English Poetry Quiz

Simile

- An explicit comparison of two things, usually employing "like" or "as." - Tennyson, Ulysses: "And this gray spirit yearning in desire/ To follow knowledge like a sinking star"

anaphora

- The repetition of a word at the beginning of successive phrases or clauses. - "There...the sun is ever visible. There...there snow and frost are banished."

Metonymy

- The use of a noun for another that is closely related (but not part of it). It derives from a Greek word meaning "changing the name." - The pen is mightier than the sword. Sword here is a use of metonymy because it stands for the use of force or soldiers. Turf is another example of metonymy, when it is used to mean horse racing.

Dramatic Irony

- When a character says something or does something without realizing the full significance of their words or actions. The significance is not lost on the reader. - When Victor is in jail in Ireland, he is utterly delighted when his father visits him. That is ironic (and hypocritical) because we, the readers, know that he refuses to play the role of a parent to the creature and yet yearns for a parental figure himself.

Situational Irony

- When an incongruity occurs between the expected result and the actual result. It's when something happens and a reversal of the expectation occurs. - For example, a swimmer drowning in his bath tub would be situational irony. My expectation is that a swimmer would survive a bath-- because they can swim. My expectations have been reversed, so that's situational irony.

analogy

- comparison between two dissimilar things - shall I compare thee to a summer's day

alliteration

- repetition of consonant sounds, usually beginning of words - wing's wax

Near/Slant Rhyme

- sounds almost but not completely alike - home, same, worth, breath

Sonnet

A 14 line poem in iambic pentameter. The rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, and the poem finishes with a rhyming couplet, gg.

metaphor

A direct comparison of one thing to another, which is unlike the first but considered to possess similar characteristics. Tennyson, Ulysses: Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough/Gleams that untravelled world.

hyperbole

A figure of speech that uses exaggeration to express strong emotion, make a point, or evoke humor

Dactyl

A foot in meter. A stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. STRAW ber ry.

Iamb

A foot in meter. An unstressed syllable (U = unstressed, / = stressed) followed by a stressed syllable.

Trochee

A foot of meter. A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. Macbeth. Witches: WHEN shall/WE three/ MEET ag/AIN? TWINK kle TWINK le LIT tle STAR

Spondee

A foot of meter. Made up of 2 stressed syllables SPON DEE

Litotes

A form of understatement. A double negative that asserts a positive. Haimon: I beg you, do not be unchangeable.

Iambic Pentameter

A line of poetry made up of 5 iambs. It is the meter used by Shakespeare in his plays, and is a very common meter in English poetry in general.

Trochaic Tetrameter

A line of poetry made up of four feet, all trochees. This is the meter used by the witches in Macbeth.

Chiasmus

A literary device. The word order of a phrase is arranged in ABBA formation. Macbeth. "Fair is foul, and foul is fair."

Caesura

A strong pause in a line of poetry, frequently in the middle of a foot. It is indicated by two parallel lines. A period, semicolon, or colon often indicate this pause.

End Rhyme

A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line reeds, proceeds

Internal Rhyme

A word inside a line rhymes with another word on the same line dividing and gliding and sliding

Musee des Beaux Arts - W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong, The old Masters: how well they understood Its human position: how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree. In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

Landscape with the Fall of of Icarus - William Carlos Williams

According to Brueghel when Icarus fell it was spring a farmer was ploughing his field the whole pageantry of the year was awake tingling with itself sweating in the sun that melted the wings' wax unsignificantly off the coast there was a splash quite unnoticed this was Icarus drowning

Apostrophe

An addressal of someone not present as if they were there or something inanimate as if it were animate.

hubris

Arrogance or pride that offends the gods.

Because I could not stop for Death - Emily Dickenson

Because I could not stop for Death - He kindly stopped for me - The Carriage held but just Ourselves - And Immortality. We slowly drove - He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility - We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess - in the Ring - We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain - We passed the Setting Sun - Or rather - He passed Us - The Dews drew quivering and Chill - For only Gossamer, my Gown - My Tippet - only Tulle - We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground - The Roof was scarcely visible - The Cornice - in the Ground - Since then - 'tis Centuries - and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity -

Rhyme

Correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words, especially when these are used at the ends of lines of poetry.

This is just to say - William Carlos Williams

I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold

Infant Joy - William Blake

I have no name I am but two days old.— What shall I call thee? I happy am Joy is my name, Sweet joy befall thee! Pretty joy! Sweet joy but two days old. Sweet joy I call thee: Thou dost smile. I sing the while Sweet joy befall thee.

Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Mid-Term Break - Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home. In the porch I met my father crying— He had always taken funerals in his stride— And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'. Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

Blank Verse

Iambic Pentameter that doesn't rhyme.

Ulysses - Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoyed Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honoured of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and through soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Though much is taken, much abides; and though We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Dimeter, Trimeter, Tetrameter, Pentameter, Hexameter (Senarius)

Lines of poetry with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 feet.

Infant Sorrow - William Blake

My mother groaned, my father wept: Into the dangerous world I leapt, Helpless, naked, piping loud, Like a fiend hid in a cloud. Struggling in my father's hands, Striving against my swaddling bands, Bound and weary, I thought best To sulk upon my mother's breast.

Asyndeton

Omission of necessary conjunctions

Stichomythia

Rapid fire alternating dialogue between two characters. A common feature of Greek tragic dialogue. Rap battle dialogue between Creon and Antigone and Creon and Haimon.

Personification

Reference to abstractions or inanimate objects as though they had human qualities or abilities.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day - William Shakespeare

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 fade, Nor 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.

Tone

The attitude a speaker has towards a subject or audience, which in writing is conveyed by syntax, diction, point of view, and selection of details.

Pathetic Fallacy

The attribution of human feelings and responses to something inanimate. It is a very specific type of personification. The weather, say, will often mirror or comment on the action in a novel. A puppy falls down a well in a novel. That's super sad, so the author might make it rain immediately afterwards.

Enjambment

The continuation of meaning, without pause or break, from one line of poetry to the next. It is used to control pace, emphasis, and meaning. Gwedolyn Brooks, The Pool Player, Seven at the Golden Shovel We real cool. We Left school. We

Ellipsis

The omission of words indicated by three periods (...). A useful device when we are quoting evidence and want to omit words. But do not overuse this device. It should not appear more than once in a paper. Overuse suggests an unwillingness to consider more elegant solutions to presenting your evidence to your reader.

Assonance

The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry. - "Men sell the wedding bells."

Polysyndeton

The use of conjunctions in quick succession. Tennyson's Ulysses: Itakans "hoard and sleep and feed and know not me

Siren Song - Margaret Atwood

This is the one song everyone would like to learn: the song that is irresistible: the song that forces men to leap overboard in squadrons even though they see the beached skulls the song nobody knows because anyone who has heard it is dead, and the others can't remember. Shall I tell you the secret and if I do, will you get me out of this bird suit? I don't enjoy it here squatting on this island looking picturesque and mythical with these two feathery maniacs, I don't enjoy singing this trio, fatal and valuable. I will tell the secret to you, to you, only to you. Come closer. This song is a cry for help: Help me! Only you, only you can, you are unique at last. Alas it is a boring song but it works every time.

The Pool Player, Seven at the Golden Shovel - Gwendolyn Brooks

We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon.

Verbal Irony

When a speaker says one thing but means another. Sarcasm is a form of verbal irony. It is used to convey meaning that is the opposite of the literal meaning.

synecdoche

a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa

Masculine Rhyme

a rhyme ending on the final stressed syllable--spent, went, defend, contend

Feminine Rhyme

latter two syllables of first word rhyme with latter two syllables of second word - (ceiling appealing), butter clutter

rhyme scheme

the ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem or verse.

anapest

two short syllables followed by long - un-der-STAND

pyrrhic

two unstressed syllables: with a, and the