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The repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the beginnings of words. |
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| A reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known histoical or literary event, person, or work. |
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| A figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas, as in "Man proposes; God disposes." Antithesis is a balancing of one term against another for emphasis or stylistic effectiveness. |
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| A figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present. |
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| The reptition of identical or similar vowel sounds. |
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A four-line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four. O mother, mother make my bed. O make it soft and narrow. Since my love died for me today, I'll die for him tomorrow. |
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| Unrhymed iambic pentameter. |
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| A harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones. It may be an unconscious flaw in the poet's music, resulting in harshness of sound or difficulty of articulation, or it may be used consciously for effect. |
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| A pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause. |
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| An ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things. A conceit may be a brief metaphor, but it also may form the framework of an entire poem. |
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The repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. The term usually refers to words in whcih the ending consonants are the same but the vowels that precede them are different. "Add" and "read", "bill" and "ball" |
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| A two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same. |
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The techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially in poetry. The devices are used for many reasons, including to create a general effect of pleasant or of disordant sounds, to imitate another sound, or to reflect a meaning. - Rhyme
- Alliteration
- Assonance
- Consonance
- Onomatopoeia
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| The use of words in a literary work. Diction may be described as formal (serious), informal (relaxed but polite and cultivated), colloquial (everday usage), or slang (newly coined terms). |
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| A poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson. The distinction between didactic poetry and non-didactic poetry is difficult to make and usually involves a subjective judgement of another's purpose on the part of the critic of the reader. |
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| A poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends. |
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| A sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet's meditations upon death or another solemn theme. |
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| A line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semi-colon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines. |
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| The continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next. |
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| An implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem. |
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| A style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. Its opposite is cacophony. |
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Rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation. "Watch" and "match", "love" and "move" |
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A rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed. Sometimes called double rhyme. "Waken" and "forsaken", "audition" and "rendition" |
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Writing that uses figures of speech (as opposed to literal language or that which is actual or specifically denoted). Figurative language uses words to mean something other than their literal meaning. |
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| Poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. |
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| Two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit. |
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| A deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious or comic effect. |
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| The images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the figurative language of a work. Imagery has several definitions, but the two that are paramount are the visual, auditory, or tactile images evoked by the words of a literary work or the images that figurative language evokes. |
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| The contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning. Verbal irony is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in works which carry the opposite meaning. Irony is likely to be confused with sarcasm, but it differs from sarcasm in that it is usually lighter, less harsh in its wording though in effect probably more cutting because of its indirectness. |
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Rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary... |
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| Any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings. Sonnets and odes are lyric poems. |
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Rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme-words. "Keep" and "sleep", "glow" and "no", "spell" and "impel" |
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| A figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term like "as," "like," or "than." |
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| The repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poen. Each unit of a meter is known as a foot. |
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A figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely assosiated with the word in mind for the word itself. Ex: We commonly speak of the king as the "crown". |
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| The mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous. |
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