Lit crit vocab 2026-2027

Eye rhyme

words that look like they may rhyme but don’t ex-proved and loved

Federalist Age

Literary period b/w the formation of the US gov and the second Revolution of Jacksonian Democracy

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza ex- I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills

Apostrophe

A figure of speech in which a person is a absent or not there and another person is speaking to them as if they were

Asyndeton

Technique that leaves out conjunctions (and, or But) b/w words, phrases

Chiasmus

Device where words are repeated in reverse order to balance

Clerihew

A nonsensical verse usually in two rhyming couplets (lines of unequal length)

Caesura

A pause or break in a line of verse

Sonnet miltonic

14-lined poem in iamic pentameter that follow italian structure

Villanella

19-line fixed poetic form consisting of five three-line stanzas (tercets) followed by a four-line stanza (quatrain).

Dead metaphor

A figure of speech that lost it’s meaning because of the over use of it

Didacticism

Works made to teach a lesson

Metonymy

Where one term is substituted for another

Inversion

Reverses standard word order to create emphasis or (apostrophe)

Jeremiad

A list of complaints

Euphemism

A polite word substituted for another that might be to blunt when talking about something unpleasant

Feminine Rhyme

Rhyme between stressed syllables followed by one or more unstressed syllables

Polyptoton

Repetition of words with the same root but a different grammatical form EX- Who shall watch the watchmen?

Polysyndeton