Literary Terms Review

Work in which special intensity is given to the expression of feelings and ideas using distinctive style and rhythm

Repeating a word or phrase

Repetition of initial stressed, consonant sounds in a series of words within a phrase or verse line

Repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called vowel rhyme

A figure of speech in which a related term is substituted for the word itself (smaller piece represents the whole)

Comparison that is made directly/less directly without using "like," "as," or "than"

Grouping of lines separated from others in a poem

Describes/mimics the sound of the object/action it refers to when it is spoken

Comparison made using “as,” “like,” or “than"

A brief, intentional reference to classical Greco/Roman period or mythology in an outside work

Using one thing (a physical object or phenomenon) to represent something more abstract

A brief, intentional reference to the Bible

Address to a dead/absent person, or personification as if he/she were present

Line/verse that breaks without end punctuation

Non-metrical, non-rhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech

A brief, intentional reference to another piece of literature in an outside work

A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break, or ending with punctuation (colon, semi-colon, etc.)

Describes an abstraction, a thing, or a non-human form as if it were a person

Provides a phrase with grammatically similar structure or style

Short poem depicting peaceful/idealized country scenes

A seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that actually presents a truth

Figure of speech composed of a striking exaggeration

Vivid or figurative language that invokes any of the five senses

Two successive rhyming lines in a verse, with the same meter, forming a complete thought

Using words that deviate from the conventional in order to convey a complicated meaning/colorful writing, etc.

Line repeated in a changed context or with minor changes in the repeated part (oral tradition)

Brings together TWO contradictory words

Analysis of a poem's metrical patterns by organizing its lines into feet of stressed/unstressed syllables

Repetition of syllables, typically at the end of a verse line

A poem that tells a story

Poem that expresses the poet's feelings and emotions

Expressive, nonliteral use of language

The unique voice within a poem, not to be confused with the author

Repetition of consonant sounds within sentences, phrases, or in poems

Mood created by a poem’s vocabulary, metrical regularity or irregularity, syntax, figurative language, and rhyme

 5-lined stanza or short poem

Something that reveals or is a sign for something else, often abstract or otherworldly

Reversal of syntactically correct order of subjects, verbs, and objects in a sentence

A four-line stanza, often with various rhyme schemes

An eight-line stanza or poem

A single line of poetry

 Rhythmical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse

Person or group of people for which a piece is intended

 Extended metaphor that often elaborates and controls a large section of a poem or the entire poem

Poetry that follows fixed rules, such as a specified number of lines; a regular pattern of rhythm/rhyme

Poetic unit of three lines, rhymed or unrhymed

A brief, intentional reference to history in an outside work

A four-part comparison between two things, typically to explain or clarify

Pattern of end rhymes in a stanza (ABBA BCCB, for example)

Technique of an individual author; depends on each author's syntax, word choice, and tone

A six-line stanza, or the final six lines of a 14-line Italian/Petrarchan sonnet