Poetry Terms

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Poetry Terms
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• 1. Alliteration repetition of beginning
  consonant sounds
• 2.Ballad a narrative poem, often of folk origin
  and intended to be sung
• 3. Cinquain A type of poem that gets its name
  from the fact that it is always five lines long
• 4. Couplet two lines that rhyme

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• 5. End rhyme the words at the end of the lines
  rhyme or sound alike
• 6. Free verse poetry that is free of a fixed
  pattern no set rhyme or rhythm
• 7. Haiku Japanese poetry that neither has rhyme
  nor rhythm because its language does not lend
  itself to these characteristics

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• 8. Hyperbole an exaggerated statement
• 9. Imagery concrete words or details that
  appeal to the senses

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• 10. Limerick a five line poem lines 1,2 and 5
  rhyme and lines 3 and 4 rhyme
• 11. Metaphor an implied comparison between two
  dissimilar things

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• 12. Meter regular pattern of stressed and
  unstressed syllables
• 13. Mood the feeling within the work (sad,
  happy, serious)
• 14.Onomatopoeia words used to imitate the
  sounds of things (hiss, buzz, fizz)

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• 15. Oxymoron a phrase that brings two words
  together that contradict each other (honest
  thief cruel kindness)
• 16.Personification human characteristics are
  given to a non-human thing
• 17. Rhyme repetition of like sounds

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• 18. Rhyme scheme a pattern of end rhyme (a,a
  b,b,b)
• 19. Rhythm musical quality created by the
  alternation of accented and unaccented syllables
• 20. Simile a comparison between two unlike
  things using like or as

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• 21.Stanza a group of lines in a poem (a
  paragraph)
• 22. Symbol a person, place or object that has
  another meaning besides its literal meaning
• 23. Theme the main idea
• 24. Tone the authors attitude toward his work