Litotes
A figure of speech that combines opposite or contradictory terms in a brief phrase.
Parallel Structure
Having the same word patterns pop up in one sentence
Apostrophe
A figure of speech that directly addresses an absent or imaginary person or a personified abstraction, such as liberty or love.
The sonnet form composed of three quatrains and a final couplet written in iambic pentameter with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg
Connotation
Chaismus
Assonance
Repetition of vowel sounds
Anticlimax
a disappointing end to an exciting or impressive series of events
when a reader is aware of something that a character isn't
Anaphora
Repeating word patterns in front, across sentences.
Placement of two things closely together to emphasize comparisons or contrasts
Situational Irony
An outcome that turns out to be very different from what was expected
Scansion
The process of marking lines of poetry to show the type of feet and the number of feet they contain
An indirect, less offensive way of saying something that is considered unpleasant
Couplet
Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme
Caesurae
Caesuras (or caesurae) are those slight pauses one makes as one reads verse.
Asyndeton
Omitting conjunctions
End Rhyme
A word at the end of one line rhymes with a word at the end of another line
Syllepsis
a construction in which one word is used in two different senses ("After he threw the ball, he threw a fit.")
Diction
A writer's or speaker's choice of words
Damning with faint praise
(fallacy) attacking a person by formally praising him/her, but for an achievement that should not be praised
Exact Rhyme
Uses words with identical end sound
Motif
Feeling or atmosphere that a writer creates for the readers
Characteristic of ordinary conversation rather than formal speech or writing
Denotation
The dictionary definition of a word
Quatrain
A four line stanza
Antithesis
the direct opposite, a sharp contrast
Epiphany
A moment of sudden revelation or insight
