Gre Literature In English Subject Test: Literary Terms & Verse Forms

Front 1

Buskin

Back 1

Symbol of tragedy

Front 2

Socks

Back 2

Symbol of comedy

Front 3

What's poetic inversion?

Back 3

Exactly what it sounds like: inverting the customary order of words in poetry. i.e. putting an adjective that would usually go before a noun after it or the sake of rhyme or rhythm

Front 4

What's the rhyme scheme of a ballad stanza?

Back 4

abcb

Front 5

What are heroic couplets?

Back 5

Heroic couplets have an aabbcc rhyme scheme in iambic pentameter. Note that the name does not refer to the content of a poem, just the aabbcc rhyme scheme.

Front 6

Which is written in heroic couplets?

A. "So passed thon, nor shunned the light
Of God or angel, for they thought no ill: So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair
That ever since in love's embraces met,
Adam the goodliest of good men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve."

B. Beowulf

C. "A little learning is a dangerous thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.
These shallow draughts intoey naked xicate the brain
And drinking largely sobers us again"

Back 6

C. It doesn't matter how heroic a poem is or what a poem's about. Heroic couplets have an aabbcc rhyme scheme in iambic pentameter. That's all the name means.

Front 7

What is a tercet? What is a pair of tercets? What is a sestet? What kind of sonnet would this be in?

Back 7

A tercet is exactly what is sounds like: a group of three lines. Both "a pair of tercets" and a "sestet" = a group of six lines. A rhyming pair of tercets goes: abc abc. If you see a sonnet that ends with a sestet, it will usually be an Italian (aka Petrarchan) sonnet.

Front 8

What is rhyme royal?

Back 8

A regularly rhymed 7-line stanza that goes: ababbcc.

Front 9

What is ottava rima?

Back 9

An 8-line stanza that goes: abababcc.

Front 10

In Memoriam

Back 10

Four lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming: abba. This is what Tennyson used in "In Memoriam A.H.H."

Front 11

Spenserian Verse

Back 11

9 line stanza Spencer created for "The Faerie Queene." The first 8 lines are iambic pentameter, the 9th, in iambicc hexameter, is an alexandrine. The rhyme scheme is interlocking and goes: ababbcbcc

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Blank verse

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Unrhymed verse in iambic pentameter.

Front 13

Free verse

Back 13

Unrhymed verse without a strict meter

Front 14

Old English verse

Back 14

Verse characterized by alliteration in each line and a mid-line pause called a caesura

Front 15

What's a sonnet?

Back 15

A 14 line poem in some kind of rhyming iambic pentameter

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Italian Sonnet

Back 16

14 line poem rhyming: abbaabba cdecde. The first 8 lines are called "the octave" and the last 6 lines are called "the sestet." Also known at the Petrachan Sonnet.

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Petrachan Sonnet

Back 17

14 line poem rhyming: abbaabba cdecde. The first 8 lines are called "the octave" and the last 6 lines are called "the sestet." Also known at an Italian Sonnet.

Front 18

English Sonnet

Back 18

Same as the Shakespearean Sonnet. 14 line poem that goes: abab cdcd efef gg.

Front 19

Shakespearean Sonnet

Back 19

Same as the English Sonnet.14 line poem that goes: abab cdcd efef gg.

Front 20

Spenserian Sonnet

Back 20

14 line poem that goes: abab bcbc cdcd ee.

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Villanelle

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19 line poem that goes: aba aba aba aba aba abaa. When you see the first and third lines rhyming repetitively, you have a villanelle

Front 22

Sestina

Back 22

39 line poem made up of six stanzas that have six lines each and then one last stanza made up three lines (called the "envoi"). One of six words is used as the end word of each of the poem's lines according to a fixed pattern. There is no rhyme scheme. If you see a poem made up of six-line stanzas, no rhyme scheme, and repeating words, you have a sestina.

Front 23

Pastoral Elegy

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A lament for the dead sung by a shepherd. The shepherd represents the poet, and the lament is usually sung for another poet who has died. Notable examples: Milton's Lycidas and Shelley's Adonais.

Front 24

Pathetic Fallacy

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Coined by John Ruskin. Refers to ascribing emotion or agency to inanimate objects. Ruskin's favorite example is "the cruel crawling foam." AKA personification

Front 25

Picaresque

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An episodic novel featuring a series of loosely connected adventures. Think: Huck Finn. Moll Flanders, by Defoe, is a rare example of a female picaresque.

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Skeltonics

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Humorous poetry that uses very short rhymed lines and a pronounced rhythm, made popular by John Skelton. The only difference between a skeltonic and a doggerel is the quality o thought expressed.

Front 27

Sprung Rhythm

Back 27

The rhythm created and used in the 19th century by Gerard Manley Hopkins. Like Old English Verse, sprung rhythm fits a varying number of unstressed syllables in a line--only the stresses count in scansion

Front 28

Synaesthesia

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Refers to phrases that suggest an interplay of the senses. "Hot pink" and "golden tones" for example.

Front 29

Synecdoche/Metonymy

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Using part of something (usually the most important part) to represent the whole. "All hands on deck," "If you're such a brain, why can't you figure it out?" "Let's get out of here before we get the chair."

Front 30

Masculine Rhyme

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A rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable, aka regular old rhyme

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Feminine Rhyme

Back 31

Lines rhymed by their final two syllables. A pair of lines ending "running" and "gunning" would be an example of feminine rhyme. The next to last syllable is stressed and the last syllable is unstressed.

Front 32

Flat vs. Round Characters

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E.M. Forester coined these words to describe characters built around a single dominant trait vs. those shaded and developed with greater psychological complexity

Front 33

Georgic

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A term derived from Virgil's "Georgics." A poem about the virtues of the farming life.

Front 34

Hamartia

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Aristotle's term for what is popularly known as "the tragic flaw." Hamartia implies fate, though.

Front 35

Homeric Epithet

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A repeated descriptive phrase, as found in Homer's epics. When he repeatedly calls the ocean "the wine-dark sea" and Odysseus "the ever-resourceful Odysseus." Think: Dickens and the way he always latches on to one characteristic to remind the reader who he's talking about, even when he doesn't give the person's name.

Front 36

Hudibrastic

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Name comes from Samual Butler's "Hudibras." Refers to any deliberate, humorous, ill-rhymed, ill-rythmed couplets. Butler had a genius for "bad" poetry.

Front 37

Litotes

Back 37

Understatement, using double negatives.

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Caesura

Back 38

The long pause in Old English poetry

Front 39

Bildungsroman

Back 39

Coming of age story, "a novel of education" literally in German.

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Alexandrine

Back 40

Iambic hexameter. The last line of a Spenserian stanza.

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Apostrophe

Back 41

A speech addressed to someone who's dead or isn't there, or to no one.

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Decorum

Back 42

One of the neo-classical principles of drama. The relation of style to content in the speech of dramatic characters. A character's speech should be appropriate to his or her social station.

Front 43

Epithalamium

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A work, especially a poem, written to celebrate a wedding. Spenser's Epithalamium is a notable example.

Front 44

Euphuism

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Comes from Lyly's "Euphues" (1580). Describes writing that is self-consciously laden with elaborate figures of speech. This was a popular and influential mode of speech and writing in the late 16th century.