Linguistics
An association that comes along with a particular word. It’s not the dictionary definition of the word but the extra meaning the word carries because of its usage in different contexts.
What is the connotation?
In a poem, it is the voice or the narrator of the poem.
Who is "the speaker?"
A figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid using like or as.
What is a simile?
A stanza comprising four lines.
What is a quatrain
The repetition of the same initial consonant sounds in any sequence of neighboring words.
What is (general) alliteration ?
A common piece of figurative language understood to mean something different from its literal meaning.
Pulling your leg — making fun of someone
Keeping an eye out — looking for something
What is an idiom?
A humorous perception of inconsistency, in which an apparently straightforward statement or event is undermined by its context, giving it a different, or opposite, significance.
What is irony?
Language that evokes the senses (not just sight).
What is imagery?
A three-lined stanza
what is a tercet?
This refers to the repeated consonant sound in the start, middle and, end of the sentence.
A topic or subject that a set of vocabulary applies to.
What is a lexical feild?
A figure of speech that juxtaposes elements that appear to be contradictory, often in a two-word formulation
What is an oxymoron?
The exact opposite of an anaphora — instead of at the beginning of a line, you repeat a word or a phrase at the end of a few lines. It is also known as “epiphora” and occasionally as “antistrophe”.
What is Epistrophe ?
Any two lines working as a unit, whether they comprise a single stanza or are part of a larger stanza. Most rhyme, but they do not have to.
What is a couplet?
The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighboring words.
What is assonance?
The arrangement of words in a sentence. These may be grammatically correct or deliberately incorrect or fractured if a poet feels it is appropriate
What is syntax?
When the elements and the natural world reflect human events.
What is pathetic fallacy?
A figure of speech in which two or more clauses are related to each other through a reversal of structures in order to make a larger point; that is, the clauses display inverted parallelism.
What is a chiasmus?
A stanza of five lines.
What is a quintrain?
The frequent use of sounds with a hissing effect, used mainly in poetic works. Often used to associate the topic with the Devil, in further reference to the story of “Eve and the Serpent” (Genesis 3, 1-5).
What is sibilance?
The English sibilants are /s, z, ʃ, ʒ, tʃ, dʒ/.
A word with the same spelling and pronunciation as other words, but with a different meaning.
What is a homonym?
A rule which applies the term for the part to the whole.
What is synecdoche ?
Latin for a ‘cutting’, and quite literally a ‘cutting’ in a line of verse: this refers to a longer-than-average pause in a line, often indicated by punctuation.
What is a Caesura?
A foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable, as in the word “beyond."
What is an iamb?
A poetic device that utilizes short, sharp syllables to create an energetic bouncing phonetic effect. Symbolism for power and anger.
What are plosives?
Plosives are also known as stop consonants, p, t, k, b, d, g, or a form of oral occlusives.