TPCASTT Terms
Anticipate Meaning. Questions?
Theme
Re-consider the meaning of the title.
Title
word choice. Formal or informal? Slang or a dialect? If so, what is the purpose?
diction
the use of words in which the sounds seem to resemble the sounds they describe.
onomatopoeia
giving nonhuman objects or abstract ideas human characteristics or feelings.
personification
What is it about? One-three sentences
Paraphrase
What is the poem saying? What is message?
Theme
a deliberate, extravagant and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious or comic effect.
hyperbole
representing something by the name of another thing closely associated with it.
metonymy
a comparison of two different things or ideas through the use of the words like or as. It is a definitely stated comparison in which the poet says one thing is like another.
simile
Look beyond the literal at figurative and sound devices. How do they affect meaning and or feeling?
Figurative Language
the repetition of beginning consonant (and sometimes
vowel) sounds.
alliteration
the use of sensory words/descriptions to represent things, actions, or ideas.
imagery
a comparison between two things without the use of like or as. The poet states that one thing is another. It is usually a comparison between something concrete and something abstract.
metaphor
the attitude of the speaker. Remember that the voice need not be that of the poet. Is the tone is angry, sad, conversational, abrupt, wheedling, cynical, affected, satiric, etc.
Analyze narrator’s and /or poet’s attitude (Tone)
Attitude
an indirect reference to a mythological. literary or
historical person, place or thing.
allusion
he contrast between the apparent meaning and the suggestion of a different meaning. It occurs in three varieties:
irony
is when a character says or does something that has more or different meanings from what he thinks it means, though the audience and/or other characters do understand the full ramifications of the speech or action.
dramatic irony
the opposite of hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is.
understatement
Note shifts in tone, subject, speaker, situation, or
diction.
shift
the repetition of vowel sounds in a series of words.
assonance
is the result of a statement saying one thing while meaning the opposite. It's purpose is usually to criticize. You look wonderful today! when you look awful.
verbal irony
is when a situation turns out differently from what one would normally expect, though often the twist is oddly appropriate.
situational irony
the feeling the reader gets
mood