AP English Literature - Literary Terms: 61-84

pentameter

a line of verse consisting of five metrical feet

personification

attribution of personal qualities, especially: representation of a thing or abstraction as a person or by the human form

quatrain

a unit or group of four lines of verse

rhetorical question

a question not intended to require an answer

rhyme scheme

the arrangement of rhymes in a stanza or a poem

scansion

the analysis of verse to show its meter

sestet

a stanza or a poem of six lines, specifically: the last six lines of an Italian sonnet

simile

a figure of speech comparing two unlike things that is often introduced by like or as

slant rhyme

rhyming structures with words that share similar sounds but aren't exactly perfect rhymes (crate, braid, time, mind)

sonnet

a fixed verse form of Italian origin consisting of 14 lines that are typically 5-foot iambics rhyming according to a prescribed scheme

speaker

the speaker of a poem is the voice of the poem, similar to a narrator in fiction. the poet might not necessarily be the speaker of the poem.

spondee

a metrical foot consisting of two long or stressed syllables

stanza

a division of a poem consisting of a series of lines arranged together in a usually recurring pattern of meter and rhyme

synecdoche

a figure of speech by which a part is put for the whole (such as fifty sail for fifty ships)

syntax

the way in which linguistic elements (such as words) are put together to form constituents (such as phrases or clauses)

tercet

a unit or group of three lines of verse, one of the two groups of three lines forming the sestet in an Italian sonnet

tetrameter

a line of verse consisting either of four dipodies (as in classical iambic, trochaic, and anapestic verse) or four metrical feet (as in modern English verse)

theme

a subject or topic of discourse or of artistic representation

tone

style or manner of expression in speaking or writing

trimeter

a line of verse consisting of three dipodies or three metrical feet

trochee

a metrical foot consisting of one long syllable followed by one short syllable or of one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable (as in apple)

villanelle

a chiefly French verse form running on two rhymes and consisting typically of five tercets and a quatrain in which the first and third lines of the opening tercet recur alternately at the end of the other tercets and together as the last two lines of the quatrain

volta

Italian word for “turn.” in a sonnet, the volta is the turn of thought or argument: in Petrarchan or Italian sonnets it occurs between the octave and the sestet, and in Shakespearean or English before the final couplet

zeugma

the use of a word to modify or govern two or more words usually in such a manner that it applies to each word in a different sense (as "opened" in "opened the door and her heart to the stray kitten") or makes sense with only one word (as "rolling" in "rolling lightning and thunder")