Vocabulary, Terms, and How to Incorporate Them in Reading

Poetry and Other Forms of Literature

E.M.R.

Mrs. M.

Freshman Honors English B

March 21, 2011

Period 1

Poetic Devices

AllusionA reference to a person, event, or place in history or literature“That roamed through the young world, the glory extreme / Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam” -“The Nile”

By James Henry

Leigh Hunt

ApostropheA figure of speech where the speaker directly addresses something nonhuman“America free Tom Mooney / America save the Spanish Loyalists / America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die / America I am the Scottsboro boys.” -“America”

By Allen Ginsberg

ConnotationThe implied meaning of a word

“I give you an onion. / It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. / It promises light / like the careful undressing of love.” -“Valentine”

By Carol Ann Duffy

DenotationThe literal meaning of a word“And always serve bread with your wine.” -“Advice to My Son”

By J. Peter Meinke

MetaphorA comparison of two unlike things without the use of “like” or “as”“The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas” -“The Highwayman”

By Alfred Noyes

OxymoronThe putting of two contradictory words together“Some fond regrets to entertain” -“Anecdote for Fathers”

By William Wordsworth

ParadoxTwo contradictory ideas that, when put together, make sense“Shun advice / at any price - / that’s what I call / good advice.” -“Good Advice”

By Piet Hein

ParallelismImportant phrases, words, or ideas are repeated within a poem in the same manner; parallel structure“A baby is a European / He does not eat our food: / He drinks from his own water pot. / A baby is a European / He does not speak our tongue: / He is cross when the mother understands him not. / A baby  is a European” -“A Baby is a European”

An Ewe Traditional Poem

PersonificationThe giving of human qualities to animals or objects“A boat beneath a sunny sky, / Lingering onward dreamily” -“A Boat beneath a

Sunny Sky”

By Lewis Carroll

SimileComparing two unlike things using “like” or “as”“My thoughts are like the boots randomly arrayed / In the rack outside the window ” -“Pedestrian Ambitions”

By Ivan Donn Carswell

Poetic Sound and Structure Terms

AlliterationThe repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words“Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard” -“The Highwayman”

By Alfred Noyes

“Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard” -“The Highwayman”

By Alfred Noyes

AssonanceThe repetition of the vowel sounds in words, but not the consonant sounds“He crouched on the sleigh, and he raved all day of his home in Tennessee” -“The Cremation of Sam McGee”

By Robert W. Service

ConsonanceThe repetition of consonant sounds in words, but not vowel sounds“The hosts of witness stand!” -“Sleep is Supposed to Be”

By Emily

Dickinson

End StoppedA line that has a natural pause at the end using periods, commas, etc.“To keep your marriage brimming / With love in the loving cup, / Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; / Whenever you’re right, shut up. ” -“A Word to Husbands”

By Ogden Nash

EnjambmentThe running over of a sentence or thought into the next line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line“A firefly, I think, a tiny flash of light / Within the gloom. I wonder, will it / Stay, or will it vanish, as have others?” -“Firefly”

By Lawrence Beck

Free VerseUnrhymed poetry without a specific pattern

“My thoughts are like the boots randomly arrayed / in the rack outside the window, some in pairs neatly / stacked, comfortably worn with a relaxed air of /confidence, some scattered in patterns of bizarre / relationships, one in Benson’s den under guard from / thought predators he fears plagiarized and stole / its partner’s soul. While I find it endearing / it involves a change in enterprise, his goal / in the past has mainly been slippers. ” -“Pedestrian Ambitions”

By Ivan Donn Carswell

OnomatopeiaA word that imitates the sound it represents“Silver bells! / What a world of merriment their melody foretells! / How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle” -“The Bells”

By Edgar Allan Poe

RefrainA line or set of lines at the end of a stanza or section of a longer poem that repeat at regular intervals“Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore.’” -“The Raven”

By Edgar Allan Poe

RhymeA pattern of repeated sounds“Whosever room this is should be ashamed! / His underwear is hanging on the lamp. / His raincoat is there in the overstuffed chair, / And the chair is becoming quite mucky and damp. / His workbook is wedged in the window, / His sweater's been thrown on the floor. / His scarf and one ski are beneath the TV, / And his pants have been carelessly hung on the door. ” -“Messy Room”

By Shel SilversteinThis poem’s rhyming pattern is

A B C B

StanzaA unified group of lines in poetry; the paragraph in a poem

-“Be Glad Your Nose is

on Your Face”

By Jack Prelutsky

TP-CASTTPOETRY ANALYSIS

Last evening the moon rose above this rockImpure upon a world unpurged.The man and his companion stoppedTo rest before the heroic height.

In many majesties of sound:They that had left the flame-freaked sunTo seek a sun of fuller fire.Coldly the wind fell upon them

Instead there was this tufted rockMassively rising high and bareBeyond all trees, the ridges thrownLike giant arms among the clouds.

There was neither voice nor rested image,No chorister, nor priest. There wasOnly the great height of the rockAnd the two of them standing still to rest.

There was the cold wind and the soundIt made, away from the muck of the landThat they had left, heroic soundJoyous and jubilant and sure.

How to Live. What to Do. By Wallace Stevens