyme

Answer 8

Words that have different beginning sounds but whose endings sound alike, including the final vowel sound and everything following it.

Question 9

Define Rhythm

Answer 9

Regular pattern of accented syllables separated by unaccented syllables.

Question 10

Define Scansion

Answer 10

Conscious measure of the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line if poetry.

Question 11

Define Allegory

Answer 11

A representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning. Often, it is a symbolic narrative that has not only a literal meaning, but a larger one understood only after reading the entire story or poem.

Question 12

Define Allusion

Answer 12

Brief reference to some person, historical event, work of art, or Biblical or mythological situation or character.

Question 13

Define Ambiguity

Answer 13

A word or phrase that can mean more than one thing, even in its context.

Question 14

Define Analogy

Answer 14

A comparison, usually something unfamiliar with something familiar.

Question 15

Define Apostrophe

Answer 15

Speaking directly to a real or imaged listener or inanimate object; addressing that person or thing by name.

Question 16

Define Cliche

Answer 16

Any figure of speech that was once clever and original but through overuse has become outdated.

Question 17

Define Connotation

Answer 17

The emotional, psychological or social overtones of a word; it’s implications and associations apart from it’s literal meaning.

Question 18

Define Contrast

Answer 18

Closely arranged things with strikingly different characteristics.

Question 19

Define Denotation

Answer 19

The dictionary definition of a word; it’s literal meaning apart from any associations or connotations.

Question 20

Define Euphemism

Answer 20

An understatement, used to lessen the effect of a statement; substituting innocuous for something that might be offensive or hurtful.

Question 21

Define Hyperbole

Answer 21

An outrageous exaggeration used for effect.

Question 22

Define Irony

Answer 22

A contradictory statement or situation to reveal a reality different from what appears to be true.

Question 23

Define Metaphor

Answer 23

A direct comparison between two unlike things, stating that one is the other or does the action of the other.

Question 24

Define Metonymy

Answer 24

A figure of speech in which a person, place or thing is referred to by something closely associated with it.

Question 25

Define Oxymoron

Answer 25

A combination of two words that appear to contradict each other.

Question 26

Define Paradox

Answer 26

Statement in which a seeming contradiction may reveal an unexpected truth.

Question 27

Define Personification

Answer 27

Attributing human characteristics to inanimate objects, animals, or abstract ideas.

Question 28

Define Pun

Answer 28

Word play in which words with totally different meanings have similar or identical sounds.

Question 29

Define Simile

Answer 29

Direct comparison of two unlike things using ‘like’ or ‘as’.

Question 30

Define Symbol

Answer 30

Ordinary object, event, animal or person to which we have attached extraordinary meaning and significance.

Question 31

Define Synecdoche

Answer 31

Indicating a person, object, etc. By letting only a certain part represent the whole.

Question 32

Define Point of view

Answer 32

Author’s point of view concentrates on the vantage point of the speaker, or ‘teller’ of the story or poem.

Question 33

Define Line

Answer 33

A series of units that don’t necessarily correspond to sentences, but rather to a series of metrical feet.

Question 34

Define Verse

Answer 34

Single line of a poem arranged in a metrical pattern.

Question 35

Define Stanza

Answer 35

Arranging the lines into a unit, often repeated in the same pattern of meter and rhyme throughout the poem.

Question 36

What are the names for the Stanza forms?

Answer 36

-Couplet(2)
-Tercet(3)
-Quatrain(4)
-Quintet(5)
-Sestet(6)
-Septet(7)
-Octave(8)

Question 37

Define Rhetorical question

Answer 37

A question solely for effect, which doesn’t require an answer.

Question 38

Define Rhyme scheme

Answer 38

Pattern established by the arrangement of rhymes.

Question 39

Define Enjambment

Answer 39

Continuation of the logical sense- and therefore the grammatical construction- beyond the end of a line of poetry.

Question 40

Define Form

Answer 40

Arrangement or method used to convey the content.

Question 41

Define Fixed form

Answer 41

A poem which follows a set pattern of meter, rhyme scheme, stanza form, and refrain.

Question 42

Define Sonnet

Answer 42

Fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed rhyme scheme; it’s subject was traditionally love.

Question 43

Define Imagery

Answer 43

The use of vivid language ti generate ideas and/or evoke mental images, nog only of the visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well.

Question 44

Define Synesthesia

Answer 44

An attempt to fuse different senses by describing one kind of sense impression in words normally used to describe another.

Question 45

Define Tone/Mood

Answer 45

Thd means by which a poet reveals attitudes and feelings, in the style of language or expression of thought used to develop the subject.