AP Lit Poetic Terms

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds in a phrase or sentence, often used for emphasis or to create a musical effect.

Allusion

A reference to a well-known literary work, historical event, or person, used to enhance the meaning or create a connection in a poem or story.

Anadiplosis

A poetic device where the last word of a line is repeated as the first word of the following line, creating a sense of continuity and emphasis.

Anaphora

The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines or clauses, often used to create rhythm, emphasis, or a powerful effect.

Anastrophe

A figure of speech where the natural word order is inverted for emphasis or to create a unique and memorable expression.

Antimetabole

A rhetorical device where words or phrases are repeated in successive lines, but in reverse grammatical order, creating a balanced and impactful effect.

Apostrophe

A figure of speech where a speaker addresses someone absent, dead, or non-human as if they were present and able to respond.

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds within words or phrases, often used to create a musical or rhythmic effect in poetry.

Asyndeton

The deliberate omission of conjunctions between related clauses or phrases, creating a sense of urgency, speed, or a fragmented rhythm.

Ballad

A narrative poem that tells a story, often with repeated stanzas or refrains, and is often set to music.

Blank verse

Unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter, a metrical pattern consisting of five pairs of unstressed and stressed syllables per line.

Cacophony

The use of harsh or discordant sounds in poetry to create a jarring or unsettling effect, often used to convey intense emotions or chaotic scenes.

Caesura

A pause or break within a line of poetry, often marked by punctuation, creating a rhythmic or dramatic effect.

Carpe Diem

A Latin phrase meaning 'seize the day,' often used as a theme in lyric poetry to encourage the enjoyment of the present moment and the pursuit of pleasure.

Chiasmus

A rhetorical device where the grammatical structure of successive lines or clauses is reversed, creating a balanced and symmetrical effect.

Connotation

The emotional or cultural associations surrounding a word, beyond its literal meaning, often influencing the reader's interpretation and response.

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the end of words or within a phrase, creating a harmonious or musical effect in poetry.

Couplet

Two successive lines in a poem that are linked by rhyme, often used to create a sense of closure or to emphasize a particular idea or image.

Denotation

The dictionary or literal meaning of a word, without any emotional or cultural associations, often used to convey a precise and objective message.

Diction

The poet's choice and use of words or phrases, including their vocabulary, syntax, and style, to create a specific tone, atmosphere, or meaning in a poem.

Dirge

A poem or song of lamentation or mourning, often performed at a funeral or to commemorate the dead.

Elegy

A poem of serious reflection and mourning, often written to commemorate someone who has died or to express a sense of loss or sorrow.

End-stopped line

A line of poetry that ends with a natural pause or punctuation, creating a sense of completion or closure within the line.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence or thought from one line of poetry to the next without a pause or punctuation, creating a sense of flow or movement.

Epanalepsis

A rhetorical device where a word that starts a line is repeated at the end of the same line, creating emphasis and reinforcing the central idea.

Pentameter

a line containing five feet

Persona

Literally, a mask. In literature, a speaker created by a writer to tell a story or speak in a poem.

Personification

figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, object, or concept

Phonetic intensive

a word whose sound to some degree suggests its meaning

Polysyndeton

deliberate use of many conjunctions

Pun

a play on words that is humorous

Pun - Antanaclasis

repetition of a word in two different senses

Pun - Paronomasia

use of words alike in sound but different in meaning

Quatrain

four-line stanza

Rhetorical question

a question asked for effect not in expectation of a reply

Run-on line

a line, which has no natural speech pause at its end, allowing the sense to flow uninterruptedly into the succeeding line

Sestet

a six-line stanza

Simile

a comparison between two unlike things using the links like or as

Sonnet

a fixed form of fourteen lines with a rhyme scheme (usually iambic pentameter)

Sonnet - Shakespearean (English)

a sonnet rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Sonnet - Petrarchan (Italian)

a sonnet divided between eight lines, using two rimes arranged ABBA ABBA, and six lines called the sestet, using any arrangement of two or three rimes: CDCDCD & CDECDE (usually a division of thought between octave and sestet)

Stanza

a group of lines whose metrical pattern is repeated throughout a poem

Synecdoche

figure of speech where a part represents the whole

Syntax

set of rules in language; how words are put together to create meaning

Tercet

three-line stanza

Tone

writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or themselves

Trochee

a foot in a line of poetry of two syllables - stressed/unstressed

Understatement

figure of speech used to intentionally make a situation seem less important than it is

Verse

a line of stanza of poetry

Villanelle

a highly specialized French poem with 19 lines, divided into 5 tercets and 1 quatrain; two rhymes or repeated lines dominate ABA ABA ABA ABA ABA ABAA (6)

Epiphany

A revealing moment in which the speaker experiences a deep realization about themselves

Epistrophe

Repetition of the same word or group of words at the ends of successive lines

Epithet

A descriptive name or title

Euphemism

Toa mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.

euphony

Smooth, pleasant sounds pleasing to the ear

feminine ending

An unstressed extra syllable at the end of a line of iambic pentameter

fixed form

a traditional pattern that applies to a whole poem (limerick, haiku)

free verse

Poetry not written in a traditional meter but it is still rhythmical

heroic couplet

A pair of lines in rhymed iambic pentameter used mostly by Old English poets

Hexameter

a line containing six feet

Hyperbole

a boldly exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without intending to be literally true

Imagery

the representation through language of sense experience (literal) or abstract (figurative)

Irony

a situation or use of language involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy

Litote

Deliberate understatement made using a double negative (you won't be sorry)

masculine ending

Stressed extra syllable at the end of a line of iambic pentameter

Metaphor

a figure of speech in a direct comparison is made between two unlike things

meter

The measured arrangement of words in poetry: accented rhythm, syllabic quality, or number of syllables in a line

Metonymy

An attribute substituted for the thing it describes: "suits" for business executives

narrative poem

a poem that tells a story, has a regular rhyme scheme

Octave

an eight-line stanza

Ode

A rapturous lyric poem written about a dignified, lofty subject

Onomatopoeia

A word that imitates the sound it represents.

Oxymoron

conjoining contradictory terms (as in 'deafening silence')

Paradox

a statement that seems contradictory but is actually true

pastoral

A poem set in the country/nature in spring or summer