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In PROSODY, the EMPHASIS given to a SYLLABLE in articulation.
accent
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A verse with six IAMBIC feet (iambic HEXAMETER).
Alexandrine
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Repetition of initial identical CONSONANT sounds or any vowel sounds in successive or closely associated syllables, especially stressed syllables. “The furrow followed free.”
Alliteratioin
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Consisting of three syllables, with two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one. (Unstressed, unstressed, stressed)
anapest
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A term used to distinguish the literary BALLAD of known authorship from the early BALLADS of unknown authorship. (Example: Rime of the Ancient Mariner and La Belle Dame sans Merci)
art ballad
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Generally, patterning of vowel sounds without regard to consonants. (Knee-deep in the salt marsh)
assonance
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A LYRIC about dawn or a morning SERENADE, a song of lovers parting at dawn.
aubade
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A form of VERSE to be sung or recited and characterized by its presentation of dramatic or exciting EPISODE in simple NARRATIVE form.
ballad
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Unrhymed but otherwise regular verse, usually iambic pentameter.
blank verse
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A stanza of four lines, the first and third being iambic tetrameter (eight syllables) and the second and fourth iambic trimeter (six syllables), rhymed abab or abcb.
common meter
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The relation between words in which the final consonants in the stressed syllables agree but the vowels that precede them differ. (mill-ball, torn-burn)
consonance
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Two consecutive lines of VERSE with END RHYMES.
couplet
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A FOOT consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented, as in manikin
dactyl
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A figure of speech used so long that it is taken in its denotative sense only, without the conscious comparison to a physical object it once conveyed.
dead metaphor
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A line composed of ten syllables.
decasyllabic
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Harsh and inharmonious sounds, a marked breaking of the music of poetry, which may be intentional, as it often is in Robert Browning and Hardy
dissonance
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A poem that reveals “a soul in action” through the speech of one character in a dramatic situation. The character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker’s life.
dramatic monologue
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A formal pastoral poem following the traditional technique derived from the idylls of Theocritus.
eclogue
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A sustained and formal poem setting forth meditations on death or another solemn theme.
elegy
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Lines in which both the grammatical structure and the sense reach completion at the end.
end-stopped lines
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A SONNET consisting of three quatrains followed by a coupled, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Also known as the Shakespearean Sonnet.
english sonnet
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The continuation of the sense and grammatical construction of a line on to the next verse or couplet.
enjambment
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A long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race
epic
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RHYME that appears correct from the spelling but is not so from the pronunciation, as “watch” and “match” for example.
eye rhyme
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The various uses of language that depart from customary construction, order, or significance
figures of speech
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The unit of rhythm in verse, whether quantitative or accentual-syllabic
foot
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A form of Japanese poetry that gives—usually in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables—a clear picture designed to arouse a distinct emotion and suggest a specific spiritual insight.
haiku
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A line consisting of seven feet
heptameter
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Iambic pentameter lines rhymed in pairs.
heroic couplet
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A line of six feet
hexameter
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A FOOT consisting of an unaccented syllable and an accented.
iamb
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collection of images in a literary work
imagery
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Rhyme that occurs at some place before the last syllables in a line.
internal rhyme
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The PETRARCHAN SONNET. An ABBAABBA octave and a CDECDE sestet.
italian sonnet
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A brief subjective poem strongly marked by imagination, melody, and emotion, and creating a single unified impression.
lyric
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An ANALOGY identifying one object with another and ascribing to the first object one or more of the qualities of the second.
metaphor
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The recurrence in poetry of a rhythmic pattern, or the Rhythm established by the regular occurrence of similar unites of sound.
meter
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A line of verse consisting of one foot.
monometer
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Poetry written for some particular occasion.
occasional verse
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A line of eight feet.
octameter
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An eight-line STANZA.
octave
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Words that by their sound suggest their meaning: “hiss”, "buzz", "whirr", "sizzle"
Onomatopoeia
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A self-contradictory combination of words or smaller verbal unit: “jumbo shrimp”
oxymoron
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A poem treating of shepherds and rustic life.
pastoral
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A poem employing conventional PASTORAL imagery written in dignified, serious language.
pastoral elegy
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A line of verse of five FEET
pentameter
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An indirect, abstract, roundabout method of stating ideas; the application of the old conviction that “the longest way ‘round is the shortest way home.”
periphrasis
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figure that endows animals, ideas, abstractions, and inanimate objects with human traits.
personification
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literary compositions typically characterized by imagination, emotion, significant meaning, sense impressions and concrete language
poem
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Anyone who writes poetry.
poet
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Language chosen for a supposedly inherent poetic quality.
poetic diction
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A term applied to the many forms in which human beings have given rhythmic expression to their most intense perceptions of the world.
poetry
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The principles of VERSIFICATION, particularly as they refer to RHYME, METER, RHYTHM, and STANZA.
prosody
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Another name for PERSONIFICATION; the personified abstraction is capable of speech and often does speak
prosopopoeia
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A stanza of four lines.
quatrain
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Identity of terminal sound between accented syllables, usually occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse.
rhyme
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A seven-lined IAMBIC PENTAMETER STANZA rhyming ABABBCC, sometimes with an ALEXANDRINE seventh line
rhyme royal
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The pattern in which RHYME sounds occur in a stanza.
rhyme scheme
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The passage of regular or approximately equivalent time intervals between definite events or the recurrence of specific sounds or kinds of sound.
rhythm
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The carrying over of grammatical structure from one line to the next. The opposite of END-STOPPED LINES.
run-on lines
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A system for describing conventional rhythms by dividing lines into FEET, indicating the locations of binomial ACCENTS, and counting the syllables.
scansion
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The second, six-line division of an ITALIAN SONNET.
sestet
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A figure in which a similarity between two objects is directly expressed.
simile
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NEAR RHYME; usually the substitution of ASSONANCE or CONSONANCE for true rhyme.
slant rhyme
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Fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, intricate rhyme scheme.
sonnet
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A SONNET of the ENGLISH type in that it has three quatrains and a couplet but features quatrains by the use of linking rhymes: ABAB BCBC EDED EE.
Spenserian sonnet
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A stanza of nine iambic lines, the first eight in pentameter and the ninth in hexameter. Rhyme scheme is ABABBCBCC
Spenserian Stanza
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A FOOT composed of two stressed syllables
spondee
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A recurrent grouping of two or more verse lines in terms of length, metrical form, and, often, rhyme scheme.
stanza
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The concurrent response of two or more of the senses to the stimulation of one.
Synaesthesia
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A TROPE in which a part signifies the whole or the whole signifies the part; like "threads" and "wheels" for "clothes" and "cars"
synecdoche
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The substitution of the name of an object closely associated with a word for the word itself. “The monarch as ‘the crown.’”
metonym
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A type of Japanese poetry similar to the HAIKU. It consists of thirty-one syllables, arranged in five lines, each of seven syllables, except the first and third, which are each of five.
tanka
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The two elements of a METAPHOR. The TENOR is the subject that the VEHICLE illustrates; the VEHICLE is the FIGURE that carries the weight of the comparison.
tenor and vehicle
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A STANZA of three lines, a triplet, in which each line ends with the same rhyme.
tercet
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A three-line STANZA, supposedly devised by Dante with a rhyme scheme of ABA BCB CDC DED, etc.
terza rima
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A line consisting of four feet.
tetrameter
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The attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work.
tone
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A line of three feet.
trimeter
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A FOOT consisting of an accented and an unaccented syllable.
trochee
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In RHETORIC, a TROPE is a FIGURE OF SPEECH involving a “turn” or change of sense—the use of the word in a sense other than the literal.
trope
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(1) The immediate subject, as opposed to the ultimate or ulterior intentional subject, of a METAPHOR. (2) A work, especially one that serves to display the talents of a performer.
vehicle
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Used in two senses: (1) as a unit of poetry; (2) A name given generally to metrical composition.
verse
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A nonstanzaic, continuous verse form, in which the lines are grouped in unequal blocks according to content.
verse paragraph
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A syllable at the end of a line, with METRICAL ACCENT somewhat in excess of normal or rhetorical ACCENT.
weak ending
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A term used in several ways, all involving a sort of “yoking”: (1) as a synonym of SYLLEPSIS: when an object-taking word has two or more objects on different levels. (2) When two different words that sound exactly alike are yoked together. (3) A grammatical irregularity that arises when a conjunction yokes together forms that cannot all be reconciled with other material in the sentence.
zeugma
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