Vocab 1
Ballad
A poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas.
Blank Verse
Verse without rhyme.
Rhetorical Question
A question asked for dramatic effect or to make a point rather than to get an answer.
Allusions
An expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.
Epic
A long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.
Allegory
Idiom
An expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its separate words but that has a separate meaning of its own.
Caesura
A break between words within a metrical foot.
Elegy
A poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead.
Cacophony
Harsh or jarring sound.
Paradox
A seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.
Couplet
Two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit.
Denotation
The literal or primary meaning of a word, in contrast to the feelings or ideas that the word suggests.
Meter
The pattern of beats in a line of poetry.
Connotation
An idea or feeling that a word invokes in addition to its literal or primary meaning.
Inversion
The syntactic reversal of the normal order of the words and phrases in a sentence.
Rhyme Scheme
The pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem or song.