Literary Terms

Front 1

A narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one

Back 1

allegory

Front 2

a reference, explicit or implicit, to something in literature or history

Back 2

allusion

Front 3

repetition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines

Back 3

anaphora

Front 4

a figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply

Back 4

apostrophe

Front 5

the repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words

Back 5

assonance

Front 6

unrhymed iambic pentameter

Back 6

blank verse

Front 7

a harsh, discordant, unpleasant-sounding choice and arragement of sounds

Back 7

cacophony

Front 8

a speech pause occurring within a line

Back 8

caesura

Front 9

what a word suggests beyond its basic definition; a word's overtones of meaning

Back 9

connotation

Front 10

the repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented sylables or important words

Back 10

consonance

Front 11

two successive lines, usually in the same meter, lined by rhyme

Back 11

cuplet

Front 12

Inversion of the normal syntactic order of words

Back 12

anastrophe

Front 13

the speaker poses a question and then answers the question.

Back 13

hypophora

Front 14

the basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word

Back 14

denotation

Front 15

a sonnet rhyming ababcdcdefefgg, its content or structure ideally parallels the rhyme scheme, falling into three corrdinate quatrains and a concluding couplet

Back 15

English/Shakespearean sonnet

Front 16

a smooth, pleaseant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds

Back 16

euphony

Front 17

a figure of speech sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem

Back 17

extended/sustained figure

Front 18

a rhyme in which the repeated accented vowel is in either the second or third last syllable of the words involved (for example, ceiling-appealing, hurrying-currying)

Back 18

feminine rhyme

Front 19

nonmetrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, and in which pauses, line breaks, and formal patterns develop organically from the reguirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms; unrhymed; no set metrical pattern

Back 19

free verse

Front 20

a figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in service of truth

Back 20

overstatement/hyperbole

Front 21

the representation through language of sense experience

Back 21

imagery

Front 22

a sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abbaabba and of a sestet using any arrangement of two or three additional rhymes, such as cdcdcd or cdecde

Back 22

italian/petrarchan sonnet

Front 23

a figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience

Back 23

metonymy

Front 24

a compact paradox in which two successive words seemingly contradict each other

Back 24

oxymoron

Front 25

a statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements

Back 25

paradox

Front 26

a restatement of the content of a poem designed to make its prose meaning as clear as possible

Back 26

paraphrase

Front 27

a figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept

Back 27

personification

Front 28

a four-line stanza; a four line division of a sonnet marked off by its rhyme scheme

Back 28

quatrain

Front 29

a repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines, normally at some fixed position in a poem written in stanzaic form

Back 29

refrain

Front 30

any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound

Back 30

rhythm

Front 31

the repetition of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds in important or importantly positioned words

Back 31

rhyme

Front 32

bitter or cutting speech; speeching inteded by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed

Back 32

sarcasm

Front 33

a kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the ostensible purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice

Back 33

satire

Front 34

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

Back 34

scansion

Front 35

a six-line stanza; the last six lines of a sonnet structured on that italian model

Back 35

sestet

Front 36

a figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike by using like, as, than similar to, resembles, or seems

Back 36

similie

Front 37

a group of lines whose metrical pattern is repeated throughout a poem

Back 37

stanza

Front 38

a figure of speech in which something means more than what it is.

Back 38

symbol

Front 39

a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole

Back 39

synecdoche

Front 40

presentation of one sense experience in terms usually associated with another sensation

Back 40

synesthesia

Front 41

an interlocking rhyme scheme with the pattern aba bcb cdc, etc

Back 41

terza rima

Front 42

the central idea of a literary work

Back 42

theme

Front 43

the writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself

Back 43

tone

Front 44

a figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrents

Back 44

understatement

Front 45

a nineteen-line fixed form consisting of five tercets rhymed aba and a concluding quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercet serving as refrains in an alternating patter through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19

Back 45

villanelle