English terms (Final)

Poetry

writing intended to elicit an emotional response from the reader without conventions of prose; includes ballad, sonnet, limerick, eulogy, free verse, haiku, lyrics, narrative poems, shape/concrete poems, syllable/word count poems, formula poems, etc.

Literal Meaning

What the poem is actually saying.

Figurative Meaning

The underlying or deeper meaning.

Poetic device

terms used to describe features of poetic writing (e.g., alliteration, simile, meter, etc.)

Prose

the ordinary form of spoken or written language that has no metrical rhythm; contrasts with poetic writing or verse; uses conventions such as sentences, capitalization, paragraphs, titles, etc. includes short story, novel, essay, newspaper article, letter, Internet article, encyclopedia, etc.

Stanza

a __ in a poem is what a paragraph is to a piece of prose, separated from one another by the use of spaces within a poem

Ballad

a narrative poem or song that tells a popular story, often of physical courage or love.

Concrete

a poem whose shape or visual appearance contributes to its meaning.

Elegy

a type of lyric poem that expresses sadness for someone who had died; traditionally a solemn meditation on a serious subject

Epic

a long, narrative poem dealing with the actions of legendary men and women or the history of nations, often presented in a good ceremonious style.

Free verse

poems characterized by their nonconformity to established patterns of meter, rhyme, and stanza.

Haiku

a seventeen syllable poem. It has three lines. The first line has five syllables, the second seven syllables and the third five syllables. Many haikus are about nature.

Sonnet

a fourteen line poem written in iambic pentameter

Found

A poem created from clippings of magazines and newspapers.

Lyric

a poem that expresses intense personal thoughts, moods and emotions.

Legend

a historical narrative, a symbolic representation of folk belief.

Alliteration

the repetition of the beginning sounds in groups of words, usually at the beginning of a word or stressed syllable; e.g., descending dew drops; luscious lemons

Assonance

the close repetition of the same vowel sounds between different consonants; e.g., brave, vain; lone, show; feel, sleet.

Couplet

two lines of verse with similar end rhymes

Dialect

the way a language is spoken in a particular region or place

Refrain

a phrase, line, or lines repeated in a poem; often called the chorus in song lyrics

Repetition

the deliberate use of the same word, words, or events to create an effect

Rephrasing

to repeat phrase again in a same or different manner

Rhyme

the same sound occurring in different words

Rhyme scheme

is the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song. It is usually referred to by using letters to indicate which lines rhyme; lines designated with the same letter all rhyme with each other.

Rhythm

pattern of accented and unaccented, stressed and unstressed, syllables in written or spoken language.

Onomatopoeia

the sound of a word resembles its meaning, e.g., buzz, hiss, etc.

Metre

In verse and poetry, meter is a recurring pattern of stressed (accented, or long) and unstressed (unaccented, or short) syllables in lines of a set length.

Apostrophe

is a poetic device which uses words to address someone or something absent or silent, as if it were present and alive, or capable of making a reply.

Figurative language

language that uses figures of speech, such as simile, metaphor, personification, and alliteration; used extensively to create imagery.

Hyperbole

an exaggerated statement used not to deceive, but for humorous or dramatic effect; e.g., “It rained cats and dogs.

Metaphor

a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, without using the words like or as; e.g., “You are a dog.”

Oxymoron

a figure of speech in which contradictory words are placed together for the purpose of expressing deep feelings, or to emphasize a point; e.g., cold fire, feather of lead, honourable villain, silent speech

Personification

a literary device in which human qualities or actions are attributed to non

Simile

a comparison between two unlike things using like or as; e.g., “My love is like a red, red rose.”

Allegory

A story illustrating an idea or a moral principle in which objects take on symbolic meaning.

Allusion

a reference in one literary work to a character or theme found in another literary work, can also reference something from popular culture, religion or history.

Deconstruction

breaking a text down into its components to see what messages and assumptions it carries

Conflict

a struggle between opposing forces.

Connotations

the associations a word or image evokes that go beyond the literal meaning; e.g., “home” connotes “comfort, love, security”, etc.

Denotation

the literal or dictionary meaning of a word.

Imagery

language that creates pictures in a reader’s mind to bring life to the experiences and feelings described in a poem; words that appeal to the reader’s senses and enables us to see (visual), hear (auditory), smell (olfactory), taste (gustatory), and touch (tactile) what the writer is describing.

Literal meaning/ language

language that means exactly what it says

Mood

the particular feeling evoked in a reader from reading a poem.

Suspense

techniques used by the author to keep readers interested in the story and wondering what will happen next

Symbolism

something concrete, such as a person, object, image, word, or event that represents something abstract, such as a feeling, emotion, idea or concept; may be very recognizable and common to many people (e.g., religious symbols, national flags, logos, etc.); often used to reinforce meaning

Tone

this is how an author feels which is shown in their writing.

Colloquialism

an informal word or expression that is more suitable for use in speech than in writing

Epitaph

something written or said in memory of a dead person; especially: words written on a gravestone.

Slang

a type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal. They are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people.

Theme

main message or moral put across in a piece of writing.