Unit 1 Poetry Vocab

alliteration

The repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words (for example: map-moon, kill-code, preach-approve)

Antithesis

A rhetorical device in which two opposite ideas are put together to achieve a contrasting effect.

Anthypophora

Raising a question and then immediately providing an answer to that question.

Anaphora

 Repetition of the first part of a line in order to achieve an artistic effect

Apostrophe

A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is directly addressed as if it were alive, present, and could reply

Assonance

 The repetition at close intervals of vowel sounds.

Asyndeton

Intentionally eliminating conjunctions between the phrases and in the sentence, yet maintaining the grammatical accuracy

Cacophony

A harsh, discordant, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds.

Conceit

(aka Extended metaphor or Sustained Metaphor): when an author likens two vastly different objects using similes or metaphors, exploiting a single, intellectually imaginative comparison or analogy at length through multiple linked tenors, vehicles, and grounds throughout a poem or story.

Connotation

What a word suggests beyond its basic definition; a word’s overtones of meaning

Consonance

The repetition at close intervals of consonant sounds found anywhere in a word

Denotation

The basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word

Ekphrasis

The poetic representation of a painting or sculpture in words

Epigram

(1) A short, witty poem expressing a single thought or observation. (2) A concise, clever, often paradoxical statement

Euphony

A smooth, pleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds.

Extended figure

(also known as sustained figure) A figure of speech (usually metaphor, simile, personification, or apostrophe) sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem.

Figurative language:

Language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken literally or only literally

Figure of Speech

Broadly, any way of saying something other than the ordinary way; more narrowly (and for the purposes of this class) a way of saying one thing and meaning another.

Juxtaposition

Positioning opposites next to each other to heighten the contrast.

Litotes

A figure of speech which employs an understatement by using double negatives.

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike.

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience

Onomatopoeia

 The use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound (for example, boom, click, plop).

Oxymoron

A phrase that uses two contradictory or opposing terms to create an effect

Personification

A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept.

Polysyndeton

Several coordinating conjunctions are used in succession in order to achieve an artistic effect.

Rhythm

Any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound.

Sentimentality

Unmerited or contrived tender feeling; that quality in a story that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplification or falsification of reality.

Simile

A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. The comparison is made explicit by the use of some such word or phrase as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems

Synecdoche

A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole.

Syntax

 The arrangement of words to form phrases, clauses and sentences; sentence construction