Poetic terms to know

Question 1

Meter

Answer 1

Basic rhythmic structure of a verse, made up of feet

Question 2

Scansion

Answer 2

Analysis of a poem’s metrical structure

Question 3

Iambic Pentameter

Answer 3

Most common meter in English poetry- sequence of five iambic fee each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one

Question 4

Trochaic Meter

Answer 4

The inverse of iambic meter:

Question 5

Euphony

Answer 5

Words that sound good together (musical)

Question 6

Cacophony

Answer 6

Sound that grate, annoy, or create a sense of distaste

Question 7

Onomatopoeia

Answer 7

Imitates the sound it refers to

Question 8

Imagery

Answer 8

Language that appeals directly to one of the senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, or taste

Question 9

Synesthesia

Answer 9

When description of 1 kind of sensation produces another

Question 10

Tone

Answer 10

Manner in which something is said; voice the poet projects

Question 11

Rhythm

Answer 11

Pacing, from slow to fast, and pauses, stops, and starts we perceive as we speak & read the words & lines of a poem

Question 12

Rhyme

Answer 12

Regular sound patterns

Question 13

End Rhyme

Answer 13

Most common rhyme- occurs at end of verse lines

Question 14

Internal rhyme

Answer 14

The end word rhymes with a word in the middle of the same line or nearby line Ex. (turned the air, prayer)

Question 15

Eye Rhyme

Answer 15

Words that look alike but do not sound alike Ex.( blood, food)

Question 16

Alliteration

Answer 16

Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words

Question 17

Assonance

Answer 17

Repetition of vowel sounds at the beginning of words

Question 18

Dissonance

Answer 18

A disruption of harmonic sounds or rhythms

Question 19

Verse

Answer 19

rhymed or metrical poetry; a line or stanza of such poetry

Question 20

Blank Verse

Answer 20

unrhymed iambic pentameter (still rhythmic)

Question 21

Free Verse

Answer 21

Avoids pre-established rhyme, stanza pattern, or meter

Question 22

Metaphor

Answer 22

Implied comparison of two unlike things

Question 23

Simile

Answer 23

Explicit comparison of two unlike things

Question 24

Irony

Answer 24

(verbal) saying one thing and meaning another

Question 25

Paradox

Answer 25

an apparently impossible circumstance, situation or condition (Ex. I feel my flesh of rock)

Question 26

Personification/ Pathetic Fallacy

Answer 26

Giving a nonbeing the characteristics of a person

Question 27

Pun

Answer 27

play on words that usually depends on a word having several meanings or soundings like another word with a different meaning

Question 28

Metonymy

Answer 28

When one thing is used in place of something closely related to it -- referring to a casino as "the house"

Question 29

Synecdoche

Answer 29

Uses part for the whole- "wheels"= car, "hands"= sailors

Question 30

Hyperbole

Answer 30

Overstatement or exaggeration for effect

Question 31

Litotes

Answer 31

Understatement that downplays for effect -- saying something that was extremely well received "did not go unappreciated" or that WWII was a "pretty little squabble"

Question 32

Symbol

Answer 32

A representation image,event,word, or pattern that stands for something else

Question 33

Allegory

Answer 33

Fixed symbol that definitively represents one other thing-- no room for interpretive license(a form of "other speak")

Question 34

Sonnet

Answer 34

A form poem containing 14 lines of iambic pentameter and end rhyme

Question 35

Ode

Answer 35

Long irregular poem lyric in nature and exalted in tone-- meant to praise and honor its subject

Question 36

Couplet

Answer 36

Pair of rhymed lines

Question 37

Tercet /Triplet

Answer 37

Grouping of three rhymed lines

Question 38

Quatrain

Answer 38

Group of four rhymed lines

Question 39

Stanza

Answer 39

Grouping of verse lines in a poem set off by a space break

Question 40

Apostrophe

Answer 40

Direct and explicit address either to an absent person or to an abstract or inanimate entity

Question 41

Theme

Answer 41

Idea or claim a poem is aiming to expressing

Question 42

Allusion

Answer 42

Reference to art, popular culture, or literature

Question 43

Denotation

Answer 43

What a word means on a dictionary level

Question 44

Connotation

Answer 44

What a word means on an emotional level

Question 45

Diction

Answer 45

Word choice

Question 46

Dramatic monologue

Answer 46

One side of a conversation- one voice the reader "hears"

Question 47

Internal dramatic monologue

Answer 47

Stream-of-consciousness version of dramatic monologue

Question 48

End-stopped lines

Answer 48

Lines of poetry that have a pause at the end, usually indicated by punctuation

Question 49

Run-on lines/ Enjambement

Answer 49

Lines of poetry that force you to read beyond their end into the beginning of the next line

Question 50

Caesura

Answer 50

Pauses or breaks within a line of poetry

Question 51

Prose poem

Answer 51

Poem that is not set up in recognizable system of individual lines, but rather, in paragraph form

Question 52

Concrete poem

Answer 52

(also pattern poem or emblem poem) poem whose shape is reflective of the poem's subject

Question 53

Conceit

Answer 53

An extended figure of speech that establishes an elaborate parallel between two dissimilar things or situations

Question 54

Asyndeton

Answer 54

The admission of conjunctions (and,but, etc) between parts of a sentence

Question 55

Polysyndeton

Answer 55

The use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially when they can be omitted