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AP LIT: POETIC TERMS
Poetic terminology to know for AP literature and Composition
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Meter | Basic rhythmic structure of a verse, made up of feet |
| Scansion | Analysis of a poem's metrical structure |
| Iambic Pentameter | Most common meter in English poetry - sequence of five iambic feet each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one: da-DUM |
| Trochaic Meter | The inverse of Iambic meter: Dum-da |
| Euphony | Words that sound good together (musical) |
| Cacophony | Sounds that grate, annoy, or create a sense of distaste |
| Onomatopoeia | Imitates the sound it refers to |
| Imagery | Language that appeals directly to one of the senses: touch, sight, hearing, smell, or taste |
| Synesthesia | When description of one kind of sensation produces another |
| Tone | Manner in which something is said: voice the poet projects |
| Rhythm | Pacing, from slow to fast, and pauses, stops, and starts |
| Rhyme | A repetition of similar sounds in words |
| End rhyme | Most common rhyme - occurs at end of a verse lines |
| Internal rhyme | The end word rhymes with a word in the middle of the same line or nearby line |
| Eye rhyme | words that look alike but do not sound alike: blood, food |
| Alliteration | Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words |
| Assonance | Repetition of vowel sounds that are close together |
| Consonance | Repetition of consonant sounds within a series of words |
| Dissonance | A disruption of harmonic sounds or rhythms |
| Verse | Rhymed or metrical poetry - a line or stanza of such poetry |
| Blank Verse | Unrhymed iambic pentameter (still rhythmic) |
| Free Verse | Avoids pre-established rhyme, stanza pattern, or meter |
| Metaphor | Implied comparison of two unlike things |
| Simile | Explicit comparison of two unlike things |
| Irony (verbal) | Saying one thing and meaning another |
| Paradox | An apparently impossible circumstance, situation, or condition (like oxymoron) |
| Personification / Pathetic Fallacy | Giving a nonbeing the characteristics of a person |
| Pun | Humorous use of words with multiple meanings or words that sound similar with different meanings |
| Metonymy | When one thing is used in place of something closely related to it - suits = business people |
| Synecdoche | Uses part for the whole - wheels = car, hands = sailors |
| Hyperbole | Overstatement or exaggeration for effect |
| Litotes | Understatement that downplays for effect (a double negative) - the party wasn't a total disaster |
| Symbol | A representation image, event, word or pattern that stands for something else |
| Allegory | Fixed symbol that definitely represents one thing - no room for interpretive license |
| Sonnet | A form poem containing 14 lines of iambic pentameter and end rhyme |
| Ode | Long irregular poem lyric in nature and exalted in tone - meant to praise and honor its subject |
| Couplet | Pair of rhymed lines |
| Tarcet/Triplet | Grouping of three rhymed lines |
| Quatrain | Grouping of four rhyming lines |
| Stanza | Grouping of verse lines in a poem set off by a space break |
| Apostrophe | Direct and explicit address either to an absent person or to an abstract or inanimate entity |
| Theme | Idea or claim a poem is expressing |
| Allusion | Reference to art, popular culture or literature |
| Denotation | What a word means on a dictionary level |
| Connotation | What a word means on a emotional level |
| Diction | Word choice |
| Dramatic Monologue | One side of a conservation - one voice the reader "hears" |
| Internal Dramatic Monologue | Stream-of-consciousness vversion of dramatic monologue |
| End-stopped Lines | Lines of poetry that have a pause at the end, usually indicated by punctuation |
| Ejjambement | Lines of poetry that force you to read into the beginning of the next line |
| Caesura | Pauses or breaks within a line of poetry. See how the flower || as at a parade, .... |
| Prose Poem | Poem that is not set up in a recognizable system of individual lines, but rather, in paragraph form |
| Concrete Poem | Poem whose shape is reflective of the poem's subject |
| Conceit | An extended metaphor |
| Asyndeton | The admission of conjunctions (and, but, etc) between parts of a sentence |
| Polysyndeton | The use of several conjunctions in close succession, especially when they can be omitted |
Created by:
Fraggy