Poetry Vocab Flashcards
(21 cards)
What Poetic Device Is this?
“Don’t tell me you love me. Don’t tell me you miss me. Don’t tell me where you’ve been.”
Anaphora
Definition: Repeating a word or phrase at the beginning of a clause for the sake of style or emphasis
What Poetic Device Is this?
When the going gets tough, the tough get going.
Say what you mean, mean what you say.
Antimetabole
Definition: Repeating a phrase but with the order reversed
What Poetic Device Is this?
You are easy on the eyes
But hard on the heart
Antithesis
Definition: Opposing ideas generally expressed in parallel constructions
What Poetic Device Is this?
“Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk to you again”
Apostrophe
Definition: Addressing an absent person or an abstraction
What Poetic Device Is this?
“Ruin about the glade in a frail agony of grace she trailed her rags through dust and ashes”
Assonance
Definition: Repeated vowel sound in nearby words
What Poetic Device Is this?
“Churning his wings/ through the window screen”
Cacophony
Definition: A discordant mixture of sounds
What Poetic Device Is this?
Just about every character dies at the end of Hamlet
Catharsis
Definition: A tragic ending that allows the reader to experience a theraputic release of emotions
What Poetic Device Is this?
“Bees blatantly buzz abroad”
Consonance
Definition: Repetition of particular consonant sound near each other
What Poetic Device Is this?
“O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;”
End stop
Definition: Grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse
What Poetic Device Is this?
“and stretch it across all the lonely
people who just don’t fit in”
Enjambment
Definition: Continuation of a thought or sentence over a line break
What Poetic Device Is this?
Be assured, my dearest daughter,
Nothing is sweeter than your laughter.
Eye rhyme
Definition: Similarity between words in spelling but not in pronunciation
What Poetic Device Is this?
When Hamlet calls Gertrude his “mother aunt”
Juxtaposition
Definition: Putting two distinctly dissimilar things close together
What Poetic Device Is this?
This morning’s drive in wasn’t the nicest
Litote
Definition: Verbal irony using understatement of the negative
What Poetic Device Is this?
The weatherperson said there is a 90% chance of participation this afternoon.
Malapropism
Definition: Using an incorrect but similar sounding word in place of the intended word
What Poetic Device Is this?
The pen is mightier than the sword.
Metonymy
Definition: Using a closely related item or idea to refer to intended idea
What Poetic Device Is this?
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom will stay these couriers” - U.S. Postal Service
Polysyndeton
Definition: Using multiple coordinating conjunctions where they are not necessarily grammatically needed
What Poetic Device Is this?
“When addressing Fred, I need to raise neither my voice nor my hopes”
Syllepsis
Definition: A word (usually a verb) being applied to at least two others with different meanings.
What Poetic Device Is this?
Calling a police officer a “badge” or calling them “the law”
Synecdoche
Definition: A figure of speech that uses a part to refer to the whole or the whole to refer to the part
What Poetic Device Is this?
“Listening to the blue-black cold”
Synthesia
Definition: A cross-sensory metaphor
What Poetic Device Is this?
When you look at someone
You used to love and enjoyed
Loving and want
To love again
Verisimilitude
Definition: The feeling or appearance of being real or true
What Poetic Device Is this?
She was fishing for compliments and crab.
Zeugma
Definition: A word (usually a verb) being applied to at least two others with different meanings where the meaning of the verb changes.
