Alliteration
     Examples:
          "The soft sighing of the sea"
          "He went his way, did his deed, and sang his song"
          "Reading, writing, and arithmetic"
Too much alliteration (more than two or three occurrences of the same sound, or one alliteration after another after another) can come off as kind of corny, comprende?

Repetition of consonant sounds, especially in accented syllables

Allusion
Example:

An indirect figure of speech that makes a brief reference to a historical, mythological, or biblical situation or character.

Analogy An agreement or similarity in some particulars between things otherwise different; sleep and death, for example, are analogous in that they both share a lack of animation and a recumbent posture.

    (Compare with Simile)

Assonance

Repetition of a vowel sound, especially in accented syllables

     Example: "As high as a kite in a bright sky"--the long "I" ("eye") sound is in what words? Click on a word and see if you're right!

Ballad

A form of verse (or poetry), usually sung, characterized by its presentation of a dramatic episode in simple narrative (or story) form.

Concrete Poem

Poetry which forms a structurally original visual shape, preferably abstract, through the use of reduced language, fragmented letters, symbols and other typographical variations to create an extreme graphic impact on the reader's attention. The essence of concrete poetry lies in its appearance on the page rather than in the written text; it is intended to be perceived as a visual whole and often cannot be effective when read aloud. Is an example Gwendolyn Brooks' "We Real Cool"? Yes or No? Can you say why?

Connotation

Connotation: The emotional, psychological or social overtones of a word (as opposed to the denotation, which is the dictionary definition of a word).

Couplet

Two successive lines of poetry, usually of equal length and rhythmic correspondence, with end-words that rhyme.

Example: Shakespeare's Sonnet 18--

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Free Verse

Poetry that is free of most poetic conventions such as rhyme, meter, or regular rhythm.

Imagery

Words or phrases that appeal to any sense or any combination of senses.

Lyric Poem

One of the main kinds of poetry (the others being narrative and dramatic). By far the most frequently used form in modern poetic literature, the term lyric includes all poems in which the speaker's ardent expression of a (usually single) emotional element predominates.

Metaphor/Extended Metaphor

Figure of speech in which a word or phrase that means one thing is used of another thing in order to suggest equivalence in some regard

Typically, a metaphor asserts that one thing is another or suggests that the one acts like the other in some way
     Examples:
"John is a tower of strength" (John is not literally a tower, but he has some of the qualities of a tower)
          "The Senate created a watchdog committee to oversee . . . ." (the committee has the same characteristics that a real watchdog has and functions in a similar manner)
     Metaphors are related to similes
          A simile states a comparison (using either "like" or "as")
          A metaphor states or suggests an equivalence

Metaphors are especially effective in describing abstract concepts, so they are extremely common in expressing love, friendship, and religion

Meter

Meter - The recurrence of a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Narrative Poem
Technically, a narrative poem contains more detail than a ballad and is not intended to be sung.

The narration of an event or story, stressing details of plot, incident and action. Along with dramatic and lyric, is one of the main groups of poetry.

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia - The use of words which imitate sound (like "snap," "crackle," "pop)

Paraphrase

The restating of an idea in such a way as to retain the original idea while changing the diction (word choice) and syntax (form), often for the purpose of better understanding a difficult idea. A paraphrase of a poem might be a prose explanation of a difficult passage.

Personification

Attributing human characteristics to an inanimate object, an animal, or an abstract idea Examples: "The wind spoke her name" (the wind makes sounds, but does not use human language); "My car likes to go fast" (my car does not really have feelings or desires).

Refrain
          The refrain can give the listener time to digest ideas from the rest of the text
          The repetition of the refrain also serves to drive its point home

A word or phrase or line that is repeated in a poem, usually at the same point in each stanza (the equivalent of a paragraph in poetry). Refrain is especially common in poetic texts that are intended to be sung (in other words, song lyrics or hymns)

Rhyme Scheme

Rhyme scheme - The sequence in which the rhyme occurs. The first end sound is represented as the letter "A," the second is "B," etc.

Simile
Similes are always introduced by either "like" or "as" (but both words also can be used outside of similes, so be careful!)
Examples: "A face like marble"; "As brave as a lion"
Both similes and metaphors make a comparison or suggest an equivalence

An expressed comparison of two different things or ideas

Understand all this? Take a fun quiz here to check your understanding.

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