- Acrostic : Poem in which the initial letters or initial and final letters, of each line spell out a word.
- Alexandrine : Verse line of 12 syllables, widely used in French poetry and named after the medieval Romen d'Alexandre in which it was first employed. The major stresses fall on the sixth and final syllables, as in Corneille's line: 'Et le combat cessa faute de combattants.'
- Anagram : Word formed by rearranging the letters of another word; 'lager' is an anagram of 'regal', as too is 'large'.
- Antithesis : Figure of speech which emphasises opposing ideas or attitudes by a terse juxtaposition of contrasting words and phrases; an example is Dr Johnson's dictum: 'Every other author may aspire to praise: the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.'
- Aphorism : Short pithy statement of a general truth.
- Archaism : Word or expression no longer in current use.
- Bathos : Unintentional descent from the exalted to the rediculous.
- Caesura : Natural or formal break in a verse line which divides it into two parts.
- Canto : Major division of a long poem.
- Elision : Omission of an unstressed syllable in verse in order to preserve the metrical pattern, as in Milton's line: 'Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.'
- Euphuism : High-flown, rhetorical style of writing. The term derives from John Lyly's prose romance Euphues ( 1759 ).
- Heroic couplet : Two consecutive lines of rhymed iambic pentameters.
- Holograph : Document in the author's own handwriting.
|
- Irony : Form of expression in which the true meaning is the opposite of the literal meaning.
- Lampoon : Crude satire attacking an individual or group.
- Neologism : Newly coined word or expression; the word 'astronaut' is an example of a neologism that has entered the language.
- Occasional verse : Verse written to celebrate a particular event.
- Oxymoron : Use of an epithet of contrary significance, as in 'in faith unfaithful'.
- Pathetic fallacy : Phrase invented by the writer John Ruskin to describe the poetic convention of attributing human emotions to nature or to inanimate objects.
- Periphrasis : Circumlocution; roundabout form of expression.
- Picaresque : Term given to an episodic tale of adventures, usually in a low-life setting.
- Prosody : Laws of versification.
- Quatrain : A poetic stanza of four lines.
- Sarcasm : Harsh form of wit, aimed to wound, which often employs irony.
- Scansion : Analysis of the metrical pattern of verse.
- Stanza : Complete metrical unit in a poem; often loosely termed a verse.
- Syllepsis : Figure of speech in which a single word links two constructions each having a different meaning in relation to that word. The device is often used for satirical effect as in 'She went home in a flood of tears and a bath-chair'.
- Triplet : Three lines of verse that rhyme together.
|
Get your own Free Home Page