poetry test

Poetry Terms Definition List

• Allegory: A narrative in which characters, events, and settings symbolize abstract qualities and ideas, often conveying a moral or lesson.

• Alliteration: The repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words (e.g., "Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers").

• Allusion: An indirect reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art.

• Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds within non-rhyming words (e.g., "The early bird catches the worm").

• Asyndeton: The omission of conjunctions between parts of a sentence for a rhythmic or emphatic effect (e.g., "I came, I saw, I conquered").

• Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter, often used in English dramatic, epic, and reflective verse.

• Conceit: An extended metaphor with a complex logic that governs a poetic passage or entire poem.

• Connotation: The emotional or cultural associations surrounding a word, beyond its literal meaning.

• Denotation: The literal, dictionary definition of a word.

• Diction: The choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.

• Dramatic Irony: When the audience knows something that the characters do not, creating tension or humor.

• English Sonnet Rhyme Scheme: A sonnet with the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG, also known as a Shakespearean sonnet.

• Enjambment: The continuation of a sentence or clause over a line break.

• Epanalepsis: The repetition of the initial part of a clause or sentence at the end of that same clause or sentence (e.g., "The king is dead, long live the king").

• Extended Metaphor: A metaphor that continues over several lines or throughout an entire literary work.

• Flashback: A scene set in a time earlier than the main story, providing background information.

• Hyperbole: Exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.

• Imagery: Descriptive language that appeals to the senses, creating vivid mental pictures.

• Inversion: The reversal of the normal word order in a sentence or phrase.

• Metaphor: A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without using "like" or "as."

• Metonymy: A figure of speech in which one thing is represented by another that is commonly and often physically associated with it (e.g., "The White House" for the U.S. President).

• Onomatopoeia: The use of words that imitate the sounds they describe (e.g., "buzz," "hiss").

• Oxymoron: A figure of speech that combines contradictory terms (e.g., "deafening silence").

• Personification: Attributing human characteristics to non-human entities or objects.

• Refrain: A repeated line, phrase, or group of lines in a poem or song, typically at the end of a stanza.

• Rhetorical Question: A question asked for effect or to make a point rather than to elicit an answer.

• Scansion: The analysis of a poem's meter, marking stressed and unstressed syllables and identifying the rhythmical pattern.

• Simile: A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things using "like" or "as."

• Symbol: An object, person, or situation that represents more than its literal meaning.

• Synecdoche: A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole or vice versa (e.g., "all hands on deck" for "all sailors on deck").

• Theme: The central idea, topic, or point of a literary work.

• Tone: The attitude or approach that the author takes toward the work's central theme or subject.

• Understatement (Litotes): A figure of speech that makes a situation seem less important or serious than it is, often using double negatives for effect.

• Verbal Irony: When what is said is the opposite of what is meant, often for humorous or emphatic effect.