POETRY
METER cont. TYPES OF FEET (cont.) Iambic - unstressed, stressed Trochaic - stressed, unstressed Anapestic - unstressed, unstressed, stressed Dactylic - stressed, unstressed, unstressed
ALLITERATION Consonant sounds repeated at the beginnings of words If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?
CONSONANCE Similar to alliteration EXCEPT... The repeated consonant sounds can be anywhere in the words silken, sad, uncertain, rustling..
ASSONANCE Repeated VOWEL sounds in a line or lines of poetry. (Often creates near rhyme.) Lake Fate Base Fade (All share the long a sound.)
ASSONANCE cont. Examples of ASSONANCE: Slow the low gradual moan came in the snowing. - John Masefield Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep. - William Shakespeare
REFRAIN A sound, word, phrase or line repeated regularly in a poem. Quoth the raven, Nevermore.
PUN A humorous play on words based on the similarity of sound between two words with different meanings. Example: My weapon is out; quarrel, I will back thee.
OXYMORON Figure of speech containing two conflicting terms. Example: Bittersweet, sweet sorrow, small crowd
THEME A central message or insight into life revealed through the literary work. It is a generalization about people or about life that is communicated through the literary work. Readers think about what the work seems to say about the nature of people or about life.
INVERSION Reversal of normal word order of a sentence. Example: Saw you him today? (Instead of: Did you see him today?)
ONOMATOPOEIA The use of words that imitate sounds we hear. Examples of onomatopoeic words are buzz, hiss, zing, clippety-clop, cock-a-doodle-do, pop, splat, thump, and tick-tock. Another example of onomatopoeia is found in this line from Tennyson's Come Down, O Maid: "The moan of doves in immemorial elms,/and murmuring of innumerable bees." The repeated "m/n" sounds reinforce the idea of "murmuring" by imitating the hum of insects on a warm summer day.
IRONY The general term for literary techniques that portray differences between appearance and reality, expectation and result, or meaning and intention. VERBAL IRONY SITUATIONAL IRONY DRAMATIC IRONY
PARADOX Is a statement that is an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true. It may be either a situation or a statement.
ALLEGORY A story or poem in which characters, settings, and events stand for other people or events or for abstract ideas or qualities. EXAMPLE: Animal Farm; Dante s Inferno; Lord of the Flies
SYMBOL Anything that stands for or represents something else. An object that serves as a symbol has its own meaning, but also represents abstract ideas.
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. http://www.thailandtradenet.com/photos/catalog/bedroom/chinese-bed.jpg http://www.sciencenewsforkids.org/articles/20050601/a798_129.smell.jpg
SIMILE A figure of speech in which like or as is used to make a comparison between two basically unlike ideas. Example: Claire is a flighty as a sparrow.
METAPHOR A figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else. Example: Time is a monster that cannot be reasoned with
PERSONIFICATION Inanimate objects have human characteristics. Example: The dish ran away with the spoon.
APOSTROPHE Closely related to personification is apostrophe, which consists in addressing someone absent or dead or something nonhuman as if that person or thing were present and alive and could reply to what is being said. For example: Western Wind Western wind, when wilt thou blow, The small rain down can rain? Christ! If my love were in my arms, And I in my bed again! Anonymous (c. 1500) Who is the author addressing?