Ap English Iv Poetry Terms

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alliteration

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The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words.

Some famous examples of alliteration are tongue twisters such as Betty Botta bought some butter and Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.

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allusion

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A figure of speech making casual reference to a famous historical or literary figure or event.

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anaphora

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Repetition of the same word or group of words at the beginning of successive clauses, sentences, or lines.

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apostrophe

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interrupts the discussion or discourse and addresses directly a person or personified thing, either present or absent. Its most common purpose in prose is to give vent to or display intense emotion, which can no longer be held back:

O value of wisdom that fadeth not away with time, virtue ever flourishing, that cleanseth its possessor from all venom! O heavenly gift of the divine bounty, descending from the Father of lights, that thou mayest exalt the rational soul to the very heavens! Thou art the celestial nourishment of the intellect . . . . --Richard de Bury

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assonance

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The repetition or a pattern of similar sounds, especially vowel sounds, as in the tongue twister

"Moses supposes his toeses are roses."

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aubade

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A lyric poem regretting the arrival of dawn for two lovers

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cacophony

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harsh joining of sounds.

*We want no parlay with you and your grisly gang who work your wicked will. W. Churchill

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chiasmus

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two corresponding pairs arranged not in parallels (a-b-a-b) but in inverted order (a-b-b-a); from shape of the Greek letter chi (X).

*Those gallant men will remain often in my thoughts and in my prayers always. MacArthur

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conceit

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A fanciful poetic image or metaphor that likens one thing to something else that is seemingly very different.

An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's sonnet "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" and in Emily Dickinson's poem "There is no frigate like a book."

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consonance

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The repetition of similar consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss.

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couplet

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In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought. Shakespearean sonnets usually end in a couplet.

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dactyl

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A metrical foot of three syllables, one long (or stressed) followed by two short (or unstressed), as in happily. The dactyl is the reverse of the anapest.

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dramatic monologue

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A type of poem which is spoken to a listener. The speaker addresses a specific topic while the listener unwittingly reveals details about him/herself.

lots of browning and tennyson

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elision

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ELISION: contraction of word or omission of final unstressed syllable in line of verse

'ne'er' for "never'

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enjambment

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When the units of sense in a passage of poetry don't coincide with the verses, and the sense runs on from one verse to another, the lines are said to be enjambed. When the verse length matches the length of the units of sense (clauses, sentences, whatever), the lines are said to be end-stopped. The term comes from the French for "straddling," since sentences "straddle" several lines.

I am not prone to weeping, as our sex
Commonly are; the want of which vain dew
Perchance shall dry your pities; but I have
That honourable grief lodged here which burns
Worse than tears drown.

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heroic couplet

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A stanza composed of two rhymed lines in iambic pentameter.

And then black night. That blackness was sublime.
I felt distributed through space and time:
One foot uon a mountaintop. one hand
Under the pebbles of a panting strand,
One ear in Italy, one eye in Spain,
In caves, my blood, and in the stars, my brain.

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iamb

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A metrical foot of two syllables, one short (or unstressed) and one long (or stressed). There are four iambs in the line "Come live/ with me/ and be/ my love," from a poem by Christopher Marlowe. (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The iamb is the reverse of the trochee.

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imagery

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Imagery in poetry is what the words of the poem make the reader 'see' in their imagination. it is the colors, sounds, and sometimes feelings evoked by the poem.

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inversion

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the changing of the usual order of words.

Here by the rose-tree
they planted once
of Love in Jeopardy
an Italian bronze.

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litotes

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Litotes is a figure of speech in which a person uses a negative statement to enforce the positive.

“It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny little tumor on the brain.”

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metonymy

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Metonymy is a figure of speech in which the name of something is used to refer to something that that name stands for. An example is "These lands belong to the crown." Obviously, the "crown" doesn't own these lands. The writer is using "crown" as a metonymy -- he actually means "to the king" or "to the country ruled by the king."

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synecdoche

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Synecdoche is a form of metonymy, but it differs slightly in that it "specializes," usually in reference to a "number." When we say, "President Bush won only the states colored in blue on the map, but he is the president of the fifty," the word "fifty" is a synecdoche standing for the entire United States. Another example is "The actor walked the boards." In this instance, "boards" is just a part or section of the entire thing -- the "stage" upon which the actor appears.

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narrative poetry

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Narrative poetry is poetry that tells a story. The poems may be short or long, and the story it relates to may be simple or complex. It is usually nondramatic, with objective verse and regular rhyme scheme and meter.[1] Narrative poems include epics, ballads, and idylls. Usually has real or fake characters, setting, plot, and end.

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octave

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Eight lines of iambic pentameter
usually abba abba
first part of a petrarchan sonnet

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paradox

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a statement whose two parts seem contradictory yet make sense with more thought. Christ used paradox in his teaching:

"They have ears but hear not."

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pyrrhic

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A pyrrhic is a metrical foot used in formal poetry
short short

"when the......and the..."

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sestet

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six line poetry

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slant rhyme

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The words are similar but lack perfect correspondence.

Example: found and kind, grime and game.

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spondee

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two stressed syllables
long long

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terza rima

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Terza rima is a rhyming verse stanza form that consists of an interlocking three line rhyme scheme.

a-b-a, b-c-b, c-d-c, d-e-d.

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trochee

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stressed, unstressed
opposite of iambic

Róund abóut the cáuldron gó,
Ín the póisoned éntrails thrów.

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understatement

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The presentation of a thing with underemphasis in order to achieve a greater effect. Frost uses this device extensively, often as a means of irony. His love poems are especially understated. He cautions, "Never larrup an emotion."

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The Italian (or Petrarchan) Sonnet

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The Italian sonnet is divided into two sections by two different groups of rhyming sounds. The first 8 lines is called the octave and rhymes:

a b b a a b b a
The remaining 6 lines is called the sestet and can have either two or three rhyming sounds, arranged in a variety of ways:

c d c d c d
c d d c d c
c d e c d e
c d e c e d
c d c e d c

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The Spenserian Sonnet

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a b a b b c b c c d c d e e

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The English (or Shakespearian) Sonnet

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a b a b
c d c d
e f e f
g g

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volta

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the turn in thought in a sonnet that is often indicated by such initial words as But, Yet, or And yet.

The volta occurs between the octet and sestet in a Petrarchan sonnet and sometimes between the 8th and 9th or between the 12th and 13th lines of a Shakespearean sonnet,