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Figurative Language
Form
Structure and Meter
Concepts
This is an example of...
100
A comparison between two different things that uses "like" or "as"
What is a simile?
100
A poetic form that doesn't follow traditional meter or rhyme schemes. It may mix long lines and short lines and irregular stanza length.
What is free verse (or vers libre)?
100
A grouping of lines within a poem, usually set off by a space. Such grouping may have a set pattern of rhyme and/or meter. Some people might think of it as the equivalent of paragraphs but in poetry.
What is a stanza?
100
A literary device that uses contradictory statements or situations to show a reality that is the opposite of what you could reasonably expect.
What is irony?
100
Bang! Zip! Pow! Arf arf!

...are examples of this type of figurative language.

What is onomatopoeia?
200
Attributing human characteristics or actions to something non-human
What is personification?
200
A classical form of poetry that consists of 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter.
What is a sonnet?
200
The unit used to measure meter in lines of poetry (usually made up of two or three syllables, stressed and unstressed).
What is a foot?
200
The voice or speaker of a poem, not necessarily the poet himself/herself
What is persona?
200
"Roses are red, Violets are blue"

...is an example of this type of overused expression.

What is a cliche?
300
An object (person, place, thing, etc.) that is both literal and a representation of something bigger than itself
What is a symbol or symbolism?
300
A form of poetry that is usually a song passed down from generation to generation
What is a ballad?
300
When a thought or statement runs over from one line into the next, rather than ending at the end of the line.
What is enjambment?
300
A humorous or satirical imitation of another work. It may imitate a serious work in order to show its limitations or absurdity.
What is a parody?
300
Snow and ice approach
Freezing our best intentions
Spring, please arrive soon

...is an example of this poetic form.

What is a haiku?
400
A statement that seems to contradict itself but that actually makes sense beneath the surface.
What is a paradox?
400
Two lines of poetry that usually rhyme and have the same meter
What is a couplet?
400
A poetic structure that contains nineteen lines of any length divided into six stanzas (five tercets and a concluding quatrain). It has a specific rhyme pattern that repeats in each stanza, and Line 1 repeats exactly as lines 6, 12, and 18, while Line 3 repeats exactly as lines 9, 15, and 19. (Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" is an example of this poetic structure.)
What is a villanelle?
400
A play on words that relies on a word having more than one meaning or sounding like another word
What is a pun?
400
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

These lines from Emily Dickinson demonstrate the use of this type of figurative language.

What is personification?
500
When a piece or part of something is used to refer to the whole (such as the White House is used to refer to the Presidency, the heart is used to refer to one's affections, etc.)
What is a synecdoche?
500
A type of lyric poem often used to honor someone who has died or to meditate on serious and melancholic thoughts.
What is an elegy?
500
A poetic form that consists of thirty-nine lines of any length divided into six, six-line stanzas and a three-line concluding stanza called an envoy. This particular type of poem relies on repetition; the six words at the ends of the first stanza’s lines are repeated at the ends of the lines in the other five stanzas as well.
What is a sestina?
500
A type of poem in which the speaker is talking to a specific (usually implied) audience in a scene that reveals something about the speaker's character or personality
What is a dramatic monologue?
500
We real cool. We
Left school. We

Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We
Die soon.

This poem by Gwendolyn Brooks is an example of this type of informal diction.

What is colloquialism or colloquial language? (Slang can be part of colloquialism, but not all colloquial language is slang.)