mr peen vocab

Sonnet — a form of poetry with a specific rhyme scheme and fourteen lines

Rhyme Scheme — a way of using letters to represent the rhyming pattern in a poem

Shakespearean Sonnet — (also known as Elizabethan or English Sonnets) these poems consist of three quatrains and a couplet. They include an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme

Couplet — two lines that rhyme, notice that one appears at the end of every Shakespearean Sonnet, either to summarize the poem or to offer a twist

Volta — a shift, twist or turn. Shakespeare often includes these in his couplets. Petrarchan Sonnets may include one after the octave

Quatrain — four lines of rhyming poetry. The three quatrains in Shakespeare’s Sonnets are generally three units of thought

Meter — the pattern between stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry

Iambic Pentameter — the dominant meter in English poetry, consisting of five iambs (10 syllables total)

Metaphysical Poets — a group of poets from the 17th century who wrote poetry characterized by intellectual ideas, conceits, irony, and flexible meter

Petrarchan Sonnet — a type of sonnet divided into an octave and a sestet, usually following a different rhyme scheme than Shakespearean sonnets

Romanticism — a philosophy dominant in the late 18th and early 19th century which emphasized the glory of nature over civilization, the power of conscience and emotion over logic, and the heroic possibilities of the individual

Iamb — an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one

Ballad Meter — alternating between iambic tetrameter (8 syllables) and iambic trimeter (6 syllables)

Paradox — an idea that is true though it seems contradictory

Trochee — emphasized syllable followed by unemphasized syllable (opposite of unemphasized/emphasized style of iambic poetry)

Lament — an expression of sadness and disappointment

Ode — a poem that celebrates something

Mood — the sensations and emotions experienced by the reader encountering a work of art (not always the same as tone, the speaker’s attitude)

Antimetabole — one statement followed by another with reversed word order

Oxymoron — two words joined together that seem contradictory

Modernism — a literary period from the early twentieth century, marked by an experimental, abstract style

Light Verse — “verse that is written mainly to amuse and entertain and that is often marked by qualities of wit, elegance, and lyric beauty”

Caesura — when a poem includes a rest or pause in the middle of a line

Persona Poem — when a speaker assumes a voice, a particular character is depicted speaking (as with a monologue)

Avant-garde — especially experimental or unconventional artwork

Imagism — short poetry focused almost entirely on a visual images rather than figurative language

Refrain — a phrase repeated throughout a poem

Understatement — when something significant is relatively unremarked upon

Terza Rima — stanzas of three lines (tercets) in which the middle rhyme is repeated into the next stanza (ABA, BCB, CDC, DED)

Extended metaphor — a comparison between two things that goes on for more than one line or sentence

Second Person — Using words like “you” and “your” to address the audience directly

Satire — the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people’s stupidity or vices

Alliteration — repetition of consonant sound (“consonance”), especially on emphasized syllables

Confessional Poetry — Poetry that places special emphasis on personal experiences and covers subjects that might seem risky or taboo

Assonance — repetition of vowel sounds

Feminism — the belief that men and women are equal. Feminists seek out subtle instances of injustice against women that others may overlook

Audience — the person the speaker in the poem is addressing (often a “general” reader, sometimes someone specific)

Internal Rhyme — when rhyme occurs within a single line

Anadiplosis — a phrase that ends one line is repeated as it begins the following line

Juxtaposition — placing things side-by-side, especially so as to compare and contrast

Invocation of the Muse — A prayer that appears at the beginning of an epic, meant to invite the help of a muse—someone who will help with the storytelling task

Epic — A long, narrative literary work in verse (poetry), usually about a hero, a journey—something larger than life

Myth — a narrative, usually oral, passed down within a culture, featuring supernatural explanations of the world

Antihero — A protagonist with both favorable and unfavorable characteristics

Epic Simile — An extended comparison between two unalike things, features “like” or “as”

Apostrophe — when a speaker addresses something that cannot respond. Often begins with “O”

Climax — the point in a story when suspense reaches its highest intensity. The conflict reaches a peak, and the resolution follows

Neoclassicalism — A 17th and 18th century movement in which writers were deeply inspired by literature from ancient Rome and Greece

Blank Verse — unrhymed iambic pentameter

Allusion — A reference to an older literary work, a way to utilize an audience’s prior knowledge of a story, myth or historical event

Transcendentalism — an American form of Romanticism with special emphasis on conscience and paradox

Gothic Romanticism — a category of romanticism filled with macabre and dark imagery as a way of emphasizing the human capacity for fear

Free Verse — poetry that does not adhere to any traditional form, poetry without rhyme or meter

Cataloguing — when a poet lists items

Elegy — A poem written on a death

Interjection — any incomplete phrase that interrupts a full sentence or clause

Anapest — two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one

Imagery — sensory details

Ballad — rhyming poem that tells a story with quatrains

Slant Rhyme — when things rhyme…halfway

Spondee — two consecutive stressed syllables

Lyric Poem — a poem that is personal, written in first person, about emotions and feelings

Blues Structure — an idea is stated twice, followed by a third statement in the form of a response

Anaphora — a repeated phrase at the beginning of each line

Dialect — colloquial speech, informal language that represents a specific people group

African Diaspora — the spread of individuals descended from Africa into different parts of the world

Asyndeton — omission of a conjunction, like “and” or “or”

Epistrophe — a phrase repeated at the end of a series of clauses, sentences, or lines of poetry

Imperative — a command or order

Vignette — a brief description or portrait

End-Stopped Line — a line of poetry that is a full sentence

Onomatopoeia — when something is named after what it sounds like (sometimes this word is used to describe poems that mimic their subject)

Postmodernism — a literary movement in the second half of the 20th century, defined by an experimental style and a breaking of norms

Antithesis — opposites presented with similar syntax

Euphony — pleasant-sounding words, sometimes created by rhyme and alliteration

Metonymy — when something is defined by another word with which it is closely associated (“Hollywood”)

Synecdoche — a type of metonymy in which a part of something represents a whole of something OR a whole represents a part of something (“all hands on deck”)

Rhetorical Question — a question with an implied and unstated answer, meant to lead the reader into deeper contemplation

Personification — when human characteristics are applied to a nonhuman thing

Cacophony — harsh or unpleasant sounds