Literary Terms In Poetry

Alliteration Definition: The __________________of initial consonant sounds

Alliteration Examples: 1. The deep churned. Something had happened down in the dim, foggy-green depths. --Paul Annixter,"Battle in the Depths" 2. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. --Helen Keller, "The Seeing See Little"

Simile Definition: A figure of speech that uses like or as to make a _____________________ between two unlike ideas

Simile Examples: 1. Concrete mixers move like elephants As precise as a surgeon He fights like a lion

Metaphor Definition: A figure of speech in which something is _____________ as though it were something else- does not use like or as

Metaphor Examples: Even a child could carry my dog. He’s such a feather. We would have had more pizza to eat if Tammy hadn’t been such a pig.

Personification Definition: A type of figurative language in which a _________________ is given human characteristics

Personification Example: The wind stood up and gave a shout. He whistled on his fingers and Kicked the withered leaves about And thumped the branches with his hand And said he'd kill and kill and kill, And so he will and so he will. -James Stephens, "The Wind"

Onomatopoeia Definition: Use of words that ___________sounds

Onomatopoeia Example: It SHUSHES, It hushes, The loudness in the road. It flitter-twitters, And laughs away from me. It laughs a lovely whiteness, And whitely whirs away, To be, Some otherwhere, Still white as milk or shirts, So beautiful it hurts. -Cynthia in the Snow, Gwendolyn Brooks

Rhyme Definition: The ______________of sounds at the ends of words- sometimes used to emphasize words or ideas or give the poem a song-like quality

Rhyme Example: Three blind mice, three blind mice, See how they run, see how they run, They all ran after the farmer's wife, Who cut off their tails with a carving knife, Did you ever see such a thing in your life, As three blind mice?

End Rhyme Definition: Rhyming words at the _______of lines

End Rhyme Do you like green eggs and ham? Example: Do you like green eggs and ham? I do not like them, Sam-I-am. I do not like green eggs and ham. From“Green Eggs and Ham” by Dr. Seuss

Internal Rhyme Definition: Rhyming words __________the lines

Internal Rhyme Example: Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing, Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before From “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe

Rhyming Couplet Definition: Two _____________ lines of poetry that rhyme and have the same meter

Rhyming Couplet Example: Singing he was, or fluting all the day; He was as fresh as is the month of May. From “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer

Rhyme Scheme Definition: A ________ ___________of rhyming words in a poem

Rhyme Scheme Example: There once was a big brown cat a That liked to eat a lot of mice. b He got all round and fat a Because they tasted so nice. b

Multiple Meanings Definition: Words or phrases that have _____than one meaning

Multiple Meanings Examples: Bank- The side of a river or a place for money? Sole- Part of the foot, a fish, or only? Wind- A current of air or to turn round and round?

Imagery Definition: The use of vivid language to appeal to one or more of the _____senses

Imagery Examples: Taste: a tall frosted glass of lemonade, pink sweetness of the watermelon Sound: crackling underbrush Touch: tepid water, damp jeans Smell: sweaty clothes

Allusion Definition: A brief reference to a person, place, thing, idea, or _______in history or literature

Allusion Example: "Christy didn't like to spend money. She was no Scrooge, but she seldom purchased anything except the bare necessities". The allusion is to Ebeneezer Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Meter Definition: Rhythmical Pattern

Meter And the sound of a voice that is still Examples: And the sound of a voice that is still Tell me not in mournful numbers

Symbol Definition: Anything that stands for or represents ___________else

Symbol Example: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. From “The Road Not Taken” By Robert Frost The forked road is a symbol representing choices in life.

Shakespearean Sonnet Definition: A sonnet which has ________lines, iambic pentameter, and follows the ababcdcdefefgg pattern

Shakespearean Sonnet Example: SONNET 12 When I do count the clock that tells the time, And see the brave day sunk in hideous night; When I behold the violet past prime, And sable curls all silver'd o'er with white; When lofty trees I see barren of leaves Which erst from heat did canopy the herd, And summer's green all girded up in sheaves Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard, Then of thy beauty do I question make, That thou among the wastes of time must go, Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake And die as fast as they see others grow; And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

Iambic Pentameter Definition: an ____________line with five feet or accents, each foot containing an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable

Iambic Pentameter Example: From Sonnet 6 SONNET 6 Then let not winter's ragged hand deface In thee thy summer, ere thou be distill'd: Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place

ababcdcdefefgg Definition: Rhyme scheme Shakespearean sonnet’s follow

ababcdcdefefgg Example: Sonnet 18 Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? A Thou art more lovely and more temperate: B Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, A And summer's lease hath all too short a date: B Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, C And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; D And every fair from fair sometime declines, C By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd; D But thy eternal summer shall not fade E Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; F Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, E When in eternal lines to time thou growest: F So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, G So long lives this and this gives life to thee. G