Poetry Terms

Question 0

Tone

Answer 0

An attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience

Question 1

Theme

Answer 1

The subject of a talk, piece of writing, person’s thoughts, or an exhibition; a topic

Question 2

Mood

Answer 2

Element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through words

Question 3

Catharsis

Answer 3

The purging of the feelings of pity and fear that, according to Aristotle, occur in the audience of tragic drama

Question 4

Verbal Irony

Answer 4

Characters say the opposite of what they mean

Question 5

Situational Irony

Answer 5

The opposite of what was expected happens

Question 6

Dramatic Irony

Answer 6

Character speaks ignorance of a situation or event known to the audience

Question 7

Sonnet

Answer 7

A 14 line poem in iambic pentameter

Question 8

Ballad

Answer 8

A narrative poem written in four line stanzas, characterized by swift action and narrated in a direct style

Question 9

Ode

Answer 9

A long, stately poem in stanzas of varied length, meter, and form. Usually a serious poem on an exalted subject

Question 10

Elegy

Answer 10

A lyric poem that laments the dead

Question 11

Epigram

Answer 11

A brief, witty poem. Often satirical

Question 12

Dramatic Monologue

Answer 12

A type of poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener

Question 13

Parody

Answer 13

A humorous, mocking imitation of a literary work

Question 14

Narrative Poem

Answer 14

A poem that tells a story

Question 15

Lyric Poem

Answer 15

A type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and expression

Question 16

Closed Form

Answer 16

A type of form or structure in poetry characterized by regularity and consistency in elements like rhyme, line length, and metrical pattern

Question 17

Open Form

Answer 17

A type of structure or form in poetry characterized by freedom from regularity and consistency in such elements

Question 18

Free Verse

Answer 18

Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme

Question 19

Blank Verse

Answer 19

A line of poetry or prose in un-rhymed iambic pentameter

Question 20

Iambic Pentameter

Answer 20

Metrical line in traditional poetry and verse drama. Describes the rhythm that the words establish in that line, which is measured in feet

Question 21

Couplet

Answer 21

A pair of rhymed lines that may or may not constitute a separate stanza in a poem

Question 22

Quatrain

Answer 22

A four line stanza in a poem

Question 23

Sestet

Answer 23

A six line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem; the last 6 lines in an Italian sonnet

Question 24

Octave

Answer 24

An eight line unit, which may constitute a stanza or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet

Question 25

Stanza

Answer 25

A division or unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form with similar or identical patterns of rhyme and meter

Question 26

Rhyme Scheme

Answer 26

Practice of rhyming words placed at the end of lines in the prose or poetry

Question 27

End-Stopped Line

Answer 27

A line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation

Question 28

Enjambment

Answer 28

A run on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next

Question 29

Imagery

Answer 29

The pattern of related comparative aspects of language in a literary work

Question 30

Simile

Answer 30

A figurative speech involving a comparison between unlike things using “like” or “as”

Question 31

Metaphor

Answer 31

A comparison between two unlike things without using like or as

Question 32

Personification

Answer 32

The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities

Question 33

Oxymoron

Answer 33

A figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in conjunction

Question 34

Paradox

Answer 34

Use of concepts/ideas that are contradictory to one another but when out together hold significant value

Question 35

Hyperbole

Answer 35

An over-exaggeration

Question 36

Understatement

Answer 36

Presentation of something as being smaller, worse, or less important than it actually is

Question 37

Symbol

Answer 37

Use of an object to signify ideas and qualities by giving them a meaning

Question 38

Apostrophe

Answer 38

When something dead, not present or inhuman, is addressed as if it were able to reply

Question 39

Metonomy/Synechdoche

Answer 39

Uses part of something to represent the whole