Literary Terms: Holt Ch. 5-6

Front 1

similes

Back 1

a comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles

Front 2

metaphor

Back 2

an imaginative comparison between two unlike things in which one thing is said to be another thing

Front 3

personification

Back 3

A figure of speech in which an object or animal is spoken of as if it had human feelings, thoughts, or attitudes

Front 4

symbols

Back 4

a person, a place, a thing, or an event that has meaning in itself and stands for something beyond itself as well.

Front 5

irony

Back 5

a contrast between expectation and reality

Front 6

verbal irony

Back 6

a contrast between what is said and what is really meant

Front 7

situational irony

Back 7

when what happens is very different from what we expect would happen

Front 8

dramatic irony

Back 8

when the audience or reader knows something a character does not know

Front 9

imagery

Back 9

language that appeals to the senses, especially the visual

Front 10

dialect

Back 10

a way of speaking that is characteristic of a certain geographical area or a certain group of people

Front 11

allusion

Back 11

a reference to a statement, a person, a place, or an event from history, literature, politics, etc.

Front 12

rhythm

Back 12

a musical quality produced by the repetition of stressed and unstressed syllables or by the repetition of certain other sound patterns

Front 13

meter

Back 13

a pattern of stressed and un stressed syllables in poetry

Front 14

rhyme

Back 14

the repetition of accented vowel sounds and all sounds following them in words that are close together in a poem

Front 15

end rhyme

Back 15

rhymes at the end of lines of a poem

Front 16

internal rhyme

Back 16

rhymes within the lines of a poem

Front 17

exact rhyme

Back 17

words that rhymer perfectly

Front 18

approximate rhyme

Back 18

rhymes that involve sounds that are similar but not exactly the same

Front 19

couplet

Back 19

two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme

Front 20

lyric

Back 20

a poem that expresses the feeling or thoughts of the speaker rather than telling a story

Front 21

narrative poem

Back 21

a poem that tells a story

Front 22

ballad

Back 22

a song or songlike poem that tells a story

Front 23

epic

Back 23

a long narrative poem that is written in heightened language and tells stories of the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a society

Front 24

mock-heroic story

Back 24

one that imitates the epic style in a comic way in order to poke fun at its topic

Front 25

ode

Back 25

a lyric poem, rhymed or unrhymed, in honor of someone or something

Front 26

sonnet

Back 26

a fourteen-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter

Front 27

iambic pentameter

Back 27

a line of poetry that contains five beats consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

Front 28

elegy

Back 28

a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died

Front 29

free verse

Back 29

poetry without a regular meter or rhyme scheme

Front 30

alliteration

Back 30

the repetition of consonant sounds in words that are close together

Front 31

assonance

Back 31

the repetition of vowel sounds that are close together

Front 32

onomatopoeia

Back 32

the use of words whose sounds imitate or suggest their meaning

Front 33

imagery

Back 33

language that appeals to the senses, especially visual

Front 34

figures of speech

Back 34

a word of phrase that describes one thing in terms of another and is not meant to be understood as literally true