AP Literature: Poetry Term Flash Cards

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds, but not consonants. It is used to add organization and keeps the reader's interest.

Aubade

Poem written to celebrate the dawn

Ballad

Term that normally refers to either a simple song or to a narrative poem (often with a tragic ending).

Cacophony

• A harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones.

• Used to communicate or invoke negative emotions such as disgust, distress or fear.

• May also consist of "nonsense" words that cause discordance of sound and awkward alliteration.

Caesura

• A pause in a line of verse dictated by sense or natural speech rhythm rather than by metrics

• Used to indicate when there is a pause in the poem

Cinquain

• A five line poem based on Japanese forms such as haiku

• Line 1: one word (the title).

• Line 2: two words describing the title

• Line 3: three words that tell the action

• Line 4: four words that express the feeling

• Line 5: one word that recalls the title.

**Conceit

• Very elaborate comparisons between unlikely objects.

• Often uses simile and/or metaphor.

Connotation

• The suggestion of a meaning by a word beyond what it explicitly describes.

• Used to convey a particular style that an author uses to appeal to a specific type of reader

Consonance

• Repetition of consonant sounds

• Used for emphasis (attracts attention to subject

Denotation

• Literal meaning of a word

• Does not attach emotions, values, or images associated with the image

**Elegy

• Formal sustained poem lamenting the death of a particular person

End Rhyme

• A rhyme which occurs at the end of a sentence rather than the middle

• The most common type of rhyme within poetry

Enjambment

• The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza

• Increases fluidity by decreasing importance of the verse boundaries

Epigram

• A very short, satirical and witty poem usually written as a brief couplet or quatrain

Euphony

• A style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear dominate

• Opposite of cacophony

• Used to bring about pleasant, peaceful feelings in the reader

Euphemism

• An inoffensive word used to replace a more vulgar or offensive word.

• Used by authors to not offend their readers

Eye Rhyme

• Rhyme that appears as if it will rhyme based on spelling, but it is actually a half-rhyme or slant-rhyme due to pronunciation

Haiku

• Miniature Japanese poem consisting of 17 syllables (five syllables in first line, seven in second and five in the last)

• No rhyme or meter scheme is employed

• The aim is to create something greater than the sum of the parts

Hyperbole

• A deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration

• May be used for either serious or comic effect

**Iambic Pentameter

A line of ten syllables using the pattern of unstressed/stressed.

**Idyll

• Either short poems depicting a peaceful, idealized country scene or...

• Long poems that tell a story about ancient heroes.

Internal Rhyme

• Rhyme that occurs within a line rather than at the end

• Helps to link or connect similar concepts in poetry

Litotes

• A kind of understatement, where the speaker or writer uses a negative of a word ironically, to mean the opposite

Lyric

• Verses that were written to be sung

• More recently the term has been used to refer to short poems, often written in the 'I' form, where the poet expresses their feelings

Meiosis

The presentation of a thing with under emphasis especially in order to achieve a greater effect

Metonymy

Designation of one thing with something closely associated with it

Ode

Long poem which is serious in nature and written to a set structure

Onomatopoeia

• A word that imitates the sound it represents

• Used to create a mood or to produce an effect to make a sentence more interesting

Pastoral

• A poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful

• Idealizing shepherds and country life

Personification

A kind of metaphor that references inanimate objects or abstract ideas or human characteristics

Prosopopoeia

• A form of personification in which an inanimate object gains the ability to speak

Pun

• A form of word play, which proposes two or more meanings by utilizing multiple meanings of words

• Used to add a humorous effect

Rime Royal

A seven-line stanza form invented by Chaucer in the fourteenth century; the stanzas are written in iambic pentameter in a fixed rhyme scheme (ABABBCC)

Sibilance

A special form of alliteration using the softer consonants that create hissing sounds, or sibilant sounds

Sonnet

• A poetic form customarily of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter

• The Italian/Petrarchan sonnet: rhyme scheme of ABBAABBA in the octave and a combination of CDE or CD in the sestet

• Subject: unattainable

love and longing

• The English/Shakespearean sonnet: rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG

Synecdoche

A literal part of something is used to stand for the whole

Synesthesia

• A sensation produced in one state when a stimulus is applied to another state

• The description of one kind of sensation in terms of another

• Influence between sensory representation

Understatement

Deliberately representing something as much less than it really is

Villanelle

• A poetic form in which the first and third lines of the first stanza come back in refrain

• Rhyme scheme of ABA for four tercets and ABAA (the last two lines being those first and third lines) in the final quatrain

Zeugma

• The use of a word to govern two or more words, either in such a way that it applies to all in a different sense, or makes sense with only one.

• Can be used to give humor to some situations.

Sestet

• A six-line stanza

• Most commonly, it refers to the second division of an Italian sonnet

Tercet

• Stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme (AAA)

Asyndeton

• The conjunctions connecting a series of words, phrases, or clauses in this technique are omitted, and only commas are used.

• Continuous flow of thought that speeds up the rhythm of the passage

• The elimination of conjunctions enables the words and ideas to dissolve into each other without any formal bond

Polysyndeton

• The overuse of conjunctions in close succession

• Helps achieve rhythm, mainly by introducing continuation and even slowing it down

• Can convey solemnity or a childlike spirit

Blank Verse

• Un-rhyming verse written in iambic pentameter

• Consistent meter with 10 syllables in each line

Free Verse

Poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm and does not rhyme with fixed forms

Verse

• Denotes a single line of poetry

• The term can also be used to refer to a stanza or other parts of poetry.

Iamb

• A literary device that can be defined as a foot containing unaccented and short syllables followed by a long and accented syllable in a single line of a poem (unstressed/stressed syllables).

Pentameter

• A line in verse or poetry that has five strong metrical feet or beats.

• Most commonly used in English is iambic.

• Also can be a line consisting of ten syllables, where the first syllable is stressed, the second is unstressed, and the third is stressed and so on until it reaches the 10th line syllable.

Rime vs. Rhyme

• Rhyme is audial and refers only to the sounds made by this word family

• Words rime when they end with the same chunk of letters

• Ex.: "pear" and "care" rhyme, but don't rime

• Ex.: "plan" and "can" rhyme and rime because they end in "-an"

Dactyl Form

• A pattern of stressed, unstressed, unstressed syllables

Trochee Form

• A pattern of stressed, unstressed

Spondee Form

• A pattern of stressed, stressed syllables

• Ex.: "hog-wild"