Figures of Speech
a figure of speech using a word such as like or as to compare seemingly unlike things.
Simile
is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words.
Alliteration
is a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables which sets the overall rhythm of certain poems.
Meter
the strict dictionary meaning of a word.
Denotation
is verse that tells a story.
Narrative poetry
compares seemingly unlike things, but does not use like or as.
Metaphor
is the repetition of vowel sounds within a line of poetry.
Assonance
is the pattern of sound created by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line.
Rhythm
the emotional and imaginative association surrounding a word.
Connotation
is poetry in which one or more characters speak.
Dramatic poetry
attributes human like characteristics to an animal, object, or idea.
Personification
the use of a word or phrase, such as “hiss” or “buzz” that imitates or suggests the sound of what it describes.
Onomatopoeia
is a foot consisting of an initial unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable. For example, return, displace, to love, my heart.
the choice of words by an author or poet.
Diction
is poetry that expresses a speaker’s personal thoughts and feelings.
Lyric poetry
a figure of speech in which great exaggeration is used for emphasis or humorous effect.
Hyperbole
is the repetition of the same stressed vowel sound and any succeeding sounds in two or more words.
Rhyme
is a line of verse containing 5 metrical feet.
pentameter
the feeling or atmosphere that a poet creates.
Mood
is an unrhymed poem that contains exactly 17 syllables, arranged in 3 lines of 5, 7, 5 syllables each.
Haiku
descriptive language that applies to the senses – sight, sound, touch, taste, or smell. Some images appeal to more than one sense.
Imagery
is the pattern of end rhymes that may be designated by assigning a different letter of the alphabet to each new rhyme
Rhyme scheme
–1. It is the closest to our everyday speech
–2. It mimics the sound of heart beat.
–3. One of the most influential writers of our times uses it in all that he writes – William Shakespeare.
Iambic Pentameter
a reflection of the poet’s attitude toward the subject of a poem.
Tone
is poetry that has no fixed pattern of meter, rhyme, line length, or stanza arrangement.
Free Verse