Poetry

Unit Review Sheet

Facts and Definitions

Lesson 1: Introduction to Poetry

• Denotation is the literal, dictionary definition of a word.
• Some words have connotations, which are feelings the words suggest or additional levels of meaning the words may express.

Lesson 2: Sound and Rhythm

• The repetition of a beginning consonant sound is called alliteration.
• Consonance is when a consonant sound is repeated at the end rather than the beginning of the word.
• The repetition of vowel sounds in a poem is called assonance.
• Onomatopoeia describes a word that imitates or suggests an actual sound.
• Full or true rhyme occurs when two words share the same vowel and end consonant sound but have different beginning consonant sounds (such as brain and gain or flow and show).
• Approximate or slant rhyme describes when the end of one line almost rhymes or sounds very similar to the end of another line. Approximate rhymes may have consonance or assonance or they may be half-rhymes, where only half the word rhymes (such as nightly and lightning or hollow and pillow).
• End rhyme is when the end of one line rhymes with the end of another.
• Internal rhyme is when the rhyme occurs within a line ("I bring fresh showers for the thirsty flowers." - Shelley)
• A poem's pattern of end rhyme is called its rhyme scheme.
• The patterns formed by stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry is called meter.
• The basic unit of accented (/) and unaccented (u) syllables is called a foot. The most common types of feet are iamb, trochee, spondee, anapest, and dactyl.
• Scansion is the practice of scanning a poem to analyze its meter.

Lesson 3: Figurative Language

• Imagery involves a poet's use of language to appeal to one or more of the reader's senses.
• Metaphor is an implied comparison between two unlike things, while simile is a comparison that explicitly uses "like" or "as."
• Personification is a device in which objects or animals are given human characteristics.
• Symbolism involves an object or idea representing something else.
• Irony is a literary device that involves a mismatch between what is expected to occur and what actually happens.
• The three types of irony are dramatic, situational, and verbal.
• Verbal irony involves saying one thing but meaning another. Two common types of verbal irony are understatement and overstatement.
• Understatement (meiosis) involves greatly downplaying or minimizing a subject.
• Overstatement (hyperbole) involves greatly exaggerating a subject.
• A paradox is something that seems to contradict itself but has some truth to it.

Lesson 4: Voice and Tone

• The speaker of the poem is essentially the poem's narrator. The poet writes the poem, but the speaker narrates it.
• The voice of a poem is the poem's speaker.
• Tone is the attitude taken by the speaker toward the subject or subjects of the poem.
• A monologue is a speech by one person.

Lesson 5: What Does It Mean?

• Symbolism is when an object stands for something else (for example, the Statue of Liberty may symbolize the United States).
• The levels of meaning in a poem include the literal, or surface, meaning and the figurative, or connotative, meaning(s).
• Allusion is a brief and indirect reference to a person, place, thing, or idea of historical, cultural, or literary significance.
• Extended metaphor occurs when multiple things in a poem stand for or are compared to other things, and the comparison is sustained for much or all of the poem.

Lesson 6: Fooling with Words

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Lesson 7: Analyzing Poetry

• Annotation of poetry is the careful reading and analysis of a poem that involves marking words and phrase in the poem and writing notes in the margins.
• Explication is a close reading of a single poem of poetry focusing on analysis. It includes examining word choice, sound and rhythm, literary devices, and layers of meaning.

Lesson 8: Types of Poems

• A stanzaic form poem is separated into stanzas.
• A stanza is a grouped set of lines, often containing the same pattern of meter and rhyme scheme.
• A continuous form poem is not separated into stanzas.
• Fixed form means that a specific pattern is applied to the whole poem.
• A sonnet is a poem of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter with a specific rhyme scheme.
• Lyric poems express strong emotions and typically feature a first-person speaker.
• The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE.
• The English or Shakespearean sonnet has the rhyme scheme ABABCDCDEFEFGG.
• Free verse poems do not follow any particular pattern of structure, rhyme, or meter.
• An apostrophe is a figure of speech where a person (usually dead or absent) or personified thing or idea is addressed in a poem.
• Narrative poems tell a story.
• Epics are long narrative poems usually about a hero's adventures.
• Dialect is a certain way of speaking particular to a certain part of the country.
• Ballads are narrative poems usually meant to be set to music.
• Ekphrasis are poems that focus on a piece of art.
• An ode is a stanzaic lyric poem that addresses or praises a person or thing.

Lesson 9: The Crossover

• Tanka is a five-line Japanese poem with the syllable pattern 5/7/5/7/7. A Tanka poem appears on p. 212.

Lesson 10: Poems and Poets

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Lesson 11: Reciting Poetry

• To recite a poem is to memorize it and repeat it or perform it for an audience.
• Imaginative focus is when the oral interpreter pictures what he or she is saying.
• Enjambment is when a sentence in a poem continues from the end of one line to the beginning of another without pause.

Final Project: Poetry

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