the repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the eginning of words. "Gnus never know pneumonia" is an example of alliteration since, despite the spellings, all four words begin with the "n" sound.

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a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work

Ex: SH5 allusion to Lot's wife

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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.

Ex: Hamlet, talking to his father

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the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. "A land laid waste with all its young men slain" repeats the same "a" sound in "laid," "waste," and "slain."

Ex:I made my way to the lake

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unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the meter of most of Shakespeare's plays, as well as that of Milton's Paradise Lost

Ex: All of Shakespeare

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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 difficult of articulation, or it may be used consciously for effect. Hard consonant sounds are usually heard as cacophonous.

Ex:

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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

Ex: Beowulf

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the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. The term usually refers to words in which the ending consonants are the same but the vowels that precede them are different.

Ex: Consonance is found in the following pairs of word: "add" and "read," "bill and ball," and "born" and "burn."

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a two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same

Ex: I do not like them in a boat.

I do not like them with a goat.

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the use of words in a literary work. Diction may be described as formal (the level of usage common in serious books and formal discourse), informal (the level of usage found in the relaxed but polite conversation of cultivated people), colloquial (the everyday usage of a group, possibly including terms and constructions accepted in that group but not universally acceptable), or slang (a group of newly coined words which are not acceptable for formal usage as yet).

Ex: Catwoman vs. Cat Lady

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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. The dramatic monologue is an example.

Ex: Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

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a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet's meditations upon death or another solemn theme

Ex: O Captain! My Captain!

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a line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines.

Ex: Dr. Seuss "I do not like green eggs and ham,

I do not like them Sam I am"

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the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next

Ex:"I feel rather sleepy, but

I don't know why"

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an implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried through a stanza or an entire poem

Ex:"It's a metaphor, see. Putting the killing thing right between your teeth..."

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a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. Its opposite is cacophony. Vowel sounds are usually taken as euphonious.

Ex:"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness"

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writing that uses figures of speech (as opposed to literal language or that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, simile, and symbolism

Ex: Raining cats and dog, etc.

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poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical

Ex: Any poem written by a high schooler

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two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thuoght usually completed in the two-line unit

Ex:"O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

My great example, as it is my theme!Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull;Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full."

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a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious or comic effect.

Ex: "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!"

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this probably the most difficult term to define precisely. Genreally, it is taken to describe the sensory details, particularly when they combine to create a complete "image" usually visual, but also auditory, tactile or olfactory.

Ex: describing someone

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the constrant between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning. Verbal irony is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opppsite meaning. Irony is likely to be confused with sarcasm, but it differs from sarcasm in that it usually lighter, less harsh in its wording though in effect probably more cutting because of its indirectness. The ability to recognize irony is one of the surer tests of intelligence and sophistication. Among the devices by which irony is achieved are hyperbole and understatement.

Ex:"You broke your arm! Are you going to the hospital?" "No, Margaret, I'm going to the mall."

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rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end

Ex: "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. Love lyrics are common, but lyric poems have also been written on subjects as different as religion and reading.

Ex:"My Day" the poem

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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." Ex: "the black bat night."

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the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes musical quality of the language and often related directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each unit of meter is known as a foot.

Ex: There is no way to describe this.

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a figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself

Ex: "crown" instead of "king" or "White House" for "president"

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the mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous.

Ex: "I smell a rat. I see it floating in the air. I shall nip it in the bud."

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a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short.

Ex: epics and ballads

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an eight-line stanza. Most commonly, octave refers to the first division of an Italian sonnet.

Ex: Italian sonnet

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the use of words whose sound suggests their meaning.

Ex: "buzz," "hiss," and "honk."

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a form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms into a single expression. The combination usually serves the purpose of shocking the reader into awareness.

Ex: "found missing," "jumbo shrimp," "sad joy," "wise fool," and "eloquent silence."

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a situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense.

Ex:"What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young." --George Bernard Shaw or "Your enemy's friend is your enemy."

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a restatement of an ideas in such a way as to retain the meaning while changing the diction and form. A paraphrase is often an amplification of the original for the purpose of clarity.

Ex: Not summarizing, but including the general gist of the story

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a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics.

Ex: "The trees swayed"

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a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it.

Ex:

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a four-line stanza with any combination of rhymes

Ex: "Shall I compare thee to a summer day..."

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a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza

Ex: "Quoth the raven, 'Nevermore.'"

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a close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse. For a true rhyme, the vowels in the accented syllables must be preceded by different consonants, such as "fan" and "ran."

Ex: "clown" "down"

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the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. The presence of rhythmic patterns lends both pleasure and heightened emotional response to the listener or reader.

Ex: "I see a big fly, sitting on a pie..."

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writing that seeks to arouse a reader's disapproval of an object by ridicule. Satire is usually comedy that exposes errors with an eye to correct vice and folly. Satire is often found the poetry of Alexander Pope.

Ex: A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift

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a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the type(s) of feet per line.

Ex: monometer- one foot per line; dimeter- two feet per line

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a six-line stanza. Most commonly, setset refers to the second division of an Italian sonnet.

Ex: 

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a directly expressed comparison; a figure of speech comparing two objects; usually with "like," "as," or "than." It is easier to recognize a simile than a metaphor because the comparison is explicit: my love is like a fever; my love is deeper than a well.

Ex: "she's as cute as a button"

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normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem. The conventional Italian, or Petrarch sonnet is rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde. The English, or Shakespearean, sonnet is rhyme abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

Ex:anything from Shakespeare

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the arrangement of materials within a work; the relationship of the parts of a work to the whole; the logical divisions of a work. The most common units of structure in a poem are the line and stanza.

Ex: stanzas and lines and all that jazz

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the mode of expression in language; the characteristic manner of expression of an author. Main elements contribute to style include diction, syntax, figurative language, imagery, selection of detail, sound effects, and tone, using the ones that are appropriate.

Ex: Vonnegut's writing style vs. Wilde's writing style

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something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else. For example, winter, darkness, and cold are real things, but in literature they are also likely to be used as symbols of death.

Ex: symbol of the wedding dress in Virgin Suicides

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a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole.

Ex: "foot soldier" instead of "infantry" or "field hands" instead of "manual laborers to work in agriculture"

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the ordering of words into patterns or sentences. If a poet shifts words from the usual word order, you know you are dealing with an older style of poetry or a poet who wants to shift emphasis onto a particular word.

Ex: Wilde's sentence structure

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a stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme

Ex: "One fish, two fish, red fish"

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a main thought expressed by a work. In poetry, it is the abstract concept which is made concrete through its representation in person, action, and image in the work.

Ex: Sarah Desson books' theme: love, family, growing up

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the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning. Tone is described by adjectives, and the possibilities are nearly endless. Often a single adjective will be enough, and tone may change from stanza to stanza or even line to line.

Ex: angry, sarcastic, ironic

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the opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is.

Ex: "You broke your arm! Doesn't it hurt?" "You know, just a little, Margaret."

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a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain. The villanelle uses only two rhymes which are repeated as follows: aba, aba, aba, aba, aba, abaa. Line 1 is repeated entirely to form lines 6, 12, and 18, and line 3 is repeated entirely to form lines 9, 15, and 19; thus, eight of the nineteen lines are refrain.

Ex: Dylan Thomas's poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

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