Poetry Terms 1
The occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.
Ex: “From forth the fatal loins of these two foes;
A pair of star-cross’d lovers take their life.”
What is Alliteration?
A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things without using connecting words, such as “like” or “as.”
Ex: Love is a battlefield.
What is Metaphor?
The measured arrangement of sounds/beats in a poem, including the poet’s placement of emphasis and the number of syllables per line.
What is Meter?
A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things using connecting words, such as “like” or “as.”
Ex: Love is like a battlefield.
What is Simile?
An adult human has this many teeth.
What is 32?
The author’s specific word choice.
What is Diction?
A unified group of lines in poetry. This is often marked by spacing between sections of the poem.
What is a Stanza?
The central meaning or dominant message the poet is trying to deliver to the reader.
What is Theme?
Attributing human characteristics to nonhuman things or abstractions.
What is Personification?
This is the largest internal organ in the human body.
What is the liver?
An object or action that means something more than its literal meaning.
What is a Symbol?
A single line of poetry.
What is Verse?
A brief reference to a real or fictional person, event, place, or work of art.
What is Allusion?
A word that sounds like what it means. Ex: buzz, click, bang, sizzle
What is Onomatopoeia?
Mount St. Helens last erupted during this year.
What is 1980?
The attitude the poem’s narrator (this may or may not be the actual poet) takes towards a subject or character: serious, humorous, sarcastic, ironic, concerned, tongue-in-cheek, solemn, objective, etc.
What is Tone?
A story/narrative in poetic form.
What is a Ballad?
The recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds in poetry. Depending on how sounds are arranged, the _____ of a poem may be fast or slow, choppy or smooth.
What is Rhythm?
Poetry that does not rhyme or have a measurable meter.
What is Free Verse?
This religion has the following deities: Krishna, Ganesh, Lakshmi, and Shiva.
What is Hinduism?
This occurs when one line ends without a pause or any punctuation and continues onto the next line.
Ex: If this were a poem,
this would be
an example of the technique.
What is Enjambment?
The repetition of vowel sounds in a chunk of text.
Ex: “Ivan will try to light the fire.”
What is Assonance?
A measured combination of heavy and light stresses (syllables) in poetry.
What is Foot/Feet?
The repetition of consonant sounds, but not vowels, in a chunk of text.
Ex: A worm named Maurice took the garden by storm.
What is Consonance?
Haiti gained independence from this country in 1804.
What is France?