Schemes and Tropes & Scansion

GB Poetry

schemes (figures of speech)

concerned with placement and repetition of words themselves; form

tropes (figure of though)

concerned with the change or development of meaning on a conceptual level; semantically complex

Parallelism

repeated or patterned grammar structures

antithesis

parallel grammatical structure with opposites paralleled

chiasmus

parallelism that repeats terms in inverse order: A,B,B,A

simple repetition

repetition of same word

anaphora

word repeated at beginning of lines

anadiplosis

repetition of the last word of one phrase or line at the beginning of the next

periphrasis

a word or phrase describing a thing without naming it 

ellipsis

leaving out any word or phrase that is understood

apostrophe

the moment when the speak in the poem interrupts self to address another person or the reader

inversion

deviation from normal word order

antanaclasis

repetition of a word but with two different meaning

metaphor

an assertion that two things that are similar in some way are identical

similie

an explicit assertion of similarity between things that makes no claims regarding identity 

metonymy

using one object or concept to stand in for another to which it is closely related

e.g) “sweat” used to signify hard work

synecdoche

a form of metonymy that involves the substitution of a part for the whole

e.g) let’s get a head count

personification

things not human are given human qualities or behave in human ways

e.g) the willows sang in the wind

irony

use of expressions meaning the opposite of what is literally said

e.g) the sculptor writing on Ozymandias’ statue, “Look on my works ye mighty and despair”

hyperbole

overstatement, saying more than is obviously required

e.g) I would never in all my life lie to you

meiosis

understatement, saying less than is obviously warranted 

e.g) “im a little scared”, when I am actually terrified

paradox

seemingly impossible, contradictory statement

e.g) death, thou shalt die

iamb

u /

trochee

/ u

anapest

u u /

dactyl

/ u u 

spondee

/ /

pyrrhic

u u

dimeter

2 feet

trimeter

3 ft

tetrameter

4 ft

pentameter

5 ft

hexameter

6 ft

heptameter

7 ft

octameter

8 ft