NAME______________________________________PER____
POETIC DEVICES PRE-TEST
_____1) alliteration
a. the literal, “dictionary definition” of a word
_____2) allusion
b. the emotion or feeling attached to a word; often can be described as positive or negative
_____3) apostrophe
c. the repetition of consonant sounds in the middle or end of closely juxtaposed words
_____4) assonance
d. a reference to something, such as a historical event, literary work, or piece of
art, that is assumed to be widely known
e. the repetition of vowel sounds in closely juxtaposed words, such as date and fade
_____5) blank verse
(iambic pentameter)
_____6) consonance
_____7) denotation
_____8) connotation
f. the repetition of initial consonant sounds in closely juxtaposed words, such as “Peter
Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers”
g. figurative device in which an absent or dead person or an inanimate object is addressed
directly
h. poetry in which each line has ten syllables, and every other syllable beginning with the
first is unaccented
_____9) diction
a. use of words whose sounds express, imitate, or suggest their meanings
_____10) free verse
b. the conjunction of a pair of words that seems to be contradictory, such as cool fire, icy
hot, or jumbo shrimp
c. description which appeals to the senses
_____11) hyperbole
_____12) imagery
_____14) metaphor
d. a gap or difference between what is said or done and what is understood or expected;
verbal, dramatic, and situational are some common types
e. figure of speech in which distinctly human characteristics, such as the ability to speak or
values such as honesty or loyalty, are attributed to an animal, object, or idea
f. word choice
_____15) onomatopoeia
g. deliberate use of exaggeration for effect
_____16) oxymoron
_____17) paradox
h. a statement or series of statements which contains seemingly contradictory elements or
that appears contrary to common sense, such as in the following line from John Donne’s
“Holy Sonnet XIV”: “That I may rise, and stand, o’erthrow me”
i. poetry in which there is no set meter or rhyme scheme
_____18) personification
j. the comparison of two things without using the words like or as
_____19) refrain
a. the repetition of a line, lines, or entire stanza within a poem
_____20) rhyme scheme
_____21) simile
b. a literary device in which an object represents an idea, such as Salinger’s using Holden’s
red hunting hat to represent non-conformity
c. a comparison of two things using the words like or as
_____22) stanza
d. the author’s attitude toward the subject and/or audience of his work
_____23)symbolism
e .a statement that summarizes the author’s opinion or message about a subject of
his/her work; the universal truth within a literary work
_____24) theme
f. division of a poem made by arranging lines into units separated by space
_____25) tone
g. the pattern of rhyming in the ends of lines in a poem; for example, a sonnet
often has a pattern that can be described as “ababcdcdefefgg”
_____13) irony