English Literary Devices

Double meaning poem

A poem with two meanings

Free verse

Poetry written with no meter or rhyme

Tone

An author’s attitude toward a subject

Speaker

The narrator of a poem

Allusion

A reference to something outside of the text

Mood

Atmosphere or feeling

Syntactic whisper

When the character talks to the audience

Poet

Author of the poem

Alveolar stop

The use of d, n, or t sound

Metaphor

A direct comparison using is or was

Simile

A comparison using like or as

Imagery

Descriptive language that activates the five senses

Onomatopoeia

A word that echos the sound it represents

Repetitive/ refrain

A reoccurrence of a word or phrase

Alliteration

The reoccurrence of a letter at the beginning of each word

Hyperbole

An exaggeration not meant to be taken literally

Dramatic irony

When the reader knows somthing the characters do not

Assonance

Repetition of a vowel sound on the accented syllable

Anaphora

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of each clause

Narrative poem

A poem that tells a story, written in blank verse

figurative language

Any literary terms; Metaphor simile, onomatopoeia, hyperbole

Stanza

A paragraph in a poem

Sibilance

Repetition of S, C, Th, and F sounds at the beginning of words

Quatrain

A stanza with four lines

foreshadowing

A hit of what might come next in the story

Suspense

A feeling of uncertainty or stress

Caesura

A break midline originally intended to help poet, recall lines

End rhyme

A ryhme occuring at the end of lines

Rhyme

The flow of sound

Lyric poem

Poetry that conveys a strong feeling of emotion written in blank verse

Blank verse

Meter, no rhyme

Meter

Patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables

Enjambment

A break between a sentence continuing on the next line

Slant rhyme

A type of rhyme in which the two words rhyme slightly but completely

Tercet

A stanza of three lines

Personification

Character characteristics given to a non-human object

Iamb

A type of meter which The emphasis is played on the second syllable of a two syllable word ( da- DA)

Iambic trimeter

Verse containing three iambs

Amphibrach

A metrical foot in which the stress syllable occurs on the second syllable on the three syllable word ( da-DA-da)

Iambic tetrameter

verse containing four iambs

iambic pentameter

Verse Containing five iambs