English Poetry Terms Flash Cards

Front 1

Alliteration

Back 1

the repetition of the same sounds, usually initial consonants, in neighboring words. "Around the rock the ragged rascal ran."

Front 2

Assonance

Back 2

the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighboring words.

Front 3

Ballad

Back 3

a form of narrative poetry that presents a single dramatic episode, which is often tragic or violent.

Front 4

Blank Verse

Back 4

poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter, which must not be confused with free verse

Front 5

Cacophony

Back 5

harsh, clashing, or dissonant sounds, often produced by combinations of words taht require a clipped, explosive delivery, or wrods that contain a number of plosive consonants.

Front 6

Cadence

Back 6

the rising and falling rhythm of speech, especially that of the balanced phrases in free verse or in prose. Also the fall or rise in pitch at the end of of a phrase or sentence.

Front 7

Caesura

Back 7

A pause in a line of verse, often coinciding with a break between clauses or sentences.

Front 8

Conceit

Back 8

An unusually far-fetched or elaborate metahpor presenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings.

Front 9

Consonance

Back 9

the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighboring words whose vowel sounds are different. (e.g. coming home, hot foot)

Front 10

Couplet

Back 10

two consercutive lines of poetry that rhyme and that are written to the same meter, or pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

Front 11

Dactyl

Back 11

metrical foot of three syllables, one accented followed by two unnaccented.

Front 12

Dirge

Back 12

A funeral song of lamentation; a short lyric of mourning.

Front 13

Dissonance

Back 13

Harshness of sound and/or rhyme, either inadvertent or deliberate.

Front 14

Dramatic monologue

Back 14

a kind of poem in which a single fictional or historical character other than the poet speaks to a silent audience of one or more persons. Such poems reveal not the poet's own thoughts, but the mind of the impersonated character.

Front 15

Elergy

Back 15

An elaborately formal lyric poem lamenting the death of a friend of public figure, or serious reflection on a serious subject.

Front 16

End-stopped line

Back 16

a line brought to a pause at which the end of a verse line coincides with the completion of a sentence, clause, or other independent unit of syntax. It is the opposite of enjabment.