Figurative language
definitions
definitions
Giving human qualities to a non-human object
Personification
Stressed - unstressed
Trochee
“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,”
Author: William Blake
Trochee
“Because I could not stop for Death —
He kindly stopped for me —
The carriage held but just ourselves —
And Immortality.”
Author: Emily Dickinson
Personification
Poetry that does not rhyme and does not have a regular rhyming scheme.
Free verse
The use of words which sound like the objects or action they describe.
Onomatopoeia
Unstressed - stressed
Iamb
“To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
Author: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Iamb (Iambic pentameter)
“All the world’s a stage.” — Shakespeare
Metaphor
A poem that reflects upon death or loss.
Elegy
Using the part to represent the whole, or the whole to represent the part.
Synechdoche
Stressed - unstressed - unstressed
Dactyl
“Just for a handful of silver he left us,”
Author: Robert Browning
Dactyl
“Deafening silence”
Oxymoron
A three-line poetic form originating from Japan where the first line has 5 syllables, the second 7and the last 5 again.
Haiku
The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.
Anaphora
Unstressed - unstressed - stressed
Anapest
“’Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house…”
Author: Clement Clarke Moore
Anapest
“Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end.”
Author: William Shakespeare (Sonnet 60)
Simile
A 14-line poem often about love.
Sonnet
A softer, more inoffensive word or phrase used as a substitute for one considered too harsh or blunt.
Euphemism
Stressed - stressed
Spondee
“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,”
Author: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Dactyl
“All hands on deck.”
synechdoche
A lengthy narrative work of poetry that often describes extraordinary feats and adventures of characters from a distant past.
Epic