 Literary Terms Week 2

Alliteration  Definition: a pattern of sound that includes the repetition of consonant sounds.  The repetition can be located at the beginning of successive words or inside the words.  Poets often use alliteration to audibly represent the action that is taking place.

Caesura  Definition: A pause in a line of Poetry, usually occurring near the middle.  It typically corresponds to a break in the natural rhythm or sense of the line but is sometimes shifted to create special meanings or rhythmic effects.

Free verse  Definition: Poetry that lacks regular metrical and rhyme patterns but that tries to capture the Cadences of everyday speech.  The form allows a poet to exploit a variety of rhythmical effects within a single poem.  Free-verse techniques have been widely used in the twentieth century by such writers as Ezra Pound, T. S. Eliot, Carl Sandburg, and William Carlos Williams.

Narrator  Definition: one who tells a story, the speaker or the “voice” of an oral or written work. Although it can be, the narrator is not usually the same person as the author.  The narrator is one of three types of characters in a given work:  (1) participant (protagonist or participant in any action that may take place in the story)  (2) observer (someone who is indirectly involved in the action of a story)  (3) non participant (one who is not at all involved in any action of the story).

Rhythm  Definition: A regular pattern of sound, time intervals, or events occurring in writing, most often and most discernibly in Poetry.  Regular, reliable rhythm is known to be soothing to humans, while interrupted, unpredictable, or rapidly changing rhythm is disturbing.