poetry metalanguage Flashcards
(33 cards)
Denotation
Denotation: the dictionary meaning of a word.
Connotation
Connotation: the implied or suggested meaning connected with a word.
Literal meaning
Literal meaning: limited to the simplest, ordinary, most obvious meaning.
Figurative meaning
Figurative meaning: associative or connotative meaning; it is representational of the object.
Hyperbole
Hyperbole: exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement).
Example: “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse”
Internal rhyme
Internal rhyme: In poetry, internal rhyme, or middle rhyme, isrhyme that occurs within a single line of verse, or between internal phrases across multiple lines.
Metaphor
comparison between essentially unlike things without using words OR
application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally
applicable.
Example: “[Love] is an ever fixed mark,
that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”
Oxymoron
Oxymoron: a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other.
Example: bittersweet
Paradox
Paradox: a situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering.
Example: “In order to preserve peace, we must prepare for war”
Personification
Personification: the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.
Example: “Time let me playand be golden in the mercy of his means”
Simile
Simile: comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as ‘like’, ‘as’, or ‘as though’.
Example: “The sun danced across the valley as though it were a dancer.”
Pun
Pun: play on words OR a humorous use of a single word or sound with two or more implied meanings; a quibble with words.
Example: “They’re called lessons . . . because they lessen from day to day”
Irony:
Irony: a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony), or what is expected in a particular circumstance or behaviour (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a situation known to the audience or other characters (situational).
Example: “Time held me green and dyingThough I sang in my chains like the sea”
Imagery
Imagery: word or sequence of words representing a sensory experience. This can be visual, auditory, olfactory (smell), tactile (touch), and gustatory (taste).
Example: “bells knelling classes to a close”(auditory)
Symbol
Symbol: an object or action that stands for something beyond itself.
Example: white = innocence, purity, hope
Alliteration
Alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words.
Example: “…like a wanderer white”
Elision:
Elision: the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry.
Example: “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame”
Assonance
Assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds.
Example: “I rose and told him of my woe”
Synecdoche
Synecdoche: a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa, as inEngland lost by six wickets(meaning ‘ the English cricket team’)
Caesura
Caesura: Related to the pauses and rhythms of speech. “Caesura,” is a rhythmical pause in a poetic line. It often occurs in the middle of a line, or sometimes at the beginning and the end. It is generally denoted by punctuation, but not always.
Example: “From my balcony, || I see the stars”
bilabial:
bilabial. / adjective.of, relating to, or denoting a speech sound
articulated using both lips
Enjambment
Enjambment: Enjambment is a literary device in which a line of poetry carries its idea or thought over to the next line without a grammatical pause. With enjambment, the end of a poeticphraseextends past the end of the poetic line. This means that the thought or idea “steps over” the end of a line in apoemand into the beginning of the next line. The absence ofpunctuationallows for enjambment, and requires the
reader to read through a poem’sline breakwithout pausing in order to understand theconclusionof the thought or idea.
semantic field/domain:
semantic field/domain: an area of meaning that is identified by a set of related lexical items. e.g. ‘cake ‘ganache’ and ‘flour’ are under the semantic field of cooking
Diacope:
Diacope: isa rhetorical device that involves the repetition of words, separated by a small number of intervening words. It comes from the Greek word thiakhop, meaning
“cutting in two.” The number of words in between the repeated words of a diacope can vary, but it should be few enough to produce a rhetorical effect.
Example: street to street; clapped and clapped and clapped.
