Transcript Literary Terms for Theme for English B

Theme for English B
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A literary movement that began in the 1920s
in the almost exclusively African American
area of Harlem in New York City.
Harlem had grown tremendously following
World War I, when a mass migration of black
Americans out of the South and into northern
cities had taken place.
Who are some writers and musicians from the
Harlem Renaissance?
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Poetry that lacks a regular meter, does not
rhyme, and uses irregular (and sometimes
very short) line lengths.
Writers of free verse disregard traditional
poetic conventions of rhyme and meter,
relying instead on parallelism, repetition,
and the ordinary cadences and stresses of
everyday discourse.
What does this mean in your own words?
A rhetorical device used in written and oral
compositions since ancient times to accentuate
or emphasize ideas or images by using
grammatically similar constructions.
 By using parallelism, authors or speakers
implicitly invite their readers or audiences to
compare and contrast parallel elements.
 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times.” - Dickens
 “I have a dream…I have a dream…I have a
dream…” – MLK
 Can you provide some examples (poetry, rap)?
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The repetition of sounds in a sequence of
words.
Alliteration generally refers to repeated
consonant sounds (but some use it to refer to
starting vowel sounds).
Dunkin’ Donuts
“Billy peels the label off his bottle of Bud.” –
Sheryl Crow
Can you provide some examples of your own?
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The repetition of identical or similar vowel
sounds, usually in stressed syllables.
Assonance is different from perfect rhyme in
that rhyming words also repeat the final
consonant sounds.
 “Step outside, cameras point and shoot /
Ask me what’s my best side, I step back and point at you.”
- Big Sean, “As Long As You Love Me”
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Can you provide other songs that use this
literary device?