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| A figure of speed in which an absent or a dead person, an abstract quality, or something non-human is addressed directly. Example from Byron being, "Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!" |
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| In a drama, lines spoken by a character in an undertone or directly to the audience. An aside is meant to be heard by the audience, but not supposedly heard by the other characters on stage. |
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| A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung. |
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A type of four-line stanza. The first and third lines have four stressed words or syllables; the second and fourth lines have three stresses. Example:
Then by there came two gentlemen
At twelve o'clock at night,
And they could neither see house nor hall,
Nor coal nor candelight. |
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Verse written in unrymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the verse form used in some of the greatest English poetry, including that of William Shakespere, and John Milton. Here is an example from Shakespere's Macbeth:
If you can look into the seeds of time,
And say which grain will grow and which will not,
Speak then to me, who neither beg nor fear
Your favors nor your hate. |
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A break or pause in a line of poetry. In these lines from Robert Herrick's, "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," the causuras are indicated by double lines (||)
Then by not coy, (||) but use your time;
And while ye may, (||) go marry... |
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| The use of exaggeration or distortian to make a figure appear comic or rediculous. A physical characteristic, an exxentricity, a personality trait or an act may be exaggerated. |
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| two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry. |
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| a speaker or writer’s choice of words. |
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a poem of mourning, usually about someone who has died. A Eulogy is great
praise or commendation, a laudatory speech, often about someone who has died. |
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device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or
phrase) is repeated both at the beginning and at the end of the line, clause, or sentence.
Voltaire: “Common sense is not so common.” |
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a long narrative poem, written in heightened language , which recounts the deeds
of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society. |
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a quotation or aphorism at the beginning of a literary work suggestive of
the theme. |
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A short witty, pointed statement often in the form of a poem. Alexander Pope's Essay on Criticism:
Be not the first by whom the new are tried,
Nor yet the last to lay the old aside. |
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| Device of repetition in which the same expression (single word or phrase) is repeated at the end of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences. |
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