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)