English Sound & Sense Poetry Vocabulary

oh my gosh I want to cry... memorize the meaning so you can recognize it? Don't even know if it's multiple choice the stress

Poetry

Literary work with a special intensity for expression of feelings and ideas

Imagery

The representation of a sense experience through language

Ballad

Short narrative poem written in a songlike stanza form

English sonnet

Sonnet rhyming ababcdcdefefgg, often structured into octave and sestet, with a break in thought at the end of the 8th line

Italian sonnet

Sonnet with an octave rhyming abbaabba and a sestet using an arrangement of two or three additional rhymes

Denotation

The basic dictionary definition of a word

Connotation

What a word suggests beyond its basic definition 

Theme

The central idea of a literary work

Diction

The choice and use of words and phrases in writing

Dramatic

Form of poetry written in verse, intended to be publicly recited or acted out

Simile

An explicit comparison between two unlike things using words such as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems 

Extended simile

A detailed comparison in the form of a simile that is several lines in length

Metaphor

A comparison between two unlike things

Personification

Human attributes given to an animal, object, or concept

Apostrophe

Figure of speech, someone absent, dead, or something nonhuman is addressed as if it is present and able to reply

Metonymy

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

Figurative language

Language using figures of speech, cannot be taken literally or only can be taken literally

Symbol

A figure of speech where something means more than it is

Allegory

A narrative or description having a second meaning

Paradox

A statement or situation containing contradictory elements

Overstatement

Exaggeration is used in the service of truth 

Understatement

A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or with less force than the occasion warrants 

Verbal irony

Figure of speech, means the opposite of what is said

Dramatic irony

Author implies a different meaning than intended by the speaker

Irony of situation

A situation with incongruity between anticipated and actual circumstances

Sarcasm

Bitter or cutting speech, intended to give pain to the addressed person

Satire

A literature that ridicules human folly with the purpose of bringing about reform or as a warning 

Allusion

A reference to something in literature or history 

Rhythm

Any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound

Meter

The regular pattern of accents underlying metrical verse

End rhyme

Rhymes occurring at the ends of lines

Approximate rhyme

Imperfect rhymes, relate through sound correspondence 

Internal rhyme

A rhyme where one or both of the rhyme words occur within the line

Prose meaning

Part of a poem’s total meaning that can be separated out and expressed through paraphrase 

Total meaning

The total experience communicated by a poem

Idea

The experience a poem expresses 

Tone

The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward the subject, emotional coloring

Verse

A grouping of lines in poetry

Foot

Basic unit to measure a metrical verse, usually contains one accent syllable and one or two unaccented syllables 

Onomatopoeia

The use of words that mimic their meaning in their sound

Phonetic intensive

A word whose sound to some degree suggests its meaning

Fixed form

Any poem form where the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage

Stanza

A group of lines whose pattern is repeated throughout a poem

Blank verse

Unrhymed with one short syllable followed by one long syllable 

End-stopped line

A line ending with a natural speech pause, usually marked with punctuation

Run-on line

A line with no natural speech pause at the end, allowing the sense to flow uninterruptedly into the next line

Free verse

Nonmetrical poetry, patterns form organically without established structure

Scansion

The process of measuring metrical verse, dividing lines into feet and identifying the metrical pattern and significant variations 

Assonance

Close repetition of accented vowel sounds, often in important words

Consonance

Close repetition of the final, accented consonant sound

Refrain

A repeated word, phrase, and line in a fixed position in a poem

Masculine rhyme

The repeated accented vowel sound is the final syllable of the words involved

Feminine rhyme

The repeated accented vowel is in the second or third last syllable of the words involved