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21 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Syntax
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Syntax (i.e., the structure of words, phrases, clauses, and sentences) is one of the major determinants of poetic experience. Much more so than in prose fiction and drama, syntactic choices in poetry are thematized and therefore participate centrally in articulating a poem's defining metaphysical, psychological, and historical commitments.
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Diction
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Diction refers to a writer's word choice with the following considerations:
•denotation / connotation of a word;; besides the dictionary definition of a word (its denotation) a word can have an emotional charge or association that creates a secondary meaning (its connotation •degree of difficulty or complexity of a word •level of formality of a word •tone of a word (the emotional charge a word carries) •the above will often create a subtext for the text •cacophonous vs. euphonious (e.g., harsh sounding, raucous, croak or pleasant sounding, languid, murmur) |
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Syntax
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Syntax refers to the arrangement--the ordering, grouping, and placement--of words within a phrase, clause, or sentence. Some considerations:
•Type of sentence •Length of sentence •Subtle shifts or abrupt changes in sentence length or patterns •Punctuation use •Use of repetition •Language patterns / rhythm / cadence •How all of the above factors contribute to narrative pace •The use of active and/or passive voice |
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Tone
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Tone refers to a writer's ability to create an attitude toward the subject matter of a piece of writing; the tools a writer uses to create tone:
•Diction, Figurative language, Characterization, Plot, Theme |
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TP-CASTT Analysis – useful for analyzing poetry
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Title: Ponder the title before reading the poem
Paraphrase: Translate the poem into your own words Connotation: Contemplate the poem for meaning beyond the literal Attitude: Observe both the speaker's and the poet's attitude (tone) Shifts: Note shifts in speakers and in attitudes. Devices that help readers discover shift: •Key words (but, yet, however, although) •Punctuation (dashes, periods, colons, ellipsis) •Stanza or paragraph divisions •Changes in line or stanza length, or both •Irony (sometimes irony hides shifts) •Structure (how the work is written can affect its meaning) •Changes in sound (may indicate changes in meaning) •Changes in diction (ex: slang to formal language) Title: Examine the title again, this time on an interpretive level Theme: Determine what the poet is saying |
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Caesura
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Caesura. A pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry. The pause may or may not be typographically indicated
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Enjambed
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Enjambed. The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line. For example, the first two lines here are enjambed:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove. . . . --Shakespeare |
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Euphemism
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Euphemism. The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one, as in the use of "pass away" instead of "die." The basic psychology of euphemistic language is the desire to put something bad or embarrassing in a positive (or at least neutral light). Thus many terms referring to death, sex, crime, and excremental functions are euphemisms. Since the euphemism is often chosen to disguise something horrifying, it can be exploited by the satirist through the use of irony and exaggeration.
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Rhyme
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Rhyme. The similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines. Some kinds of rhyme (also spelled rime) include:
Couplet: a pair of lines rhyming consecutively. Eye rhyme: words whose spellings would lead one to think that they rhymed (slough, tough, cough, bough, though, hiccough. Or: love, move, prove. Or: daughter, laughter.) Feminine rhyme: two syllable rhyme consisting of stressed syllable followed by unstressed. Masculine rhyme: similarity between terminally stressed syllables |
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Caesura
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Caesura. A pause, metrical or rhetorical, occurring somewhere in a line of poetry. The pause may or may not be typographically indicated
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Enjambed
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Enjambed. The running over of a sentence or thought into the next couplet or line without a pause at the end of the line; a run-on line. For example, the first two lines here are enjambed:
Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds Or bends with the remover to remove. . . . --Shakespeare |
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Euphemism
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Euphemism. The substitution of a mild or less negative word or phrase for a harsh or blunt one, as in the use of "pass away" instead of "die." The basic psychology of euphemistic language is the desire to put something bad or embarrassing in a positive (or at least neutral light). Thus many terms referring to death, sex, crime, and excremental functions are euphemisms. Since the euphemism is often chosen to disguise something horrifying, it can be exploited by the satirist through the use of irony and exaggeration.
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Rhyme
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Rhyme. The similarity between syllable sounds at the end of two or more lines. Some kinds of rhyme (also spelled rime) include:
Couplet: a pair of lines rhyming consecutively. Eye rhyme: words whose spellings would lead one to think that they rhymed (slough, tough, cough, bough, though, hiccough. Or: love, move, prove. Or: daughter, laughter.) Feminine rhyme: two syllable rhyme consisting of stressed syllable followed by unstressed. Masculine rhyme: similarity between terminally stressed syllables |
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ASSONANCE
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ASSONANCE
The relatively close juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds, but with different end consonants in a line or passage, thus a vowel rhyme, as in the words, date and fade. |
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Chiasmus
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CHIASMUS
An inverted parallelism; the reversal of the order of corresponding words or phrases (with or without exact repetition) in successive clauses which are usually parallel in syntax, as Pope's "a fop their passion, but their prize a sot," or Goldsmith's "to stop too fearful, and too faint to go." Sidelight: While the term, chiasmus, is usually used in reference to syntax and word order, it also includes the repetition in reverse of any element of a poem, including sound patterns. Sidelight: An antimetabole (an-tye-muh-TAB-uh-lee) is a type of chiasmus in which the words reversed involve a repetition of the same words, as "do not live to eat, but eat to live," or Shakespeare's "Remember March, the ides of March remember." The distinction is not generally observed, however. |
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Consonance
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CONSONANCE
The close repetition of the same end consonants of stressed syllables with differing vowel sounds, such as boat and night, or the words drunk and milk in the final line of Coleridge's "Kubla Khan." |
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Couplet
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Two lines of verse
If iambic pentameter, heroic pentameter |
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METONYNT
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METONYMY
A figure of speech involving the substitution of one noun for another of which it is an attribute or which is closely associated with it, e.g., "the kettle boils" or "he drank the cup." |
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PALINDROME
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PALINDROME
A word, verse, or sentence in which the sequence of letters is the same forward and backward, as the word, madam, or the sentence, "A man, a plan, a canal: Panama." A variation in which the sequence of words is the same forward and backward is called a word-order palindrome. |
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PATHOS
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PATHOS
A scene or passage in a work evoking pity, sorrow, or compassion in the audience or reader, such as the poignant summation of the old man's grief in Wordsworth's Michael: Many and many a day he thither went, And never lifted up a single stone. |
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SYNECDOCHE
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SYNECDOCHE
A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole or the whole for a part, as wheels for automobile or society for high society. |
