Praxis Ii: English Content Knowledge

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allegory

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metaphorical comparison is extended to include an entire work or large portion of a work.

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anapestic

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a metrical form in which each foot consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one.

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assonance

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the repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words with different endings— for example, "The death of the poet was kept from his poems" in W. H. Auden’s "In Memory of W. B. Yeats."

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aubade

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a morning song in which the coming of dawn is either celebrated or denounced as a nuisance.

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auditor

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someone other than the reader—a character within the fiction—to whom the story or "speech" is addressed.

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blank verse

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the verse form most like everyday human speech; blank verse consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter.

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caesura

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a short pause within a line of poetry; often but not always signaled by punctuation. Note the two caesuras in this line from Poe’s "The Raven": "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary."

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colloquial diction

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a level of language in a work that approximates the speech of ordinary people. The language used by characters in Toni Cade Bambara’s "Gorilla, My Love" is a good example.

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concrete poetry

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poetry shaped to look like an object. Robert Herrick’s "Pillar of Fame," for example, is arranged to look like a pillar. Also called shaped verse.

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dactylic

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the metrical pattern in which each foot consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed ones.

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discursive structure

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a textual organization based on the form of a treatise, argument, or essay.

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dramatic irony

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a plot device in which a character holds a position or has an expectation that is reversed or fulfilled in a way that the character did not expect but that we, as readers or as audience members, have anticipated because our knowledge of events or individuals is more complete than the character’s.

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dramatis personae

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the list of characters that appears either in the play’s program or at the top of the first page of the written play.

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enjambment

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running over from one line of poetry to the next without stop, as in the following lines by Wordsworth: "My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky."

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free verse

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poetry characterized by varying line lengths, lack of traditional meter, and nonrhyming lines.

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heroic couplet

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rhymed pairs of lines in iambic pentameter.

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hexameter

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a line of poetry with six feet: "She comes, | she comes | again, | like ring | dove frayed | and fled" (Keats, The Eve of St. Agnes).

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iamb

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a metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.

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iambic pentameter

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a metrical form in which the basic foot is an iamb and most lines consist of five iambs; iambic pentameter is the most common poetic meter in English: "One com | mon note | on ei | ther lyre | did strike" (Dryden, "To the Memory of Mr. Oldham")

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in medias res

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"in the midst of things"; refers to opening a story in the middle of the action, necessitating filling in past details by exposition or flashback.

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octameter

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a line of poetry with eight feet: "Once u | pon a | midnight | dreary | while I | pondered, | weak and | weary" (Poe, "The Raven").

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oeuvre

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the sum total of works verifiably written by an author.

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paradox

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a statement that seems contradictory but may actually be true, such as "That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me" in Donne’s "Batter My Heart."

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pastoral

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a poem (also called an eclogue, a bucolic, or an idyll) that describes the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a timeless, painless (and sheep-less) life in a world full of beauty, music, and love.

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pastoral play

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a play that features the sort of idyllic world

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pentameter

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a line of poetry with five feet: "Nuns fret | not at | their con | vent’s nar | row room" (Wordsworth).

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Petrarchan sonnet

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also called Italian sonnet; a sonnet form that divides the poem into one section of eight lines (octave) and a second section of six lines (sestet), usually following the abbaabba cdecde rhyme scheme or, more loosely, an abbacddc pattern.

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proscenium arch

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an arch over the front of a stage; the proscenium serves as a "frame" for the action on stage.

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protest poem

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a poetic attack, usually quite direct, on allegedly unjust institutions or social injustices.

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psychological realism

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a modification of the concept of realism, or telling it like it is, which recognizes that what is real to the individual is that which he or she perceives. It is the ground for the use of the centered consciousness, or the first-person narrator, since both of these present reality only as something perceived by the focal character.

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red herring

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a false lead, something that misdirects expectations.

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rhetorical trope

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traditional figure of speech, used for specific persuasive effects.

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sestet

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the last six lines of the Italian, or Petrarchan, sonnet. See also octave.

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sestina

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an elaborate verse structure written in blank verse that consists of six stanzas of six lines each followed by a three-line stanza. The final words of each line in the first stanza appear in variable order in the next five stanzas, and are repeated in the middle and at the end of the three lines in the final stanza, as in Elizabeth Bishop’s "Sestina."

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Shakespearean sonnet

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a stanza that consists of eight lines of iambic pentameter (five feet) followed by a ninth line of iambic hexam

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shaped verse

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another name for concrete poetry; poetry that is shaped to look like an object.

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Spenserian stanza

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a stanza that consists of eight lines of iambic pentameter (five feet) followed by a ninth line of iambic hexameter (six feet). The rhyme scheme is ababbcbcc.

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technopaegnia

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the art of "shaped" poems in which the visual force is supposed to work spiritually or magically.

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terza rima

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a verse form consisting of three-line stanzas in which the second line of each stanza rhymes with the first and third of the next.

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tetrameter

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a line of poetry with also called an English sonnet; a sonnet form that divides the poem into three units of four lines each and a final unit of two lines (4+4+4+2 structure). Its classic rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg, but there are variations.four feet: "The Grass | divides | as with | a comb" (Dickinson).

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tetrameter couplet

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rhymed pairs of lines that contain (in classical iambic, trochaic, and anapestic verse) four measures of two feet or (in modern English verse) four metrical feet.

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trochaic

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a metrical form in which the basic foot is a trochee.

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trochee

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a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one ("Homer").

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villanelle

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a verse form consisting of nineteen lines divided into six stanzas—five tercets (three-line stanzas) and one quatrain (four¬line stanza). The first and third lines of the first tercet rhyme, and this rhyme is repeated through each of the next four tercets and in the last two lines of the concluding quatrain. The villanelle is also known for its repetition of select lines. A good example of a twentieth-century villanelle is Dylan Tho-mas’s "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night."