Poetic Devices
Enjambment
What is the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or stanza?
Metaphor
What is an object is used to symbolize of something else—usually something abstract?
"I’m so sorry, but he didn’t make it." The phrase "didn’t make it" is a more polite and less blunt way of saying that someone has died.
What is a Euphemism?
A foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stress.
What is an Iamb?
A sequence of events in your narrative, which includes background information, conflict, the climax of the story and a resolution.
What is the plot?
Alliteration
What is the use of the same consonant at the beginning of each word?
Simile
What is a device that compares one thing with another and generally uses the words "like" or "as" to do so?
Amelia Earhart: before she embarks on her (what we know to be unfortunate) plane ride, a friend says to her, "Be safe. Wouldn’t want you getting lost—or worse."
What is foreshadowing?
Basic unit of a poem; measured in feet if metrical.
What is a line (sometimes referred to as verse)?
The narrator's position in relation to a story being told.
What is the point of view (first-person, second-person, omniscient, etc.)?
Allegory
What is a short moral story?
onomatopoeia
What is the use of words that imitate the sound they denote?
"I’m so hungry I could eat a horse."
What is Hyperbole?
A stanza of 4 lines.
What is a quatrain?
The kernel of truth, or the bit of learning that characters convey to the reader. The main takeaway of your story.
What is the theme?
Personification
What is assigning human traits to something nonhuman?
oxymoron
What is conjoined contradictory terms?
In one of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories, a man named Montresor plans to get revenge on another man named Fortunato. As they toast, Montresor says, "And I, Fortunato—I drink to your long life."
What is irony?
A line consisting of 5 metrical feet. For instance, iambic pentameter equals 10 syllables (5 unstressed, 5 stressed).
What is Pentameter?
The highest or most intense point in the development or resolution of your story: its culmination.
What is the climax?
Hyperbole
What is extravagant exaggeration?
Epigraph
What is a famous quotation, poem, song, or short passage (from another writer) at the beginning of a larger text to introduce overarching themes?
"I just can't wait to dance the flamingo!" Here, a character has accidentally called the flamenco (a type of dance) the flamingo (an animal).
What is malapropism?
a foot consisting of 2 unstressed syllables followed by a stress.
What is anapest?
The French word that describes the end, or the resolution of a story.
What is denoument?