| A | B |
|---|
| alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sound |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sound, followed by different consonant sound |
| ambiguity | diction that develops many levels of interpretation or meaning to a poem through the use of words with multiple meaning |
| caesura | a pause or break within a line of poetry, usually dictated by the natural rhythm of language |
| conceit | a fanciful, elaborate figure of speech that makes a surprising connection between two seemingly dissimilar things |
| connotation | the ideas and notions and feelings associated with a word |
| couplet | two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme |
| denotation | the dictionary meaning of a word |
| diction | a writer’s word choice |
| dissonance | a harsh discordant combination of sounds (also called cacophony) |
| enjambment | a line of poetry that continues onto the next line |
| euphony | a harmonious, pleasant combination of sounds |
| hyperbole | exaggeration used to express strong emotion or create a comic effect |
| iambic pentameter | a line of poetry made up of five iambs ( U/) |
| inversion | the placing of a sentence element out of its normal position either to gain emphasis or to secure a so-called poetic effect. |
| metaphor | a comparison between two unlike things, stating one thing is the other |
| octave | first eight lines of a Petrarchan sonnet whereby a problem is presented |
| onomatopoeia | the use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning |
| paradox | an apparent contradiction that is actually true |
| personification | a kind of metaphor in which a nonhuman thing or quality is talked about as if it were human |
| Petrarchan Sonnet | a fourteen line sonnet, written in iambic pentameter, with the rhyme scheme ABBAABBACDECDE --its theme traditionally pertains to unrequited love |
| quatrain | a four line stanza unified by a rhyme scheme |
| end-stop line | a line of poetry that pauses or stops at the end |
| scansion | indicating the metrical pattern of a poem |
| sestet | the last six lines of a Petrarchan sonnet whereby a problem is resolved |
| Shakespearean Sonnet | a fourteen line sonnet , written in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFEFGG The couplet usually casts a new veneer of understanding to the poem |
| simile | a comparison between two unlike things, using a connective word such as like or as |
| spondee | two accented syllables next to one another |
| theme | the main idea of a work |
| tone | the writer’s attitude toward the subject |
| understatement | a figure of speech that consists of saying less than what is really meant, or saying something with less force than is appropriate |
| consonance | repetition of ending consonant sound |
| allusion | a reference to a statement, person, place, event, or thing that is known from literature, history, religion, myth, politics, sports, science, or pop culture |
| apostrophe | a figure of speech in which a speaker directly addresses an absent or dead person, an abstract quality, or something nonhuman as if it were present and capable of responding |
| convention | conspicuous features of subject, matter, form, or technique which recur in works of literature |
| irony | a contrast or discrepancy between expectation and reality--between what is said and what is really meant, between what is expected and what really happens, or between what seems to be true and is really true |
| oxymoron | a figure of speech that combines apparently contradictory or incongruous ideas in a compact two-word phrase |
