Poetic Terms, Devices, and Figurative Language Flashcards

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards generated from lecture notes covering basic poetry terms, poetic forms, devices, and figurative language.

onomatopoeia

The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe.

slant rhyme (off rhyme, half rhyme, imperfect rhyme)

Rhyme formed with words with similar but not wholly identical sounds.

synesthesia

An attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of another.

symbol

An object or action that stands for something beyond itself.

Couplet

Two lines of verse, usually rhymed.

End-stopped line

A line that ends with a punctuation mark and whose meaning is complete.

Enjambed line

A "run-on" line that carries over into the next to complete its meaning.

Free Verse

Lines with no prescribed pattern or structure.

metonymy

A word or phrase that replaces the name of an object or concept for another to which it is related.

paradox

A situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering.

personification

The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.

simile

Comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as "like," "as," or "as though".

synecdoche

A part substituted for the whole.

alliteration

The repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words.

allusion

A reference to a person, event, or work outside the poem or literary piece.

anaphora

The repetition of a word or phrase, usually at the beginning of a line.

assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds.

imagery

Word or sequence of words representing a sensory experience (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory).

irony

A contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony) or what is expected in a particular circumstance or behavior (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a situation known to the audience or other characters (dramatic).

connotation

The implied or suggested meaning connected with a word.

denotation

The dictionary meaning of a word.

figurative meaning

Associative or connotative meaning; representational.

literal meaning

Limited to the simplest, ordinary, most obvious meaning.

meter

Measured pattern of rhythmic accents in a line of verse.

poetry

Literature that prioritizes rhythm, sound, and concentrated language use.

prose

Literature that follows ordinary written or spoken expression - generally follows grammatical formatting and expectations.

rhyme

Correspondence of ending sounds of words or of lines of verse.

stanza

Unit of a poem often repeated in the same form throughout a poem; a unit of poetic lines ("verse paragraph").

speaker

The "I" of a poem, equivalent to the "narrator" of a prose text. In lyric poetry, the speaker is often an authorial persona.

turn (or shift or volta)

A change in attitude or thought in a poem - typically where the reader is awakened to deeper meanings or the conclusion of a poem.

apostrophe

A direct address of an inanimate object, abstract qualities, or a person not living or present.

hyperbole

Exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement).

metaphor

Comparison between essentially unlike things, or the application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable.