Transcript Poetry Terms Review

Literary Terms Review
Wohoo!
(Yes, that’s an onomatopoeia.)
Name that literary term!
• “The road was a ribbon of
moonlight over the purple
moor.”
• I heard the swishing of her skirts
as she walked up the stairs.
• "Some day you will be old
enough to start reading fairy
tales again.“
• The pen is mightier than the
sword.
Name that literary term!
• "He was a remarkable Prime
Minister with feet of clay".
• The less you have the more free
you are.
• “My love is like a red, red rose.”
• Julie wears so much make-up
she has to use a sandblaster to
get it off at night.
• America is a melting pot.
• My desk is groaning
underneath the mountains of
papers to grade.
• I love it when my students
cheat on their tests.
Figures of Speech (Poetry Terms)
A figure of speech is a specific device or kind
of figurative language, such as hyperbole,
metaphor, personification, simile, or
understatement.
Figurative language is used for descriptive
effect, often to imply ideas indirectly. It is
not meant to be taken literally. Figurative
language is used to state ideas in vivid and
imaginative ways.
Simile
• Figure of speech that makes a
comparison between two
seemingly unlike things by using a
connective word—like, as, than, or
resembles
• “My love is like a red, red rose.” Robert Burns
• “And the sudden flurries of snowbirds, Like brown leaves whirling
by.” –James Russell Lowell
Simile
• Ex: The desks overhead
sounded like the thunderous
dancing of elephants.
• Ex: My eyes pooled like rivers
during the wedding vows.
• Your examples:
(Fill in the blank with an
appropriate comparison.)
• Anger tastes like . . .
• Kindness smells like . . .
Metaphor
• Figure of speech that makes
a comparison between two
unlike things without using a
connective word such as
like or as. Metaphors can
be direct, implied,
extended, or mixed
• Ex: “I am soft sift/ In an
hourglass.” –Gerard Manley
Hopkins
Metaphor
• “All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women
merely players
in it.” -William Shakespeare
• Ex: America is a melting pot.
• Ex: How could she date a
snake like that?
• Your example:
(Fill in the blank with an object)
• Friendship is . . .
• Education is . . .
Personification
• Gives human qualities to an
animal, thing, or concept
• Ex: The tree sighed sadly in
the cold wind.
• Ex: The warm sun wrapped
me in a blanket of peace.
Personification
• “The ruddy brick floor smiled up at
the smoky ceiling; the oaken
settles, shiny with long wear,
exchanged cheerful glances with
each other; plates on the dresser
grinned at pots on the shelf . . .” -The Wind in the Willows
• Your example:
(Describe a place in the style
above--giving a feeling to the
place by adding personification.)
Hyperbole
• Figure of speech that uses
exaggeration to express
strong emotion or create a
comic effect
• Ex: The limousine was as
long as the Titanic.
• Julie wears so much makeup she has to use a
sandblaster to get it off at
night.
Hyperbole
• “At last the garbage reached so high
That finally it touched the sky.
And all the neighbors moved away,
And none of her friends would come
out to play.
And finally Sarah Cynthia Stout said,
“OK, I’ll take the garbage out!”
But then, of course, it was too late. . .
--Shel Silverstein
Your examples: (Finish the sentences.)
I laughed until . . .
I was hungry enough . . .
Understatement
• The opposite of hyperbole,
under-stating for effect,
describing something as less
than it really is
• “Ay, a scratch, a scratch”
Mercutio says in Romeo and
Juliet, describing his fatal
wound.
Repetition
• Repeating an entire word,
line or stanza for emphasis
• “In Guernica the dead
children / were laid out in
order upon the sidewalk / in
their white starched dresses /
in their pitiful white dresses “
(Norman Rosten)
Alliteration
• Repetition of sounds, most often
consonant sounds, at the
beginning of words. Alliteration
gives emphasis to words.
• “beaded bubbles”(Keats)
• “Oh, man, put up your sword and
see/The brother that you did to
death:/There is no hatred in his
eye,/No curses crackle in his
breath.” (Henry Treece)
Create your own
examples of
Understatement,
Repetition, and
Alliteration
Rhyme
• rhyme: identical or similar
sounds, usually at the end of
a line of poetry.
• fat, cat: rhyme, time:
death, breath: etc.
Rhyme Scheme
• rhyme scheme: the order in which
rhymed words recur. In a stanza
of four lines, the possible rhyme
schemes include abab, abcb,
and abba.
• “Guns aren’t lawful;
a
Nooses give;
b
Gas smells awful;
a
You might as well live. b
Internal Rhyme
• Rhyme within a single line
• “There are strange things done in
the midnight sun / by the men
who moil for gold / The Arctic
trails have their secret tales /
that would make your blood run
cold.”
Onomatopoeia
• the use of sound to suggest the
qualities of the thing described.
Poets use meter, vowel sounds,
and consonant sounds to suggest
sound, time, movement, effort,
texture or tone.
• “The moan of doves in immemorial
elms, / And murmuring of
innumerable bees” (Tennyson)
Imagery
• Use of words to create a
sensory experience or
image
• Uses the 5 senses
• Ex: The family dinner was a
“combination of boisterous
conversation, badly burnt
chicken, and the scent of
freshly baked bread.”
Imagery
•
•
•
•
•
•
Your examples:
A sunset (sight)
A bowl of ice (touch)
A song you love (sound)
A bunch of flowers (smell)
A piece of candy (taste)
• Be ready to share!
Symbolism
• Represents something else
and itself, especially a
concrete object standing
for an abstract idea
• Always actually occurs in
the text, usually more than
once, instead of as a
comparison
• Common symbols:
- Rose - Cross
- Flag - weather
Symbolism
• “All this last day Frodo had not
spoken, but had walked halfbowed, often stumbling, as if his
eyes no longer saw the way before
his feet. Sam guessed that among
all their pains he bore the worst, the
growing weight of the Ring, a
burden on the body and a torment
to his mind.”
-J.R.R. Tolkien
• Your example:
(Come up with your own symbol
that represents two different
meanings. )
Metonymy
• Type of symbolism or naming in
which the name of something is
replaced with something closely
associated with it
• Ex: The White House issued a
statement regarding the recent
economic downturn.
• What do these metonymies
represent?
– The throne
– The Kremlin
– Time to “hit the books”
Metonymy
• Create your own
metonymy! Decide what
thing closely associated with
school should represent it.
Then use it in a sentence
about school.
Allegory
• A constant set of symbols operating on
two levels in a story
• Ex: Plato’s Allegory of the Cave--People
are chained in a cave and think that
the shadows they see are truth. When
people break free, they leave the cave
and see things as they truly are.
• Ex: James Stern of the New York Times
said that Lord of the Flies is an allegory
on human society today; the novel’s
primary implication [is] that what we
have come to call civilization is, at best,
not more than skin-deep.
Allusion
• Reference to a statement,
person, place, event, or thing
that is known from literature,
history, religion, myth, politics,
sports, science, or the arts
• Like an “inside joke that suggests
a meaningful connection
• Ex: "Christy didn't like to spend
money. She was no Scrooge, but
she seldom purchased anything
except the bare necessities".
Allusion
• Ex: Teacher: “Well Principal
Skinner, here’s the boy who
pulled the fire alarm today.”
Principal: “So you’re the boy
who cried wolf…”*
• Your example—think of a
recent example you’ve heard
or seen in which someone
references a well-known work
*(refers/suggests a common connection to the fable of the boy
who cried “wolf” so many times as a joke that the villagers didn’t
believe him when the wolf really came)
Euphony
• The use of language to
produce a pleasing,
harmonious sound
• Ex: “To watch the crisping
ripples on the beach, / And
tender curving lines of creamy
spray.” (Tennyson)
• “And the words hung hushed in
their long white dream/By the
ghostly glimmering, ice-blue
stream.”
Cacaphony / Dissonance
• The deliberate use of harsh,
dissonant sounds.
• Ex: “Their clenched teeth still
clench’d, and all their limbs /
Locked up like veins of metal,
clamped and screwed” (John
Keats).
• “All day cows mooed and
shrieked/Hollered and bellowed
and wept…”
Assonance
• The repetition of identical or
similar vowel sounds
• Ex: “Through the long noon
coo.” (George Meredith)
• “Thou still unravished bride
of quietness,/Thou foster
child of silence a slow time.”
(Keats)
Consonance
• Repetition of identical or
similar consonant sounds
• Ex: “bitter” and “batter”
• “Such weight and thick pink
bulk”
• “struts and frets”
• “first and last”
Apostrophe
• A rhetorical address to someone
or something invisible, inanimate,
or not normally addressed, as if it
were alive
• Ex: “Oh Canada”
• Ex:“O happy dagger! This is thy
sheath; there rust, and let me die”
(Romeo and Juliet)
• Ex: John Donne apostrophizes
death in the line “Death, be not
proud.”
Oxymoron
• Figure of speech which seems to be
self contradictory, but is actually
true; a compressed paradox
• Ex: Romeo and Juliet describes love
using several oxymorons, such as
“cold fire,” “feather of lead”,
“glorious pain”, “sweet sorrow” and
“sick health”
• Ex: She had a terrible beauty. There
was a deafening silence.
• Create your own oxymoron using
this same adjective-noun form.
Paradox
• A statement that appears to be
contradictory, but actually
expresses a truth
• Ex: “Less is more”
• “Truth must dazzle gradually/Or
every man be blind” -Emily
Dickinson
• “Success is counted sweetest/By
those who ne’er succeed” -Emily
Dickinson
• “It is in giving that we receive” Francis of Assisi
Paradox
• “Though this be madness, yet
there is method in’t” - Hamlet
• “I must be cruel only to be
kind” Hamlet
• Write your own paradox!
(Humans are the best
examples of paradoxes. Think
of someone you know who has
seemingly opposite
characteristics that make sense
and are true.)
Pun
• A play on words. A pun can
be strictly for humour, as in
Dorothy Parker’s telegram
after a much-publicized
pregnancy: “Dear Mary, we
all knew you had it in you.”
• Poets sometimes use puns to
suggest more than one
meaning.
Pun
• 1 word, 2 different meanings:
• Ex: This coffee will perk me up!
“Ask for me tomorrow, and you
will find me a grave man
(Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet)
• 1 sound/pronuciation, 2 different
words:
• Ex: The farmer was found dead in
the chicken house. Authorities
suspect foul play.
Irony--3 kinds
• A deliberate contrast between
two levels of meaning
• Verbal—implying a different
meaning than what is directly
stated
– Different than sarcasm, which is much more
direct and harsh
• Situational--the opposite of what is
expected happens
• Dramatic—audience knows
something that one or more of the
characters does not
Irony—which kind?
• The beautiful woman lawyer
walked into the courtroom wearing
a visibly stained suit that frayed at
the edges.
• “Oh, and there’s a thrilling shot of
one of the kids being sick on a
small fishing boat off the coast of
Florida and we are hovering over
him offering him salami and
mayonnaise sandwiches. That one
really breaks us up.”—Erma
Bombeck
• Juliet is actually not dead, but
asleep with the help of a strong
potion. Romeo sees her lying in the
tomb and kills himself because he
believes her to be dead.
Irony—your turn!
• Verbal Irony--a teenager is
being yelled at for being out
past curfew. What does he/she
say in reply?
• Situational Irony--You meet the
man/woman of your dreams
and expect to make a good
impression. Instead, . . .
• Dramatic Irony--Think of a
recent movie in which the
audience knows something the
characters do not.
Assignment
• Go back through the
PowerPoint and complete
the examples.
• You can choose how to
present it, but it must be
posted on your blog.
• DUE: December 9th, 2011
(that’s the same day you
will be getting the quiz on
these terms)