Poetic Terms and Devices Flashcards
(32 cards)
Allegory
A story or narrative that works symbolically through explicit details in the text to suggest a secondary meaning
Alliteration
The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds in a line of poetry or a sentence of prose
Blank Verse
Poetry written in unrhymed lines of iambic pentameter
Caesura
A pause within a line of poetry. May be represented by blank space(forced caesura) but does not have to be
Couplet
A pair of rhymed line, as in the envoi(final couplet) of a Shakespearian sonnet. A heroic couplet is in iambic pentameter
Diction
Word choice. Typically you would explain how the diction of a poem or a story lends it a specific tone. Diction employed in dialogue might help us to understand a character better
Elegy
A lyric poem that laments the dead or some other loss
Elision
The omission of an unstressed vowel to maintain a particular meter. Phyllis Wheatly uses elision in “On Being Brought from Africa to America.”
Enjambment
The use of a line break between two parts of what should be grammatically continuous line. There is no end-stop or punctuation between two enjambed lines.
Epic
A very long poem that usually details the exploits of a hero and explains the founding of a civilization and its essential values. The Odyssey, The Aneid, and Paradise Lost are prime examples
Figurative Language
Any use of language to imply something other than the literal meaning of the words and phrases used. Figurative language is a large category that encompasses sarcasm, irony, hyperbole, understatement (liotes), metaphor, simile, synecdoche, and metonymy
Free Verse
Poetry without regular meter or rhyme- essentially, any poem that is not written in a closed form
Hyperbole
Exaggeration
Image
A representation in language of something that can be sensed. This can take the form of a description of a sight, a sound , a smell, a ractile sensation, or even a taste. Images can be used figuratively through metaphor, simile, metonymy, or synecdoche. aAnd image can symbolize things other than what it literally represents, but an image and a symbol are not interchangeable term
Imagery
A pattern of related images throughout a work of literature
Lyric Poem
A short poem that typically uses highly condensed language in order to express a feeling. Typically less narrative, though there can be narrative elements in a lyric
Metaphor
A comparison between two essentially unlike and separate things. Metaphors do not contain words of comparison(like,as); they simply equate two unlike things: love IS a rose
Metonymy
A strategy of substitution where a closely related object is substituted for another object or idea. “To fight for the flag” is a good example because flag substitutes for country or nation
Narrative Poem
A poem that tells a story
Onomatopoeia
The use of words to imitate a literal sound, such as Emily Dickenson’s “I heard a fly buzz when I died.”
Personification
The endowing of human characteristics to non-human objects or beings.
Sestina
A thirty-nine line poem consisting of six sextets and terminating in an envoi of three longer lines, usually written in iambic pentameter, in which the same six words end each line of each stanza. In the envoi, two words appear in each line.
Simile
A comparison of two unlike things using “like” or “as”
