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POETRY TERMS 1
Synecdoche
A kind of metaphor in which a part
of something is used to signify the
whole, such as a crab begin
referred to as “a pair of claws” in
T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock, a gossip
being called a “wagging tongue,”
or ten ships called “ten sails.”
Sometimes synecdoche refers to
the whole being used to signify
the part as in “Philadelphia lost
the game,” or “Oxford is
competing in the competition.”
Metonymy
A kind of metaphor in which
something closely associated with
a subject is substituted for it, such
as saying “the White House” to
refer to the actions of the
president, or “the crown” to refer
to the king
Conceit
A fanciful expression, usually in
the form of an extended metaphor
or surprising analogy between
seemingly dissimilar objects; it is
a surprising juxtaposition of two
ideas or subjects to evoke a more
complex understanding.
A conceit displays intellectual
cleverness due to the unusual
comparison being made. The last
line in the poem “Evening Hawk”
uses conceit when it compares
history to a leaking pipe in the
cellar.
Assonance
The repetition of an internal vowel
sound: “asleep under a tree” or “each
evening.”
Consonance
A type of approximate rhyme that
consists of identical consonant
sounds preceded by different vowel
sounds: home, same; worth, breath
Doggerel
A derogatory term used to describe
poetry whose subject is trite and
whose rhythm and sounds are
monotonously heavy-handed.
Examples of doggerels are difficult to
find; since they are considered
doggerels, they are not preserved.
A girl who is bespectacled
She may not get her nectacled
But safety pins and bassinets
Await the girl who fassinets.
Alliteration
The repetition of initial consonant sounds
Apostrophe
Direct address in poetry, such as Yeat’s line
“Be with me Beauty, for the fire is dying”
Allusion
A reference contained in a work
Enjambment
A technique in poetry that involves
the running on of a line or stanza.
The idea continues from one line to
the next without pause. It enables
the poem to move and to develop
coherence as well as directing the
reader with regard to form and
meaning.
The moon’s man stands in his shell,
Bent under a bundle
Of sticks. The light falls chalk and cold
Upon our bedspread.
Personification
A figurative use of language which endows
the nonhuman with human characteristics
Oxymoron
A condensed form of paradox in which two
contradictory words are used together,
such as “sweet sorrow”
Anacrusis
One or more unstressed syllables at
the beginning of a line that do not
form part of the regular meter.
In the Star Spangled Banner the first word
“Oh” is anacrusis
Elision
The dropping of a syllable, or the
combining of two syllables into one,
such as Percy Bysshe Shelley’s line: Thy
light alone—like mist o’er mountains
driven
Catalexis
The omission of an unexpected
unstressed syllable from the end of a
line
Tyger Tyger burning bright
In the forests of the night
Blake wrote these lines in trochaic feet–
stressed + unstressed, but the final foot of
each line is incomplete, containing only a
stressed syllable, bright and night are
called catalectic feet.
Rising meter
Metrical feet that move from
unstressed to stressed soundssuch as the iambic (unstressed
followed by stressed) and
anapestic (two unstressed
followed by one stressed)
Falling meter
Refers to metrical feet that move
from stressed to unstressed
sounds, such as trochaic
(stressed followed by unstressed)
and dactylic (stressed followed by
two stressed)