English part 2

Understatement

the opposite of exaggeration- one states less than one's full meaning. Example: It's a little on the warm side in July and August on the Gulf Coast.

Alliteration

the repetition of beginning consonant sounds.

Consonance

the repetition of consonant sounds found at the ends of words.

Assonance

the repetition of vowel sounds found anywhere in a word.

Slant Rhyme

(also called off rhyme, half rhyme, or imperfect rhyme) - two lines whoe endings are similar in sound but do not rhyme exactly. For example - "grape" and "deep"

Perfect Rhyme

(the kind we think of when we think of rhyme): two lines whose endings rhyme with each other exactly. For example, "snow" and "go"

Connotations

Figurative, less specific and less direct meanings. The figurative or connotative meaning of a word means everything that the word might imply besides its direct, dictionary meaning. In a poem, a red apple is more than merely an apple. The apple could represent anything that can be associated with the color red. The apple itself could represent the harvest, man's fall from grace, the forbidden, etc.

Imagery

Images are very concrete "word pictures" having to do with the five senses - touch, smell, taste, sound, movement, and especially sight.

Irony

Irony is a situation in which one thing is said but another is actually meant, or in which the outcome of a situation is the opposite of what one would have expected it to be.

Metonymy

Metonymy is a way of naming a thing: a thing closely related to the thing actually meant (pretty confusing, right?) Example: "He came from excellent blood substitutes the term blood for family, and expresses the idea that an individual comes from a good family. "Blood" and "family" are related because families are made up of people and people have blood.

Personification

Personification is a kind of metaphor, and it means to speak of an impersonal thing, such as a season, an object, a natural element as if it were a person.

Synecdoche

Synecdoche is a way of naming a thing: the word for a part of the thing is substituted for the whole. For example: I bought a new set of wheels this morning. In this sentence, the word "wheels" is substituted for the word "car".

Tone

tone consists of the attitude of the speaker toward his subject matter

Rhyme

also spelled "rime" is the repetition of ending sounds between words; poems have end rhyme, in which words at the ends of lines rhyme. A poem can also have internal rhyme, in which words inside of individual lines rhyme. Example: Go with the flow, Joe.

Figurative language

involves a comparison between two things - a literal term ( the thing being compared) and a figurative term, (the thing to which the literal term is being compared).

Overstatement

Very similar to exaggeration.

Denotation

Words in poems have denotations, or literal, easy-to-understand dictionary meanings. For example: the literal meaning of the word apple is something like this: A red, green, or yellow fruit that grows on a tree, has seeds and has a sweet taste.

Metaphor

A metaphor is a comparison that is not made explicitly - that is, it is not made clearly and directly and is not made with clues. It is an indirect comparison between two things that are basically unalike. For example: The apple never falls far from the tree. In this example, parents or family is the literal term and is compared to a tree, which is the figurative term, while children (literal term) is compared to an apple (figurative term).

Paradox

A paradox occurs when two things that should not be able to exist a the same time are said, in a poem, to exist at the same time. Example: Night and Day coexisting.

Simile

A simile is an explicit, or clear and direct, comparison between two things that are basically unalike using dead-giveaway words such as "like", "as though", "seems", "similar to", "than", or "as". For example: The deer's nose glowed like a large black onyx stone.

Symbol

A symbol means what it is, but at the same time it means something else.

Allegory

Allegory is a narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface meaning. Allegories relate especially to subject matter in the Bible and from mythology.

Oxymoron

a figure of speech consisting of two contradictory words or ideas that are close together. For example, "cold fire", "Jumbo shrimp"

Refrain

a line or a phrase that is repeated word-for-word, or in a slightly altered form, one or more times in a poem.

Narrative poem

a type of poem that tells a story