Writing About Literature Test 1

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A form of extended metaphor, in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. The underlying meaning has moral, social, religious, or political significance, and characters are often personifications of abstract ideas as charity, greed, or envy.

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Allegory

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A pattern of sound that includes the repetition of constant sounds. The repetition can be located at the beginning of successive words or inside the words.

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Alliteration

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Is a brief reference to a person, event, or place, real or fictitious, or to a work of art. Casual reference to a famous historical or literary figure or event. It may be drawn from history, geography, literature, or religion.

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Allusion

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A statement which can contain two or more meanings.

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Ambiguity

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Is the repetition of vowel sounds but not constant sounds as in consonance.

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Assonance

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Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Most popular in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England.

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Blank Verse

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Is harsh, discordant sounds.

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Cacophony

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A pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry. The pause may or may not be typographically indicated (usually with a comma).

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Caesura

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A type of poetry in which a single word is written repeatedly to create the shape of the object the word describes. Ex. An Apple

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Concrete Poetry or Picture Poem

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Is an implied meaning of a word.

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Connotation

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Is the repetition of constant sounds, but not vowels, as in assonance.

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Consonance

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A style of poetry defined as a complete thought written in two lines with rhyming ends.

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Couplet

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This type of couplet consists of two rhyming lines of iambic pentameter usually having a pause in the middle of each line.

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Heroic Couplet

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Is the literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning.

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Denotation

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A literary device that is used when a character reveals his or her innermost thoughts and feelings. Those that are hidden. It can further develop a character's personality and also be used to create irony.

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Dramatic Monologue

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A line that has a natural pause at the end (period, comma, etc.)

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End-stopped

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The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line.

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Enjambment

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A type of literature defined as a song or poem, written in elegiac couplets, that expresses sorrow of lamentation, usually for one who has died.

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Elegy

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This poem is usually a long and descriptive one which tells a story.

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Epic

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A short poem or verse that seeks to ridicule a thought or event, usually with witticism or sarcasm.

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Epigram

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Is soothing pleasant sounds.

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Euphony

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The basic unit of meter consisting of a group of two or three syllables.

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Foot

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The process of determining the prevailing foot in a line of poetry, or determining the types and sequence of different feet.

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Scanning or Scansion

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Verse that has neither regular rhyme nor regular meter. Often uses cadences rather than uniform metrical feet.

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Free Verse

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A very structured method of writing poetry. It origins are from Japan. It doesn't usually rhyme. There are three lines of five, seven and five syllables each. This poem must essentially talk about some aspect of nature.

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Haiku

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Two lines rhyming iambic pentameter. It is the most favored verse form of the eighteenth century.

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Heroic Couplet

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Is exaggeration of overstatement.

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Hyperbole

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Is rhyming within a line.

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Internal Rhyme

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Is an implied discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.

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Irony

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A type of irony when an author says one thing and means something else.

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Verbal Irony

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A type of irony when an audience perceives something that a character in the literature does not know.

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Dramatic Irony

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A type of irony that is a discrepancy between the expected result and actual results, also cosmic irony- fate etc.

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Irony of Situation

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This is a very witty and often vulgar kind of poem, which is quite short. This poem has five lines in the stanza. The first, second and fifth line have the same metrical structure and they rhyme with each other. They contain seven to ten syllables each. The second and fourth lines have the same metrical structure and rhyme with each other. These contain five to seven syllables.

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Limerick

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Comparison of two unlike things using the verb "to be" and not using like or as in a simile.

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Metaphor

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The rhythmic pattern produced when words are arranged so that their stressed and unstressed syllables fall into a more or less regular sequences, resulting in repeated patterns of accent (called feet).

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Meter

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A figure of speech which substitutes one term with another that is being associated with the term. A name transfer takes place to demonstrate an association of a whole to a part or how two things are associated in some way. This allows a reader to recognize similarities or common features among terms.

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Metonymy

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A poem that tells a story. It can come in many forms and styles, both complex and simple, short or long, as long as it tells a story.

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Narrative Poem

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One who tells a story, the speaker or the "voice" of an oral or written work.

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Narrator

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A poem in praise of something divine or expressing some noble idea.

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Ode

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Is a word that imitates the sound it represents, also imitative harmony.

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Onomatopoeia

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Is putting two contradictory words together. Ex. hot ice, cold fire, wise fool, sad joy, eloquent silence.

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Oxymoron

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Reveals a kind of truth which at first seems contradictory. Two opposing ideas.

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Paradox

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A satiric imitation of a work of an author with the idea of ridiculing the author, his ideas, or work. It exploits the peculiarities of an author's expression-- his propensity to use too many parentheses, certain favorite words, or whatever. It may also be focused on, say, an improbable plot with too many convenient events.

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Parody

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In literature, this person is the narrator, or storyteller, of a literary work created by an author.

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Persona

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Is giving human qualities to animals or objects.

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Personification

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A figure of speech which consists of a deliberate confusion of similar words or phrases for rhetorical effect, whether humorous or serious.

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Pun

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A four- line stanza which may be rhymed or unrhymed.

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Quatrain

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A four line stanza rhymed abab.

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Heroic Quatrain

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The similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines.

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Rhyme

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A pair of lines rhyming consecutively.

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Couplet

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Words whose spellings would lead one to think that they rhymed.

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Eye Rhyme

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Two syllable rhyme consisting of stressed syllable followed by unstressed.

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Feminine Rhyme

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Similarity between terminally stressed syllables.

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Masculine Rhyme

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The pattern of rhyme used in a poem, It may follow a fixed pattern (as in a sonnet) or may be arranged freely according to the poet's requirements.

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Rhyme Scheme

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A literary tone used to ridicule or make fun of human vice or weakness, often with the intent of correcting, or changing, the subject of the satiric attack.

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Satire

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A close, critical reading of a poem, examining the work for meter.

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Scansion

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Is the comparison of two unlike things using like or as. Related to metaphor.

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Simile

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Perhaps one of the most difficult poetic forms, the sestina, or sextain, is highly structured. It consists of six six- line stanzas followed by one three- line stanza (called a tercet and referred to as the poem's "envoy") The last word of each line is repeated in each stanza in a different, but prescribed, order.

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Sestina

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Is also known as a near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme, oblique, or pararhyme. A distinctive system or pattern of metrical structure and verse composition in which two words have only their final consonant sounds in common. Instead of perfect or identical sounds or rhyme, it is the repetition of near or similar sounds or the pairing of accented and unaccented sounds that if both were accented would be perfect rhymes.

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Slant Rhyme

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A fourteen line poem, usually in iambic pentameter, with a varied rhyme scheme. Two main types Italian and Shakespearean or Elizabethan.

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Sonnet

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The first eight lines of a sonnet.

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Octave

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The last six lines of a sonnet.

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Sestet

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A type of of sonnet that contains three quatrains and a couplet, with more rhymes (because of the greater difficulty finding rhymes in English), The couplet is sometimes undercuts the thought created in the rest of the poem.

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Shakespearean Sonnet

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Is a unified group of lines in poetry.

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Stanza

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Something that on the surface is its literal self, but which also has another meaning or even several meanings. There are two general types: universal (conventional) that embody universally recognizable meanings wherever used, such as light to show knowledge, a skull to stand for death, etc., and constructed (literary) that are given certain meaning by the way an author uses them in a literary work.

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Symbol

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A figure of speech wherein a part of something represents the whole thing.

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Synecdoche

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The writer's attitude toward his readers and his subject; his mood or moral view. A writer can be formal, informal, playful, ironic, and especially, optimistic or pessimistic.

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Tone

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A statement which lessens or minimizes the importance of what is meant.

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Understatement

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Is a line of Poetry.

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Verse

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Generally, the structural form of a verse, as revealed by scansion. Identification of verse structure includes the name of the metrical type and the name designating number of feet.

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Versification

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1 Foot

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Monometer

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2 Feet

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Dimeter

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3 Feet

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Trimeter

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4 Feet

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Tetrameter

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5 Feet

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Pentameter

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6 Feet

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Hexameter

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7 Feet

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Heptameter

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8 Feet

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Octameter

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9 Feet

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Nonameter

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A nineteen- line poem divided into five tercets (three lines each) and a closing quatrain (four lines). The poem consists of two main rhymes (AB) which repeat throughout. The main rhyme is produced by the first and third lines of the first stanza, which then alternate as the third line of each subsequent stanza, and form a rhyming couplet to end the quatrain and thus the poem.

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Villanelle