Sound and Sense Terms

an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true

Aesop's tale of the traveler who could blow both hot and cold air

"damn with faint praise"

the contradiction usually stems from one of the words being used figuratively or with more than one denotaiton

hyperbole; exaggeration in the service of truth

saying less than one means

meanings that extend beyond its use merely as a figure of speech

saying the opposite of what one means

bitter or cutting speech

formal term, usually applied to written literature rather than to speech and ordinarily impling a higher motive: rudicule human folly or vice

the discrepancy between what the speaker says and what the poem means

a discrepancy exists between the actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate or between what one anticipates and what actually comes to pass

a reference to something in history or previous literature

the experience the poem communicates

the ingredient that can be separated out in the form of a prose paraphrase

the writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the reader, or herself or himself; the emotional coloring, or the emotional meaning, of the work

the repetition of initial consonant sounds

the repetition of vowel sounds

the repetition of final consonant sounds

the repetition of the accented vowel sound and any succeeding consonant sounds

when the rhyme sounds involve only one syllable

when the rhyme sounds involve two or more syllables

when one or more rhyming words are within the line

when the rhyming words are at the ends of lines

words with any kind of sound similarity

when repetition is done according to some fixed pattern