Williams Poetry Flashcards

Front 1

denotation

Back 1

the dictionary meaning of a word

Front 2

connotation

Back 2

the implied or suggested meaning connected with a word

Front 3

literal meaning

Back 3

limited to the simplest, ordinary, most obvious meaning

Front 4

figurative meaning

Back 4

associative or connotative meaning; representational

Front 5

meter

Back 5

measured pattern of rhythmic accents in a line of verse

Front 6

rhyme

Back 6

correspondence of terminal sounds of words or of lines of verse

Front 7

apostrophe

Back 7

a direct address of an inanimate object, abstract qualities, or a person not living or present.

Example: "Beware, O Asparagus, you've stalked my last meal."

Front 8

hyperbole

Back 8

exaggeration for emphasis (the opposite of understatement)

Example: "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse."

Front 9

metaphor

Back 9

comparison between essentially unlike things without using words OR application of a name or description to something to which it is not literally applicable

Front 10

metonymy

Back 10

a closely related term substituted for an object or idea
Example: "We have always remained loyal to the crown."

Front 11

oxymoron

Back 11

a combination of two words that appear to contradict each other

Example: bittersweet

Front 12

paradox

Back 12

a situation or phrase that appears to be contradictory but which contains a truth worth considering

Example: "In order to preserve peace, we must prepare for war."

Front 13

personification

Back 13

the endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities

Example: "Time let me play / and be golden in the mercy of his means"

Front 14

pun

Back 14

play on words OR a humorous use of a single word or sound with two or more implied meanings; quibble

Example: "They're called lessons . . . because they lessen from day to day."

Front 15

simile

Back 15

comparison between two essentially unlike things using words such as "like," as," or "as though"

Example: "My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun"

Front 16

synecdoche

Back 16

a part substituted for a whole.

Front 17

irony

Back 17

a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony) or what is expected in a particular circumstance or behavior (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance of a situation known to the audience or other characters (situational)

Front 18

imagery

Back 18

word or sequence of words representing a sensory experience (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile, and gustatory)

Example: "bells knelling classes to a close" (auditory)

Front 19

synesthesia

Back 19

an attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of another

Example: the sound of her voice was sweet

Front 20

symbol

Back 20

an object or action that stands for something beyond itself

Example: white = innocence, purity, hope

Front 21

alliteration

Back 21

the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words

Front 22

assonance

Back 22

the repetition of similar vowel sounds

Example: "I rose and told him of my woe"

Front 23

elision

Back 23

the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry

"Th' expense of spirit in a waste of shame"

Front 24

onomatopoeia

Back 24

the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe

Example: "crack" or "whir"

Front 25

allusion

Back 25

a reference to the person, event, or work outside the poem or literary piece

Example: "Shining, it was Adam and maiden"

Front 26

open

Back 26

poetic form free from regularity and consistency in elements such as rhyme, line length, and metrical form

Front 27

closed

Back 27

poetic form subject to a fixed structure and pattern

Front 28

stanza

Back 28

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

Front 29

blank verse

Back 29

unrhymed iambic pentameter

Front 30

free verse

Back 30

lines with no prescribed pattern or structure

Front 31

couplet

Back 31

a pair of lines, usually rhymed

Front 32

heroic couplet

Back 32

a pair of rhymed lines in iambic pentameter (tradition of the heroic epic form)

Front 33

quatrain

Back 33

four-line stanza or grouping of four lines of verse

Front 34

sonnet

Back 34

fourteen line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed rhyme scheme; its subject is traditionally that of love

Front 35

English (Shakespearean) Sonnet

Back 35

A sonnet probably made popular by Shakespeare with the following rhyme scheme: abab cdcd efef gg

Front 36

Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet

Back 36

A form of sonnet made popular by Petrarch with the following rhyme scheme: abbaabba cdecde OR cdcdcd