literary and poetry terms you need to know! 10 th grade literature and composition

Literary and Poetry Terms you NEED

to know!10th grade Literature and Composition

Types of Poems

•Narrative Poem

•Lyric Poem

•Haiku

•Prose Poem

•Blank Verse

•Free Verse

Narrative Poem

• Poetry that tells a story; includes plot, characters, and a setting. • Example: The Odyssey

Lyric Poem

• Poet portrays his or her own feelings or state of mind in a musical way. • Example: Any songs

Haiku

• Japanese poetry

• Has 17 syllables

• 3 lines• Line 1: 5 syllables

• Line 2: 7 syllables

• Line 3: 5 syllables

• Examples:• Haikus are easy

But sometimes they don’t make senseRefrigerator.

• Ice clings to cementShining dark and dangerous.Be careful! Don't slip.• Presents images from everyday life, usually contains a seasonal word or

image, and presents a moment of discovery or enlightenment.

Prose Poem

• A poem made to sound like normal speech. Anything written that does not possess any poetic meter or rhythm.

• Characteristics- written in paragraphs, tells a story rather than describes an image, and generally has characters and a plot.

Blank Verse and Free Verse

• Blank Verse: Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. • Example:

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,And spills the upper boulders in the sun;”

-Mending Walls by Robert Frost

Free Verse

• Free Verse: lines with no prescribed pattern or structure. (No Rules)• Example:

The fog comeson little cat feet.

  It sits lookingover harbor and cityon silent haunchesand then moves on.

-The Fog by Carl Sandburg

Poetic Forms

• Stanza: unit of a poem often repeated

• Couplet: a pair of lines, usually rhymed.• Examples:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again!

- Humpty Dumpty

Poetic Forms cont. • Sonnet: 14 line poem in iambic pentameter with a prescribed rhyme scheme; its

subject is traditionally that of love. • Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; And every fair from fair sometime declines,By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd;But thy eternal summer shall not fadeNor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st; So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.  -Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

• We will focus on Sonnets later this week.

Iambic Pentameter

• Ten syllables in each line

• Five pairs of alternating unstressed and stressed syllables (not always within the same word).

• The rhythm in each line sounds like: ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM / ba-BUM

• Each unit (or pair of syllables) is technically called an iambus, but it is more commonly referred to as an iamb or a foot. It contains 1 unstressed and 1 stressed syllable.

• Example:• If mu- / -sic be / the food / of love, / play on

• Is this / a dag- / -ger I / see be- / fore me?

Tone

• The writer’s attitude toward the material and/or readers.

• Tone may be playful, formal, intimate, angry, serious, ironic, outraged, baffled, tender, etc.

More Terms

• Diction: choice of words

• Denotation: the dictionary meaning of a word (Example: School = place to learn).

• Connotation: The implied or suggested meaning with a word (Example: School = homework, teachers, etc.)

• Literal Meaning: What the poem is actually saying in a straightforward way.

• Figurative Meaning: What the poem is metaphorically saying.

Figurative Language

• Writing or speech that is not meant to be taken literally; includes simile, metaphor, personification; (language that says one thing but means another).

• For example: As the man spoke, the flowers turned to listen.

Internal and End Rhymes

Internal Rhyme• Rhymes within a single line of poetry.

• Examples:

• Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary.

• I met a hermit named Kermit.

End Rhyme• Words that rhyme at the end of a

line.

• Examples:

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Candy is sweet

And so are you!

Rhyme Scheme

• A regular pattern of rhyming words that appear at the ends of lines in a poem.

• Examples:

Roses are red a

Violets are blue b

Candy is sweet c

And so are you! b

MeterCliché

• Rhythmic pattern of a poem: stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

• Examples:• “to-DAY”

• /i WANT/to GO/ to SLEEP

• Overused, worn out expression or phrase.

• Example: • An apple a day keeps the

doctor away.

• Music to my ears.

SimileMetaphor

• Comparison between two things using LIKE or AS.

• Example: • He is as tall as a

giraffe.

• Comparison between two things. Common formula to determine: A is B.

• Example: • He is a giraffe.

Personification

• Giving human qualities to animals or objects (non-living).

• Example:• Time stood still.

• The flowers danced in the wind.

• The dog smiled in the sun.

ImageryAlliteration

• Painting a picture with words.

• Example: • “On a starry winter night in

Portugal Where the ocean kissed the southern shore…”

-Teena Marie, “Portugese Love”

• The repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words.

• Examples: sweet smell of success, a dime a dozen, bigger and better, jump for joy.

• Non-Examples: Chocolate, coke and cinnamon are amazing.

OnomatopoeiaAssonance• The sound of the word

imitates the original sound.

• Examples:• “Woof”

• The door slammed, “BAM”

• The door creaked forward and the engine began to wheeze.

• Repetition of vowel sounds but not consonant sounds.

• Examples:• Try to light the fire.

• He gave a nod to the officer with the pocket.

SymbolHyperbole

• Word or object that stands of another word or object.

• Examples:• A dove stands for PEACE

• The dove can be SEEN and peace cannot be seen.

• A stop sign stands for STOP

• Figure of speech which is an exaggeration.

• Examples: • Expressions such as:

• “I nearly died laughing.”

• I am so hungry, I could eat a horse.”

AllusionOxymoron

• a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing or idea of historical, cultural, literary or political significance.

• It does not always describe in detail the historical event or literary work to which it refers. It can be just a passing comment. The writer expects the reader to possess enough knowledge to spot the allusion and grasp its importance in a text.

• Example: When A of S (C.O.E) alluded to the Siren’s song from the Odyssey.

• a combination of contradictory words.

• Examples:• Great Depression

• Jumbo Shrimp

• Pretty Ugly

• Random Order

Pun

• a play on words in which a humorous effect is produced by using a word that suggests two or more meanings or by exploiting similar sounding words having different meanings.

• Examples: • I was going to tell you a joke about infinity, but it didn't have an ending!

• The high school music teacher was quite controversial. He told his students to read band books.

• What is the difference between a conductor and a teacher? The conductor minds the train and a teacher trains the mind.

• Romeo: “Not I, believe me. You have dancing shoes with nimble soles; I have a soul of lead” (Romeo and Juliet)