ENG 11 Module 1 - MIDTERMS

Repetition

Repeated words or images that seem to echo each other.

Positive Space

The text or body of a poem.

Negative Space

White space in a poem. This can emphasize a word, give the reader room to pause, or facilitate movement between ideas.

Rhyme and Rhythm

Refers to the repetition of sounds (i.e., face - grace / woe - go)

Personification

The giving of human attributes to an abstraction or an object.

Imagery

An image can be visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory, or olfactory. It can be perceived through the sense of sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell.

Metaphor

An implied comparison where one kind of object is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy.

Simile

A direct comparison between two subjects using the words “as” or “like”.

Symbol

An image which stands for something else.

Paradox

A statement that is contradictory or opposed to common sense but is still perceived as true.

Irony

The expression of meaning using language that actually signifies the opposite, usually for a humorous effect.

Concrete Poetry

The style of typography used by the writer communicates the message of the poem.

Ballads

A kind of traditional poetry that was sung and transmitted orally from one generation to another.

Villanelle

A poem that consists of five tercets (three-line stanzas), rhyming ABA, and a final quatrain. It features an alternating refrain.

Haiku

A Japanese-originated poem made up of 17 syllables (5-7-5). Basho and Issa are Japanese poets who are considered to be the best haiku writers.

Sonnet

A fourteen-line poem written in iambic pentameter.

Shakespearean Sonnet

A kind of sonnet that consists of three quatrains and a couplet, rhyming ABAB, CDCD, EFEF, GG.

Petrarchan Sonnet

A kind of sonnet that consists of an octave, rhyming ABAB, ABAB, and a sestet (six-line stanza), rhyming CDE, CDE.

Apostrophe

A rhetorical device “in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person who is not physically present, or an abstraction or inanimate object.”

Irony

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink.

Paradox

Yesterday, up the stairs

I met a man who wasn’t there

Metaphor

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.