English Poetry Project

Front 1

word or sequence of words representing a sensory experience (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory) Ex. “bells knelling classes to a close.” (auditory)

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Imagery

Front 2

comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as, “like,” “as,” or “as though ”Ex. “My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun”

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Simile

Front 3

comparison between essentially unlike things without using words OR application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable. Ex. “[Love] is an ever fixed mark, / that looks on tempests and is never shaken.”

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Metaphor

Front 4

the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities Ex. “Time let me play / and be golden in the mercy of his means”

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Personification

Front 5

A character in conflict with aspects of the natural environment.

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Man Versus Nature

Front 6

character who oppose the main character

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Antagonist

Front 7

an object or action that stands for something beyond itself
Ex. White = innocence, purity, hope

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Symbol

Front 8

•A statement says the opposite of what it means. Eg a character says: What a great day for a picnic” during a thunderstorm. The character speaking is aware of the irony.

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Verbal Irony

Front 9

a situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering Ex. “In order to preserve peace, we must prepare for war.”

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Paradox

Front 10

a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal) or what is expected in a particular circumstance or behavior (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a situation know to the audience or other characters (dramatic). Ex. “Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”

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Irony

Front 11

a reference to the person, event, or work outside the poem or literary piece. EX. “Shining, it was Adam and maiden.”

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Allusion

Front 12

the writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward his subject, his audience, or himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work.

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Tone

Front 13

a figure of speech which makes an unusual and sometimes elaborately sustained comparison between two dissimilar things.

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Conceit

Front 14

exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement) Ex. “I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”

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Hyperbole

Front 15

understatement

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Litotes

Front 16

an analogy is comparable to simile in that it shows how two different things are similar, but it’s a bit more complex. Rather than a figure of speech, an analogy is more of a logical argument. The presenter of an analogy will often demonstrate how two things are alike by pointing out shared characteristics, with the goal of showing that if two things are similar in some ways, they are similar in other ways as well.

Back 16

Analogy

Front 17

the climate or feeling of a literary work. The choice of setting, objects, details, images, and words all contribute towards creating a specific mood

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Mood

Front 18

The central idea of a literary work

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Theme

Front 19

a figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other.

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Antithesis

Front 20

a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other Ex. Bittersweet

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Oxymoron

Front 21

The implied or suggested meaning connected with a word

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Connotation

Front 22

the dictionary meaning of a word

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Denotation

Front 23

word choice

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Diction

Front 24

four-line stanza or grouping of four lines of verse

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Quatrain

Front 25

a pair of lines, usually rhymed

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Couplet

Front 26

lines with no prescribed pattern or structure

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Free verse

Front 27

the repetition of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds in important or importantly positioned words Ex. Old-cold, vane-reign, court-report, order-

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Rhyme

Front 28

a wavelike occurrence of sound

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Rhythm

Front 29

the basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of verse. A foot usually contains one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables, but the monosyllabic foot, the spondaic food (spondee), and the dipodic foot are all modifications of this principle.

Back 29

Foot

Front 30

regularized rhythm; an arrangement of language in which the accents occur at apparently equal interval s in time.

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Meter

Front 31

(The same as accent) A syllable given more prominence in pronunciation than its neighbors is said to be accented.

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Stress

Front 32

unit of a poem often repeated in the same form throughout a poem; a unit of poetic lines (“verse paragraph”)

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Stanza

Front 33

eight lined stanza; the first eight lines of a sonnet, especially one in the structure of an Italian sonnet.

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Octave

Front 34

the process of measuring verse, that is, marking accented and unaccented syllables,
dividing the lines into feet, identifying the metrical pattern, and noting significant variations in that pattern.

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Scansion

Front 35

a six line stanza; the six lines of a sonnet structured like an Italian format

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Sestet

Front 36

when the idea of the line runs on from one verse to another, the lines are said to be enjambed. When the verse length matches the length of ideas within the words (clauses, sentences, whatever), the lines are said to be end-stopped.

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Enjambment/end-stopped

Front 37

the external pattern or shape of a poem, describable without reference to its content, as continuous form, stanzaic form, fixed form, free verse, and syllabic verse.

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Form

Front 38

a metrical foot containing two syllables—the first is unstressed, while the second is stressed

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Iamb:

Front 39

a metrical foot containing two syllables—the first is stressed, while the second is unstressed

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Trochee

Front 40

a traditional form of rising meter consisting of lines containing five iambic feet (and, thus, ten syllables)

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Iambic pentameter

Front 41

the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe Ex. “buzz” or “whir”

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Onomatopoeia

Front 42

the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words
Ex. “…like a wonderer white”

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Alliteration

Front 43

the repetition of similar vowel sounds Ex. “I rose and told him of my woe.”

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Assonance

Front 44

the repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or
important words. Ex. Book- plaque – thicker

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Consonance

Front 45

a harsh, discordant, unpleasant sounding choice and arrangement of sounds.

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Cacophony

Front 46

a mingling of discordant sounds ; especially : a clashing or unresolved musical interval or chord

Back 46

Dissonance

Front 47

a smooth pleasant sounding choice and arrangement of sounds

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Euphony