English Home Language: Poetry Analysis

Vocabulary flashcards covering key poetic terms, structures, sound devices, figures of speech, and poems analyzed in the English Home Language lecture notes.

Tercet

A three-line stanza in poetry, such as the two stanzas that make up Alfred, Lord Tennyson's six-line poem "The Eagle".

Circular Structure

A poetic design in which the opening and closing stanzas are repeated, used in William Blake's "The Tiger" to emphasize the poet's unanswered questions.

Interlocking Rhyme Scheme

A rhyme pattern where rhyme sounds link across consecutive stanzas (specifically AABA BBCB CCDC DDDD in Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"), creating a smooth, connected flow.

Quatrain

A four-line stanza, such as those found throughout Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and William Blake's "The Tiger".

Free Verse

Poetry that lacks a regular meter or fixed rhyme scheme, allowing lines to develop organically as seen in Kathleen Raine's "Spell of Creation" and Carol Ann Duffy's "Don't Be Scared".

Extended Metaphor

A detailed comparison sustained across a full poem, such as the depiction of the sea as a giant dog in James Reeves' "The Sea" or the bed as an imaginary landscape in Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Land of Counterpane".

Nonsense Poem

A humorous poetic form—such as Spike Milligan's "On the Ning Nang Nong" or Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"—that celebrates invented words, sounds, and creative language rather than communicating a moral lesson.

Lyric Poem

A poem centered on communicating the speaker's thoughts, observations, and emotional impressions rather than telling a story, exemplified by Christina Rossetti's two-stanza poem "The Wind".

Onomatopoeia

A sound device in which words replicate the literal sounds they denote, such as "howls" and "roars" in "The Sea" or "Bong", "Ping", and "Clang" in "On the Ning Nang Nong".

Consonance

The repetition of internal or terminal consonant sounds within nearby words, such as the repeated "c" and "s" sounds that convey calm stillness in Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Eagle".

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighbouring words, illustrated by phrases like "burning bright" in William Blake's "The Tiger" and "Faster than fairies" in Robert Louis Stevenson's "From a Railway Carriage".

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds across adjacent words to produce internal melody and flow, featured in Kathleen Raine's "Spell of Creation".

Hyperbole

Deliberate poetic exaggeration used to evoke humor or drama, such as the shadow shooting up taller "like an india-rubber ball" in "My Shadow" or adventurers voyaging across the sea in a sieve in "The Jumblies".

Irony (in "I Hate Poems")

The literary contradiction wherein the poem's speaker repeatedly complains about hating poetry while actively taking part in the creation of a poem.

Imagery of Industry

The use of industrial references to hammers, anvils, and furnaces in William Blake's "The Tiger" to equate the act of divine creation to metalworking.

Symbolism in "The Two Poems"

A literary contrast in which one poem symbolizes a technical, test-based academic approach to literature, while the other represents personal enjoyment, emotional connection, and creative inspiration.

Symbolism in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

The figurative contrast where the peaceful woods symbolize rest, beauty, or escape, while the ongoing journey symbolizes obligations, commitments, and life's responsibilities.

Symbolism in "Divorce: A Spell to Prevent It"

The child's imagined magic spell representing their genuine emotional hope, longing, and desire to repair parental conflict and preserve family stability.

Personification in "The Eagle"

The literary device of giving human qualities to the natural world in the line "The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls," which contrasts the crawling ocean with the soaring eagle.

Simile in "The Eagle"

A direct comparison using "like" in the line "And like a thunderbolt he falls," emphasizing the eagle's dramatic speed and power during a dive.

Personification in "Windy Nights"

The attribution of human distress and voice to nature in Robert Louis Stevenson's line "Whenever the trees are crying aloud," establishing a dramatic, stormy mood.

Personification in "The Wind"

The figure of speech giving physical, human motion to trees in Christina Rossetti's line "When the trees bow down their heads" to visualize the invisible force of the wind.

Personification in "The Sea"

Giving human and animal actions such as gnawing, moaning, sniffing, and howling to the sea to make its varying moods clearer and more accessible to readers.

Repetition

A sound and structural device where words or phrases are reiterated—such as "gallop and gallop" in "Windy Nights" or "bones, bones, bones" in "The Sea"—to emphasize emotion, create rhythm, or mimic movement.