CIS Lit Vocab

allegory

a narrative in which the characters, actions, and sometimes the setting, symbolically represent an idea, moral, or political or religious principles

alliteration

repetition of the same consonant sounds in two or more words (usually at the beginning of the words, but sometimes on the stressed syllables) uses: adds music to a line, makes a phrase memorable or distinctive, or reflects the content of the verse

allusion

a direct or indirect reference to a person, place, thing, event, or idea in history or literature. [blank] imply reading and cultural experiences shared by the writer and the reader, functioning as a kind of shorthand whereby the recalling of something outside the text supplies an emotional or intellectual context.

antithesis

a balanced statement; a figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other

apostrophe

to turn away from the general audience of a work to address a specific group, person, or thing (see personification), including those that are absent, dead, or imaginary. often, the addr4ess is preceded by O or Oh.

assonance

the repetition of vowel sounds in stressed syllables (see also alliteration). [blank] differs from rhyme in that rhyme is a similarity of vowel and consonant: “lake” and “fake” demonstrate rhyme, “lake” and “fate” demonstrate [blank]

ballad

a narrative poem that tells a story

blank verse

iambic pentameter (see meter) without rhyme. the verse form closest to the natural rhythms of english speech

caesura

a pause occurring in a line of poetry, either due to sense or to natural speech rhythm. a [blank] is usually accompanied by some form of punctuation. it is conventional to notate a [blank] with the “double pipe” sign

chiasmus

an inversion of the second of two parallel phrases (e.g. do not live to eat but eat to live). it is named after the greek letter chi (x), indicating a crisscross arrangement of terms. (e.g. we drive on the parkway and park on the driveway).