AP Lit Poetry Test 11/12

Metaphor

A direct comparison between two unlike things without using "like" or "as."

Extended metaphor

A metaphor that continues over several lines or throughout an entire literary work, expanding the comparison through additional details.

Simile

A comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as."

Imagery

Visually descriptive or figurative language, appealing to the five senses.

Personification

Attributing human qualities or actions to inanimate objects or abstract ideas.

Rhythm

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.

Meter

A regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables that defines the rhythm of some poetry (e.g., lambic Pentameter).

Stanza

A group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse.

Tone

The attitude of a writer toward a subject or an audience, often conveyed through word choice and style.

Mood (Atmosphere)

The emotional feeling or atmosphere that a work of literature produces in a reader.

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds in successive or closely associated words.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds within successive or closely associated words.

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds within or at the end of words in close proximity.

Onomatopoeia

The formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (eg., "sizzle," "buzz," "hiss").

Euphony

Language that is smooth and musically pleasant to the ear, often achieved through soft consonants and harmonious vowels.

Cacophony

Language that is harsh, jarring, and discordant, often achieved through explosive consonants.

Blank Verse

Unrhymed verse written in iambic pentameter. It's common in Shakespearean plays and epic poetry.

Free Verse (Vers Libre)

Poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter. It relies on natural speech rhythms.

Caesura

A strong pause or break in the middle of a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence or clause across a line break without a pause. The meaning "runs over" to the next line.

Ode

A lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter.

Elegy

A contemplative poem on death and mortality, often written for someone who has died (Shea et al., 1345).

Epigram

A short, witty statement designed to surprise an audience or a reader.

Iamb

A poetic foot of two syllables with the stress, or accent, on the second, as in the word "again," or the phrase "by far" (Shea et al., 1348).

Iamb pentameter

Rhythmic meter containing five iambs (ten syllables). "But hark! What light through yonder window breaks" - Shakespeare Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Villanelle

A highly structured, nineteen-line poetic form characterized by its intricate pattern of repetition and only two rhymes. Contains 19 lines, five tercets, and one

Apostrophe

A rhetorical in which the speaker addresses a dead or absent person, or an abstract or inanimate object. (e.g., "O Captain! My Captain.").

Metonymy

A figure of speech in which one thing is referred to by the name of something closely associated with it (e.g., referring to the monarchy as "the Crown").

Synecdoche

A figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa (e.g., "all hands on deck" where "hands" means sailors).

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that combines two contradictory terms (e.g., "jumbo shrimp," "deafening silence").

Paradox

A statement that appears self-contradictory but contains a deeper, often profound, truth.

Line

Not technically a stanza, but the basic unit.

Couplet

Often rhymes (e.g., the final two lines of a Shakespearean sonnet).

Tercet (or Triplet)

Used in structured forms like the Terza Rima (interlocking rhyme scheme, often associated with Dante).

Quatrain

The most common stanza form; used in the ballad, common meter, and sonnets (three quatrains followed by a couplet).

Cinquain (or Quintain)

Less common but used in certain formal patterns.

Sestet

Used for the final six lines of a Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet; also known as a Sexain.

Septet

A stanza of seven lines, notably the Rhyme Royal (a specific form used by Chaucer).

Octave

Used for the first eight lines of a Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet; also known as an Octet.

Spenserian Stanza

A specific nine-line stanza form invented by Edmund Spenser for The Faerie Queene, with the last line being an alexandrine (12 syllables).

Decastich

A stanza of ten lines.

Dodecasyllabic

A stanza of twelve lines.