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| An elaborate, usually intellectually ingenious poetic comparison or image, such as an analogy or metaphor in which, say a beloved is compared to a ship, planet, etc. The comparison may be brief or extended. |
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A situation or statement that seems to be impossible or contradictory
but is nevertheless true, either literally or figuratively. |
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A figure of speech consisting of two seemingly contradictory terms.
Some examples are “bright darkness,” “wise fool,” and “hateful love.” |
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| A humorous play on two or more meanings for the same word or on two different words with the same sound. |
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| The mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one. |
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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 |
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| The repetition of consonant sounds before and after different vowels, as in the following lines from “My Mother Pieces Quilts” by Teresa Paloma Acosta: as weapons/against pounding January winds |
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| The repetition of same or similar vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant sounds. |
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| the most common form of meter, employing a five-foot line of iambs (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable). |
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| calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place or thing, or a personified abstract idea. |
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| In poetry, a type of rhetorical balance in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first, but with the parts reversed. Coleridge: “Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike.” |
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| a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. A Eulogy is great praise or commendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who has died. |
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| an adjective or adjective phrase applied to a person or thing that is frequently used to emphasize a characteristic quality. “Father of our country” and “the great Emancipator” are examples. A Homeric epithet is a compound adjective used with a person or thing: “swift-footed Achilles”; “rosy-fingered dawn.” |
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| is a form of understatement in which the positive form is emphasized through the negation of a negative form |
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| a long speech made by a character in a play while no other characters are on stage. |
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| Artfully using a single verb to refer to two different objects in an ungrammatical but striking way, or artfully using an adjective to refer to two separate nouns, even though the adjective would logically only be appropriate for one of the two. |
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| This indicates that two words of the same kind are being used connected by “and” (the literal meaning being “One by means of two”), rather than a word+descriptive term. |
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| The basic unit of measurement in a line of poetry. In scansion, a foot represents one instance of a metrical pattern and is shown either between or to the right or left of vertical lines |
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| A metrical pattern of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable |
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| A regular pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in a line or lines of poetry |
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| A repetition of sentences using the same structure |
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| A close, critical reading of a poem, examining the work for meter |
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| A figure of speech wherein a part of something represents the whole thing. In this figure, the head of a cow might substitute for the whole cow. Therefore, a herd of fifty cows might be referred to as "fifty head of cattle." |
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| One sensory experience described in terms of another sensory experience. Emily Dickinson, in "I Heard a Fly Buzz-When I Died," uses a color to describe a sound, the buzz of a fly:with blue, uncertain stumbling buzz |
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| An introductory section or part, as of a poem; a prelude |
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| the initial word of a sentence or verse line reappears at the end |
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| a witty, ingenious, and pointed saying that is tersely expressed. |
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| he grammatical subject of the sentence is represented as performing the action expressed by the verb (e.g., the cow jumped over the moon. The stock market slumped. He arose shortly after sunrise.) |
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| The inversion of the normal word for effect. A change in the usual order in which words appear in order to achieve an effect. The normal sequence of words in English is subject followed by verb, and then object |
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| noun, noun phrase, or noun clause that follows a noun or pronoun and identifies or explains it, or supplements its meaning. Commas sometimes set off the appositive (e.g., a biography of the genius, Benjamin Franklin) (Sales of his book, Profiles in Courage, sold widely following his tragic death.) (We teachers like to be right) |
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| A colloquial expression. Colloquial language. A familiar expression found in ordinary speech and acceptable in everyday conversation, although not suitable for formal writing or speaking (e.g., a burger, coke, and double fries) |
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| An em dash is used mainly to denote a sudden change in tone, or to set off a clause or phrase, instead of using parentheses |
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| A word that is pronounced the same as another word, but that has a different meaning. The two words may be spelled differently. Hare and hair are examples of homonyms, as are bear and bare, and mat and matte |
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| Subordinating Conjunction |
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| A conjunction that joins an independent clause and a subordinate (dependent) clause Examples of subordinating conjunctions include although, because, since, until, and while |
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| a moralizing discourse or sermon explaining some part of the Bible with accompanying instruction for the congregation |
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an appositive is a noun (sometimes modified by an adjective) that follows another noun (in commas) and which describes that noun.
For Example: Ralph, my father, built that dollhouse. |
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deliberate omission of conjunctions between series of related clauses.
· I came, I saw, I conquered. |
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| pause separating phrases within lines of poetry--an important part of poetic rhythm. The term caesura comes from the Latin "a cutting" or "a slicing." Some editors will indicate a caesura by inserting a slash (/) in the middle of a poetic line. Others insert extra space in this location. |
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| (1): the mechanics of verse poetry--its sounds, rhythms, scansion and meter, stanzaic form, alliteration, assonance, euphony, onomatopoeia, and rhyme. (2) The study or analysis of the previously listed material. This is also called versification. |
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