Textual Analysis – Poetry
Glossary of Literary Terms
Technique
Definition
Alliteration
A sequence of repeated consonant sounds.
Assonance
The close repetition of similar vowel
sounds, in successive or proximate words,
usually in stressed syllables.
An unrhymed line of five feet in which the
dominant accent usually falls on the second
syllable of each foot (di dúm), a pattern
known as an iamb.
A pause or breathing-place about the
middle of a metrical line. The word derives
from a Latin word meaning 'cut or slice', so
the effect can be quite violent.
A trite phrase that has become overused.
Blank verse
Caesura
Cliché
Climax
Connotation
The decisive moment and the turning point
of the action in the plot of a play or story.
A suggested, implied or evocative meaning.
Couplet
A pair of lines rhyming consecutively.
Denotation
The explicit or literal meaning of a word.
Enjambement
The running over of a sentence or
thought into the next couplet or line
without a pause at the end of the line;
a run-on line.
End-stopped lines
The effect achieved when the syntax of a
line coincides with the metrical boundary at
the end of a line. The contrary of
enjambement.
Euphemism
The substitution of a mild or less
negative word or phrase for a harsh or
blunt one.
Figurative
language
Language in which figures of speech (such
as metaphors, similes, and hyperbole)
freely occur.
The term is usually used in the analysis of
poetry to refer to the structure of stanzas.
It can also be used less technically of the
general structural principles by which a
work is organised, and is distinguished from
its content
Emphasis by exaggeration
Form
Hyperbole
Imagery
Vivid descriptive language that appeals to
one or more of the senses. Often used to
refer to figurative language.
Example
(If appropriate)
What goes around comes around.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
The use of "pass away" instead
of "die."
I’ve told you a million times not to
exaggerate!
Internal Rhyme
A poetic device in which a word in the
middle of a line rhymes with a word at the
end of the same metrical line.
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph
Inversion
In grammar, a reversal of normal word
order, especially the placement of a verb
ahead of the subject.
"Not in the legions
Of horrid hell can come a devil more
damned
In ills to top Macbeth."
Irony
Irony not only says one thing and means
another, but says one thing and means its
opposite. Irony depends upon the
audience's being able to recognise that a
comment is deliberately at odds with its
occasion.
The specialized language of a professional,
occupational, or other group, often
meaningless to outsiders.
The arrangement of two or more ideas,
characters, actions, settings, phrases, or
words side-by-side or in similar narrative
moments for the purpose of comparison,
contrast, rhetorical effect, suspense, or
character development
A figure of speech consisting of an
understatement in which an affirmative is
expressed by negating its opposite.
A figure of speech in which one thing is
equated with something else. A
comparison of different things by speaking
of them directly, as if they were the same
Jargon
Juxtaposition
Litotes
Metaphor
Metre
The rhythmic pattern produced when
words are arranged so that their
stressed and unstressed syllables fall
into a more or less regular sequence,
resulting in repeated patterns of
accent (called feet).
Metonymy
A figure of speech in which something is
referred to by one of its distinct
characteristics
Mood
The atmosphere that pervades a literary
work with the intention of evoking a certain
emotion or feeling from the audience.
A figure of speech in which words are
used to sound like the noise
they describe
A figure of speech in which contradictory
words are placed together
An apparently self-contradictory
statement behind which lies a truth
Onomatopoeia
Oxymoron
Paradox
Pentameter
When poetry consists of five feet in each
line, it is written in pentameter.
Referring to the theater as “The
Stage,” the monarchy as “The
Crown,” or the judicial system as
“The Bench.”
buzz, whir, babble
Less is more
Persona
The person created by the author to
tell a story
Personification
A figure of speech in which things or
ideas are treated as if human
Pun
A play on words, either on different
senses of the same word or on the
similar sense or sound of different
words
Quatrain
A stanza of four lines, often rhyming abab.
Repetition
The simple repeating of a word, within a
sentence or a poetical line, with no
particular placement of the words, in order
to emphasize.
Rhyme
The similarity between syllable sounds
at the end of two or more lines.
Rhythm
A term designating the pattern of stressed
and unstressed syllables in verse or prose.
Sarcasm
A form of sneering criticism in which
disapproval is often expressed as
ironic praise.
Sibilance
The state or quality of a hissing sound.
Simile
A comparison of different things by
speaking of them as "like" or "as" the same
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger
poem. A verse.
The writer expresses a character’s thoughts
and feelings as a chaotic stream, with no
apparent order or logic
Stanza
Stream of
Consciousness
Symbolism
Something that on the surface is its
literal self but which also has another
meaning or even several meanings.
Synecdoche
A figure of speech by which a part of
something refers to the whole
In literature, synaesthesia is a description
of one sense in terms of another.
The study of the rules whereby words or
other elements of sentence structure are
combined to form grammatical sentences.
It is the main idea or universal meaning, the
lesson or message of a literary work.
Synaesthesia
Syntax
Theme
Tone
The writer's attitude toward his
readers and his subject; his mood or
moral view.
Transferred
Epithet
The adjective, is applied to the "wrong"
word in the sentence .The effect often
stresses the emotions or feelings of the
individual by expanding them on to the
environment
Kings worry about a receding heir
line
The silken sad uncertain rustling of
each purple curtain
fifty wagging tails
Use your head
condemned cell
restless night