Poetry Terms Post-Test

alliteration

the repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds (normally at the beginning of words)

Gnus never know pneumonia

example of alliteration. all 4 words begin with the “n” sound

allusion

a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work (typically a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work)

T.S. Eliot writes: “To have squeezed the universe into a ball” (inspired by Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress”)

example of allusion. Used an outside piece of work.

antithesis

a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas. Utilized for emphasis or stylistic effectiveness.

“The hungry judges soon the sentence sign,

And wretches hang that jury-men may dine.”

example of antithesis.

apostrophe

a figure of speech in which someone, some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present.”

“Milton! Thou shouldst be living in this hour;

England hath need of thee……”

example of apostrophe because it addresses an individual who is dead.

assonance

the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds

“A land laid waste with all its young men slain”

example of assonance because the same “a” sound is present in “laid,” “waste,” and “slain”

ballad meter

a four-line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four.

“O mother, mother make my bed.

O make it soft and narrow.

Since my love died for me today.

I’ll die for him tomorrow.”

example of ballad meter

blank verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter

what is the meter used in most of Shakespeare’s plays?

blank verse

cacophony

a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones. It may be an unconscious flaw in the poet’s music, resulting in harshness of sound or difficulty of articulation, or it may be used consciously for effect.

“Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

example of cacophony

caesura

a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause.

“To err is human, to forgive divine.”

example of caesura due to the extended pause after human.

conceit

an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things (may be a brief metaphor, or the framework of the entire poem).

Comparison of an individual’s soul and his wife’s to legs of a mathematical compass.

example of conceit

consonance

the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words (usually refers to words in which ending consonants are the same but the vowels that precede them are different).

“add” and “read” or “bill” and “ball”

example of consonance

couplet

a two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same.

“Good night! Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow

That I shall say good night till it be morrow.”

example of couplet

devices of sound

the techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially in poetry. Creates a general effect of pleasant or discordant sound, to imitate another sound, or to reflect meaning.

rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia.

examples of devices of sound

diction

the use of words in a literary work. May be described as formal (common in serious books), informal (relaxed but polite conversations), colloquial (everyday usage), slang (newly coined terms)

didactic poem

a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson

“Do not stand at my grave and weep: I am not there; I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow….”

example of didactic poem

dramatic poem

a poem which employs a dramatic form or some element of dramatic technique as a means of achieving poetic ends.

dramatic monolgue

example of dramatic poem

elegy

a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditations upon death or another solemn theme.

“O Captain, My Captain” is an example of….

an elegy

end-stopped

a line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines.

“True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, / As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.”

example of end-stopped

enjambment

the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next.

“….Or if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa’s brook that flow’d

Fast by the oracle of God….”

example of enjambment

extended metaphor

an implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem.

A comparison of women to fish bait and men to fish who want to be caught are carried throughout the entire poem. This is an example of….

an extended metaphor

euphony

a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. Its opposite of cacophony.

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases: it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still it will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.”

example of euphony

eye rhyme

rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation.

“Watch” and “Match” or “Love” and “Move”

example of eye rhyme

feminine rhyme (double rhyme)

a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed.

“Waken” and “Forsaken” or “Audition” and “Rendition”

example of feminine rhyme

figurative language

writing that uses figures of speech such as metaphor, irony, and simile. It uses words to mean something other than their literal meaning.

“The black bat night has flown.”

example of figurative language (says night is over without stating it outright)

free verse

poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical.

heroic couplet

two end-stopped iambic petameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit.

“But when to mischief mortals bend their will,

How soon they find fit instruments of ill!”

example of heroic couplet

hyperbole

a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious of comic effect.

“…. No; this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine

Making the green one red.”

example of hyperbole

imagery

the images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the figurative language of a work. Visual auditory, or tactile images evoked by the words of a literary work or the images that figurative language evokes.

“The autumn leaves are a blanket on the ground.”

example of imagery

irony

the contrast between the actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning. Likely to be confused with sarcasm, but it differs from sarcasm in that it is usually lighter, less harsh in its wording though in effect probably more cutting because of its indirectness..

verbal irony

a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning

If it were a cold, rainy gray day, you might say, “What a beautiful day!”

example of irony

internal rhyme

rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end.

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, / Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore -- / While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping ..”

example of an internal rhyme

lyric poem

any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings. Typically love poems, although they may be written about religion or reading.

sonnets and odes are examples of

lyric poems

masculine rhyme

rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme-words.

“keep” and “sleep” OR “glow” and “no” OR “spell” and “impel”

example of masculine rhyme

metaphor

a figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term.

“The black bat night”

example of a metaphor

meter

the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. Emphasizes the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each unit of this is known as a foot.

metonymy

a figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself.

The king is commonly referred to as the “crown”

example of metonymy

mixed metaphors

the mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous.

“I smell a rat. I see it floating in the air. I shall nip it in the bud.”

example of mixed metaphors

narrative poem

a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short.e

epics and ballads are examples of

narrative poems

octave

an eight-line stanza.

Typically refers to the first division of an Italian sonnet.

octave

onomatopoeia

the use of words whose sound suggests their meaning.

“buzz” OR “hiss” OR “honk”

examples of onomatopoeia

oxymoron

a form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms into a single expression. Typically serves the purpose of shocking the reader into awareness.

“wise fool” OR “sad joy” OR “eloquent silence”

examples of oxymorons

paradox

a situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense.

“Take me to you, imprison me, for I

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.”

example of paradox

parallelism

a similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry. A characteristic of Asian poetry, being notably present in the Psalms.

“….Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them.

Till the bridge you will need be form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,

Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.”

example of parallelism

paraphrase

a restatement of an idea in such a way as to retain the meaning while changing the diction and form. Often an amplification of the original for the purpose of clarity.

personification

a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics

“The sun smiled as it arrose”

example of personification

poetic foot

a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it.

“Trochee trips from long to short.

From long to long in solemn sort

Slow Spondee stalks; strong foot! yet ill able…”

example of poetic foot

pun

a play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings. Can have serious as well as humorous uses.

“They went and told the sexton and the sexton tolled the bell”

example of a pun

quatrain

a four-line stanza with any combination of rhymes.

refrain

a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza.

rhyme

close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse.

true rhyme

the vowels in the accented syllables must be preceded by different consonants

“fan” and “ran”

examples of rhyme

rhyme royal

a seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc.

rhythm

the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. Lends both pleasure and heightened emotional response to the listener or reader.

sarcasm

a type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it. Purpose is to injure or hurt.

satire

writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by ridicule. Usually comedy that exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly.

scansion

a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the types of feet per line.

sestet

a six-line stanza. Often refers to the second division of an Italian sonnet.