Literary Terms and Poetry Analysis: Sound, Meter, and Meaning

What are the techniques for organizing sound and syntax based on?

Parallelism and repetition.

What are the effects of organized sound and syntax?

To clarify ideas in the text, emphasize important parts of the text, and set a particular mood in the work.

What does meter most often directly affect?

Mood.

What is a rhetorical question?

A question asked not for an answer, but to achieve an effect.

Where is patterned repetition of sound, syntax, and thought more common?

Poetry than in prose.

Where is repetition best used?

Spoken rather than written literature.

What is a feminine ending?

A line ending in an unstressed syllable.

What is a masculine ending?

A line ending with a stressed syllable.

Anaphora is a form of?

Parallelism.

What is Antithesis?

Two adjacent phrases that are parallel syntactically but contrast in meaning

What is caesura?

A significant pause in the middle of a line of poetry.

What is chiasmus?

2nd of two adjacent phrases reverses the 1st, inverting parallel structure.

What is consonance?

Repetition of terminal or internal consonant sounds.

What is enjambment?

Lines flowing past the end of one line into another without a pause.

What is eye rhyme?

Word pairs spelled alike but pronounced differently.

What is internal rhyme?

Rhyme occurring within a single line of poetry.

What is slant rhyme?

Words with similar but slightly mismatched sounds.

What is alliteration?

Repetition of initial consonant sounds.

What is assonance?

Repetition of similar vowel sounds.

What is rhetoric?

The art of public speaking.

What is meter?

A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

What two things do you need to describe a particular meter?

The poetic foot and how many times it appears in a line.

What is the most common meter in English?

Iambic pentameter.

How does the poem 'Who Has Seen the Wind?' begin each stanza?

With a rhetorical question.

What characterizes the overall structure of 'Who Has Seen the Wind?'

Parallelism.

What sound devices are used in 'Rattlesnake'?

Rhyme and alliteration.

Why is the regular meter in the first stanza lost in the second stanza of 'Rattlesnake'?

Because the speaker becomes nervous and warns the snake away.

What does the rough cadence of the second stanza reflect?

The speaker's nervousness.

What is the theme of 'On the Grasshopper and the Cricket'?

Poetry provides relief from life's hardships.

How does Keats use enjambment in 'On the Grasshopper and the Cricket'?

To add to the natural flow of his lines.

How does parallelism appear in 'On the Grasshopper and the Cricket'?

It has two sections, grasshopper and then cricket. The same information is given about each creature in the same order, the first line of each section is the same, and both sections illustrate the same truth.

What type of poem is 'On the Grasshopper and the Cricket,' and what is its meter?

It is a sonnet written in iambic pentameter.

What does 'Irrational Anthem' refer to in 'March for a One-Man Band'?

The poem's chaotic performance.

How does the meter reinforce the chaotic performance in 'March for a One-Man Band'?

The meter is irregular and shifts between two different feet but has the same number of accents. The effect is march-like but off-kilter, reinforcing the chaotic performance.

What sound device does Wagoner use?

Onomatopoeia.

How does 'Foul Shot' create suspense?

Through lines like 'And then / And then / And then.'

What literary devices does 'Foul Shot' use?

Alliteration, rhyme, parallelism using all verbs, and consonance.

What is the major theme of 'A Gray Sleeve'?

War is a disruption of normal life.

What figurative language and sound devices does Crane use in 'A Gray Sleeve'?

Simile, personification, onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, and consonance.

What is the effect of Crane's sound devices?

They intensify his descriptions and lend seriousness and a sense of significance.

How does cacophony affect 'A Gray Sleeve'?

It brings the battle to life and intensifies danger.

What is anticlimax in 'The Gray Sleeve'?

It is that the cavalrymen prepare for a fierce battle against hidden Confederate snipers in a house, only to break down the door and find a harmless old grandfather, a young woman, and a wounded soldier rather than a dangerous ambush

How does Updike portray the ocean in 'Winter Ocean'?

He uses personification to portray the ocean's defiance.

How do the rhythm and sounds portray the ocean in 'Winter Ocean'?

The staccato rhythm tha emphasizes energy and movement, and the sounds are heavy and cacophonous. Thus, the ocean is rough, choppy, and full of energy.

What is the theme of 'Traveling Through the Dark'?

Life's moral dilemmas often require hard decisions.

What is the symbolic meaning of the title 'Traveling Through the Dark'?

The speaker moves through life like a traveler, moving through both real and moral darkness because the right choices are not always clear.

What does the extended metaphor of a check and a bank explain in 'I Have a Dream'?

The freedoms and opportunities denied to African Americans.

Dr. King, "I Have a Dream": What do the sections beginning "I have a dream" and "Let freedom ring" illustrate?

Both sections illustrate anaphora. The statement about children not being judged by skin color but by character is an example of antithesis.