Ap English Poetry Terms

Front 1

Allusion

Back 1

Reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-knowing historical or literary event, person, or work

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Apostrophe

Back 2

Figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present

Front 3

Assonance

Back 3

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. "A land laid waste with all its young men slain"

Front 4

Ballad meter

Back 4

A four line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four.

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Blank verse

Back 5

Unrhymed iambic pentameter

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Cacophony

Back 6

A harsh unpleasant combination of sounds or tones.

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Caesura

Back 7

A pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause

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Consonance

Back 8

Repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words

Front 9

Didactic poem

Back 9

Poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson.

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Dramatic poem

Back 10

Poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as means of achieving poetic ends

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Elegy

Back 11

Sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet's medications uoin death or antihero solemn thing

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Enjambment

Back 12

Continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next

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Free verse

Back 13

Does not rhyme

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Metonymy

Back 14

Figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself.

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Parallelism

Back 15

A similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry

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Refrain

Back 16

A group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza

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Sonnet

Back 17

Normally a 14 line iambic pentameter poem

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Style

Back 18

Mode of expression in language; the characteristic manner of expression of an author

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Synecdoche

Back 19

Form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole

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Tercet

Back 20

Stanza of 3 lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme

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Tone

Back 21

The manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the innovation of the voice that e presses meaning

Front 22

Villanelle

Back 22

19 line poem divided into five tercets and final quatrain. Used only two rhymes