Literary and Poetic Devices

Vocabulary flashcards defining key literary and poetic terms, verse types, and devices.

Pathetic Fallacy

A specific type of personification where the weather or inanimate surroundings reflect or comment on human emotions.

Rhymed Verse

Poetry with rhyme and meter.

Blank Verse

Poetry with meter but without rhyme.

Free Verse

Poetry without both rhyme and meter.

Epigram

A new, original way of saying something. A short witty, and memorable statement.

Villanelle

A nineteen-line poem with two rhymes throughout, consisted of five tercets and a quatrain, with the first and third lines of the opening tercet recurring alternately at the end of the other tercets and with both repeated at close of the concluding quatrain.

Refrain

A verse, a line, a set, or a group of lines that appears at the end of stanza, or appears where a poem divides into different sections. It originated in France, where it is popular as refraindre, meaning "to repeat". It is a poetic device that repeats, at regular intervals, in different stanzas.

Invictus

Unconquered, undefeated.

Assonance

Repetition of a vowel sound within two or more words in close proximity.

Catharsis

The emotional release, purification or purgation of the emotions.

Dirty Realism

Gritty, honest writing associated with certain authors (Bluebird).

Dramatic monologue

A type of poetry written in the form of a speech for an individual character (Porphyria's Lover).