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ALLITERATION Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or accented syllables.

Sara Teasdale uses alliteration in the second stanza of her poem Understanding: But you I never understood, Your spirits secret hides like gold Sunk in a Spanish galleon Ages ago in waters cold. Poets and other writers use alliteration to link and to emphasize ideas as well as to create pleasing, musical sounds. ANALOGY An analogy is a comparison between two unlike things. The purpose of an analogy is to describe something unfamiliar by pointing out its similarities to something that is familiar. In A Noiseless Patient Spider, on page 468, Walt Whitman makes an analogy between a spider weaving its web and the soul seeking connections with things outside itself. See Metaphor and Simile. ANAPEST See Meter.

ASSONANCE Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in conjunction with dissimilar consonant sounds. Emily Dickinson uses assonance in the line The mountain at a given distance. The i sound is repeated in the words given and distance, in the context of the dissimilar consonant sounds g-v and d-s. BLANK VERSE Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. An lamb is a poetic foot consisting of one weak stress followed by one strong stress. A pentameter line is a line of five poetic feet. Robert Frosts Birches, on page 924, is written in blank verse. CATALOG A catalog is a list of people, places, or things in a literary work. In the following example from As I Ebbd with the Ocean of Life, Walt Whitman records what he sees along the shore: Chaff, straw, splinters of wood, weeds, and the sea-gluten. Scum, scales from shining rocks, leaves of salt-lettuce, left by the tide. Whitman often used catalogs in his verse to suggest the fullness, diversity, and scope of American life or of the human experience. CONNOTATION A connotation is an association that a word calls to mind in addition to the dictionary meaning of the word. Many words that are similar in their dictionary meanings, or denotations, are quite different in their connotations. Consider, for example, Jose Garcia Villas line, Be beautiful, noble, like the antique ant. This line would have a very different effect if it were Be pretty, classy, like the old ant. Poets and other writers choose their words carefully so that the connotations of those words will be appropriate. See Denotation. CONSONANCE Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds at the ends of words or accented syllables. Emily Dickinson uses consonance in the following lines: But if he ask where you are hid Until to-morrow,happy letter! Gesture, coquette, and shake your head!

ELEGY An elegy is a solemn and formal lyric poem about death, often one that mourns the passing of some particular person. Wait Whitmans When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd, on page 409, is an elegy lamenting the death of President Lincoln. See Lyric.

FREE VERSE Free verse is poetry that lacks a regular rhythmical pattern, or meter. A writer of free verse is at liberty lo use any rhythms that are appropriate to what he or she is saying. Free verse has been widely used by twentieth-century poets such as Leslie Marmon Silko, who begins Where Mountain lion Lay Down with Deer with these lines:

IAMBIC PENTAMETER Iambic pentameter is a line of poetry with five iambic feet, each containing one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable ( ) . Iambic pentameter may be rhymed or unrhymed. Unrhymed iambic pentameter is called blank verse. These concluding lines from Anne Bradstretss The Author to Her Book are in iambic pentameter: And for thy, Mother, she alas is poor,

Which caused her thus to send thee out of door. See Blank Verse and Meter.

IMAGE An image is a word or phrase that appeals to one or more of the five sensessight, sound, hearing, touch, taste; or smell. See Imagery. IMAGERY Imagery is the descriptive or figurative language used in literature to create word pictures for the reader. These pictures, or images, are created by details of sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, or movement. The following stanza, from Kuangchi C. Changs Garden of My Childhood, shows how a poet can use imagery to appeal to several senses: I ran past the old maple by the terraced hall And the singing crickets under the latticed wall, And I kept on running down the walk Paved with pebbles of memory big and small Without turning to look until I was out of the gate Through which there be no return at all. METAPHOR A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken of as though it were something else. The identification suggests a comparison between the two things that are identified, as in death is a long sleep or the sleeping dead. A mixed metaphor occurs when two metaphors are jumbled together. For example, thorns and rain are illogically mixed in the thorns of life rained down on him. A dead metaphor is one that has been overused and has become a common expression, such as the arm of the chair or night fall. Metaphors are used to make writing, especially poetry, more vivid, imaginative, and meaningful. ONOMATOPOEIA Onomatopoeia is the use of words that imitate sounds. Examples of such words are buzz, hiss, murmur, and rustle. Isabella Stewart Gardner uses onomatopoeia in Summer Remembered: Sounds sum and summon the remembering of summers. The humming of the sun The mumbling in the honey-suckle vine The whirring in the clovered grass The pizzicato plinkle of ice in an auburn uncles amber glass. PARALLELISM Parallelism is the repetition of a grammatical structure. Robert Hayden concludes his poem Astronauts with these questions in parallel form: What do we want of these men? What do we want of ourselves? Parallelism is used in poetry and in other writing to emphasize and to link related ideas. POETRY Poetry is one of the three major types of literature. In poetry, form and content are closely connected, like the two faces of a single coin. Poems are often divided into lines and stanzas and often employ regular rhythmical patterns, or meters. Most poems make use of highly concise, musical, and emotionally charged language. Many also make use of imagery, figurative language, and special devices such as rhyme. See Genre. RHYME Rhyme is the repetition of sounds at the ends of words. Rhyming words have identical vowel sounds in their final accented syllables. The consonants before the vowels may be different, but any consonants, occurring after these vowels are the same, as in frog and bog or willow and pillow. End rhyme occurs when rhyming words are repeated at the ends of lines. Internal rhyme occurs when rhyming words fall within a line. Approximate, or slant rhyme occurs when the rhyming sounds are similar, but not exact, as in prove and glove. See Rhyme Scheme. RHYME SCHEME A rhyme scheme is a regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem. To describe a rhyme scheme, one uses a letter of the alphabet to represent each rhyming sound in a poem or stanza. Consider how letters are used to represent the rhymes in the following example:

With innocent wide penguin eyes, three a large fledgling mocking-birds below b

ROMANTICISM Romanticism was a literary and artistic movement of the nineteenth century, one that arose in reaction against eighteenthcentury Neoclassicism and that placed a premium on fancy, imagination, emotion, nature, individuality, and exotica. Romantic elements can be found in the works of American writers as diverse as Cooper, Poe, Thoreau, Emerson, Dickinson, Hawthorne, and Melville. Romanticism is particularly evident in the works of the New England Transcendentalists. See Classicism and Transcendentalism. SIMILE A simile is a figure of speech that makes a direct comparison between two subjects using either like or as. Here are two examples of similes: The trees looked like pitch forks against the sullen sky. Her hair was as red as a robins breast. See Figurative Language.

STANZA A stanza is a group of lines in a poem, considered as a unit. Many poems are divided into stanzas that are separated by spaces. Stanzas often function just like paragraphs in prose. Each stanza states and develops a single main idea. Stanzas are commonly named according to the number of lines found in them, as follows: 1. Couplet: a two-line stanza 2. Tercet: a three-line stanza 3. Quatrain: a four-line stanza 4. Cinquain: a five-line stanza 5. Sestet: a six-line stanza 6. Heptastich: a seven-line stanza 7. Octave: an eight-line stanza

THEME A theme is a central message or insight into life revealed by a literary work. An essays theme is often directly stated in its thesis statement. The theme of a story, poem, or play, however, is usually not directly stated. For example, in A Worn Path, on page 764, Eudora Welty does not directly say that. Phoenix Jacksons difficult journey shows the power of love, but readers learn this indirectly by the end of the story.

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