POETRY TERMS

ALLITERATION

The repetition of the initial consonant sounds

ALLUSION

A reference to a well-known person, place, event, literary work, or work of art

The most common types of Allusions are Biblical Mythical Shakespearean

CONSONANCE

The repetition of sounds produced by consonants within a sentence or phrase

Example…. He struck a streak of bad luck.

ODYSSEUS

ROMEO AND JULIET

"From forth day's path and Titan's fiery wheels".

ASSONANCE

The repetition of vowel sounds

DICTION

A writer’s or speaker’s word choice

IMAGERY

The descriptive or figurative language used in literature to create word pictures for the reader. These pictures, or images, are created by details of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, or movement

METAPHOR

Describing something as though it were something else Does not use like or as

Example: All the world’s a stage.

METER

The rhythmical pattern of a poem determined by the number and types of stresses, or beats in each line

ONOMATOPOEIA

Words that imitate sound

PERSONIFICATION

A nonhuman subject is given human characteristics

REPETITION

a thing, word, action, sound etc, that is repeated

RHYME SCHEME

A regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem.

RHYTHM

The pattern of beats, or stresses, in spoken or written language

FREE VERSE

Poetry that lacks a regular rhythmical pattern, or meter

SIMILE

A figure of speech that makes a direct comparison between two subjects, using either like or as.

SYMBOL

Anything that stands for or represents something else

TONE

The writer’s attitude toward his or her subject, characters or audience

MOOD

The feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage

OXYMORON

Two seemingly opposite concepts or concrete objects are placed close together, yet still making sense

EXAMPLES

Jumbo-Shrimp

STANZA

Looks like “a paragraph”

HYPERBOLE

An extreme exaggeration

EXAMPLE

I am so hungry I could eat a horse!

THEME

The central message Is NOT one word like LOVE, HATE, etc. One should love all living creatures

because we are all in this together.