Lit Terms Period 6
Terms
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- METER
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The regular patterns of accent that underlie metrical verse; the measurable reptition of accented and unaccented syllables of poetry.
The measured arrangement of words in poetry (Metrical lines are measured by naming the # of feet; Monometer = 1 foot, Dimeter = 2 feet, etc.) - Form
- The external pattern or shape of a poem, describable without reference to its content, as continuous form, stanzaic form, fixed form (and their varieties), free verse, and syllabic verse.
- Consonance
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The repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words
Ex. "stroke of luck" - Euphony
- A smooth, pleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds
- Figurative Language
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Language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken literally or only literally. Figurative is key, as this language employs figures of speech; says something other than literal meaning of words.
Ex: Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken" uses figurative language. - Continuous Form
- That form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning.
- Free Verse
- Nonmetrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, and in which pauses, line breaks, and fromal patterns develop organically from the requirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms
- Expected rhythm
- The rhythmic expectation set up by the basic meter of a poem
- METONYMY
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A figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience.
A figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated.
Examples: 1.) Washington for the United States Government 2.) Sword for military power - Stanza
- A group of lines whose metrical pattern (and usually its rhyme scheme as well) is repeated throughout a poem.
- Refrain
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Def: a repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines, normally at some fixed position in a poem written in stanzaic form.
Example:
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the sea and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be..." Churchill
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. Dylan Thomas - Couplet
- Two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme.
- Paradoxical Situation
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A situation containing apparently but not actually incompatible events; Something that does not seem like it could be true but it really does have a logical explanation
Example: the celebration of a fifth birthday of a twenty-year-old man (the man was actually born on February 29). - Stanzaic form
- The form take by a poem when it is written in a series of units having the same number of lines and usually other characteristics in common, such as metrical pattern or rhyme scheme.
- Extended figure
- A figure of speech (usually metaphor, similie, personification, or apostrophe) sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem
- Dactyl
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A metrical foot consisiting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables.
Ex. mer-ri-ly - Denotation
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The basic definitioin or dictionary meaning of a word
ex:The words childlike and childish both mean "characteristics of a child" but childlike suggests meekness, and innocence, where childish suggests pettiness and and temper tantrums. - Grammatical pause
- (also known as caesura) A pause introduced into the reading of a line by a mark of punctuation, Heard Rhythm. The actual rhythm of a metrical poem as we hear it whn it is read naturally. The heard rhythm mostly conforms to but sometimes departs from or modifies the expected rhythm
- Dactylic Meter
- A meter in which a majority of the feet are dactyls.
- Anapest
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def:a metrical foot sonsisting of two unaccented sylllables followed by one accented syllable
ex. se-ven-teen
un-der-stand
ex. in a line of vers:
"Twas-the-night be-fore-Christ mas-and-all through-the-house - Hexameter
- A metrical line containing 6 feet
- Quatrain
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1) four line stanza
ex: Quatr- 4
train goes.. stanza..stanza..stanza..stanza..STANZAA!
2) A 4 line division of a sonnet marked off by its rhyme scheme - Paraphrase
- A restatement of the content of a poem designed to make its prose meaning as clear as possible. It would likely be used to condense a piece of a poem that is very difficult to understand or hard to comprehend.
- Stress
- Same as accent. A syllable given more prominence in pronunciation than its neighbors.
- End-Stopped line
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A line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation.
Emily Dickinson uses this alot...for example:
A Clock stopped --
Not the Mantel's --
Geneva's farthest skill
Can't put the puppet
bowing --
That just now dangled still
--
The end-stopped lines you see end with this: -- . - Structure
- The internal organization of a poem's content.
- Pentameter
- In poetry, a metrical line containing five feet.
- Tercet
- A three-line stanza exhibited in terza rima and villanelle as well as in other poetic forms.
- Run-on line
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A line which has no natural speech pause at its end, allowing the sense to flow uninterruptedly into the succedding line.
example: basically a poem without punctuations(think run on sentences). - METRICAL VARIATIONS
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Departures from or variations of the basic metrical pattern.
Types:
1. Substitution: replacement of the regular foot with another one
2. Extra-Metrical Syllables: added at the beginning or ending of lines
3. Truncation: omission of an unaccented syllable at either end of a line - Ballad
- A fairly short narrative poem written in songlike stanza form.
- Figure of Speech
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Broadly, any way of saying something other than the ordinary way; more narrowly (and for the purposes of this bhook), a way of saying one thing and meaning another. Basically, saying one thing and meaning another.
Ex: "Don't have a cow" -Bart Simpson
Bart doesn't really really mean you shouldn't be in possession of a cow, but rather that you should take it easy.
"He's got beef wit you" -Gangster
The gangster is not really sharing processed cow meat with you, but rather, has a problem with you. - Triple meter
- A meter in which a majority of the feet contain 3 syllables. (Actually, if more than 25 percent of the feet in a poem are triple, its effect is more triple than duple, and it ought perhaps to be referred to as a triple meter.) Anapestic and dactylic are both triple meters
- MONOMETER
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A metrical line containing one foot, which usually consists of one accented syllable plus one or two unaccented syllables
Example: In-ter-vene
(Dimeter = 2 feet, Trimeter = 3 feet, etc.) - Didactic Poetry
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Poetry having as a promary purpose to teach or preach
Ex: Early to bed and early to rise
Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and
wise - Substitution
- In metrical verse, the replacement of the expected metrical foot by a different one (for example, a trochee occurring in an iambic line).
- Personification
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A figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object or a concept.
Example: Life dealt him a heavy blow. - Sarcasm
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Bitter or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to give pain to the person addressed
example: (person 1 sees person 2 with a bad test score) person 1 says: wow your are really smart! - Irony
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A situation or use of language involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy
Three kinds of irony include:
(a) verbal irony
(b) dramatic irony
(c) irony of situation - OCTAVE
- An eight-line stanza or the first eight lines of a sonnet (esp. one structured in the manner of an Italian sonnet)
- Blank Verse
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Unrhymed iambic pentameter
(Rehearse the Blank Verse five times) - Accent
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In this book, the same as stress. A syllable given more prominence in pronunciation than its neighbors is said to be accented.
This often comes up when discussing the meter and rythem of a poem. - English Sonnet
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A sonnet rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. It's content or structure ideally parallels the rhyme scheme, falling into three coordinate quatrains (stanzas of four lines) and concluding couplet (a two-lined stanza; but it is often structured, like the Italien sonnet, into octace and sestet, the principle break in thought coming at the end of the eighth line.
The word sonnet means "little song". - Villanelle
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A 19 line fixed form consisting of five tercets rhymed aba and a concluding quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercet serving as refrains in an alternating pattern through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19.
ex: page 237 - Fixed Form
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A form of poem in whicfh the length and pattern are prescribed by usage or tradition, such as sonnet, limerick, villanelle, and so on. It's basically a poem catergorized by a pattern of lines, meter, rhythm.
Ex: A sonnet MUST have 14 lines. Limericks MUST be in the same form, etc. - Sustained figured
- Same as Extended figure. A figure of speech (usually metaphor, simile, personification, or apostrophe) sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem.
- Anaphora
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def: the deliberate repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive verses
ex: The poem, "O Captain! My Captain" (the repeat of the phrase " ")
clue: the root ANA means again or to repeat - Satire
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A kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the ostensible purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice
example: most of Mark Twain's novels, like "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" - Extra-metrical syllables
- In metrical verse, extra unaccented syllables addd at the beginnings or endings of lines; these may either be a feature of the metrical form of a poem (example, "Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries," (p203) on even-numbered lines) or occur as exceptions to the form (example, "Virtue," (page 192), in lines 9 and 11). In iambic lines, they occur at the end of a line. In trochaic, they occur at the begining.
- Tetrameter
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Poetic metre in which there are four metrical feet per line.
Let her /live to /earn her /dinner.
/ U / U / U / U - TRUNCATION
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In metric verse, the omission of an unaccented syllable at either end of a line.
(To "Truncate" means to "shorten" or "cut off") - Cacophony
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A harsh, discordant sound, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds
Used to contrast euphony.
(The cacophony of the screeching crows) - Verbal Irony
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A figure of speech in which what is meant is the opposite of what is said. Sarchastic.
(example): Here's some BAD news, you all got A's on your test! - Apostrophe
- Def: the exact
- Hyperbole
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A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth; or for emphasis or effect. A figure of speech in which the expression is an evident exaggeration of the meaning intended to be conveyed, or by which things are represented as much greater or less, better or worse, than they really are.
Ex: I'm so hungry I could eat a horse!
Ex: That man is a giant.
Ex: The girl who was late for class flew down the hallway. - Syllabic verse
- Verse measured by the number of syllables rather than the number of feet per line.
- Foot
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The basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of metrical verse. A foot usually cotnains one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables. Basically, it's the unit that measures poetry. It usually has one or two unstressed syllables.
Hint: Think of it as poetry's "metrical unit". - Double rhyme
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A rhyme in which the repeated vowel is in the second to last syllable of the words involved
Ex: Polietly-rightly-spritely - Petarchan Sonnet
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a sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abbaabba sestet using any arrangement of two or three additional rhymes, such as cdcdcd or cdecde.
like an Italian sonnet (page 192) - Feminine rhyme
- A rhyme in which the repeated accented vowel is in either the second or third last syllable of the words involved. (example, ceiling-appealing, hurrying-scurrying)
- Scansion
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The process of measuring metrical verse--of marking accented and unaccented syllables, dividing the lines into feet, identifying the metrical pattern, and noting significant variations from that pattern
example: what we did in class with Mr. Budden - Allegory
- A narrative or discription having a second meaning beneath the surface one.
- Connotation
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What a word suggest beyond its basic definition; a word's overtones of meaning.
(A revolver reminds people of the old west) - Trimeter
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A metrical line containing three feet.
Ex: When here the spring we see,
Fresh green upon the tree. - Sentimental poetry
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Poetry that attempts to manipulate the reder's emotions in order to achieve a greater emotional response than th epoem itself really warrants
example: you read a book and cries, but the book is not really sad (better example in some movies). - Onomatopoeia
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The use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound/formantion of a word from a sound associated with what is named/imitate sounds associated with objects and actions
ex. boom, click, plop,cuckoo, babble, sizzle, buzz, crackle, hiss - Apostrope
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def: the direct address of an abesent or imaginary person
ex: In this poem, the poet directly scolds the sun;
Busy old fool, unruly sun,
Why doust thou tus,
Through
Windows, and through curtains call on us? - Caesura
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A speech pause occurring within a line used to vary the rhythm of the poem.
(While reading the line I had a seizure and paused) - Iamb
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A metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, or a short syllable followed by a long syllable.
Ex: delay
Ex: forget
Ex: impair - Phonetic Intensive
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A word whose sound, by an obscure process, to some degree suggests its meaning. As differentiated from onomatopoetic words, the meanings of the phonetic intensives do not refer explicitly to sounds (page 213)
ex: fl- usually connotates moving :
flow, flame - Dramatic Irony
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A device by which the author implies a different meaning from that intended by the speaker in a literary work.
(example): "The Chimney Sweeper" by William Blake on page 117. - Sestet
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1) A six-line stanza
2) The last six lines of a sonnet structured on the Italian model
(The pronounciation is very similar to "six sets".) - Tone
- The writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, audience, or him or herself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work.
- Rhetorical Pause
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Def: a natural pause, unmarked by punctuation, introduced into the reading of a line by its phrasing or syntax
Synonym: caesura; often shown by the parallel symbol
Examples:
Sorrow is my own yard
Where the new grass
Flames
As it has flamed
Often before
But not
With the cold fire
that close round me this year.
Sweet rose, whose hue, angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die. Herbert - Onomatopoetic Language
- Language employing onomatopoeia or using onomatopoeia words.
- Assonance
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Def: the resemblace and repetition of sound, especially vowel sounds in words
Ex: free and easy
mad as a hatter
tilting at windmills - Prose meaning
- That part of a poem's total meaning that can be separated out and expressed through paraphrase
- Dramatic Framework
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The situation, whether actual or fictional, realistic or fanciful, in which an author places his of her characters in order to express the theme.
Ex: "The Man He Killed"
"Terrence, this is stupid stuff" - Simile
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A figurative speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. The comparison is made explict by the use of some such word or phrases as like, as, tan, similar to, resembes, or seems.
Example: He is like a bottle. - Single rthme
- The same as Masculine rhyme
- Synethesia
-
Presentation of one sense experience in terms usually associated with another sensation.
(Such as the color blue may incite other senses such as your mood or how you feel rather than just the color you see) - Prose poem
- usually a short composition having the intentions of poetry but written in prose rather than verse.
- Duple Meter
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A meter in which a majority of the feet contain two syllables. Iambic and trocahic are both duple meters.
Example:
Round about the cauldron go,
In the poisoned entrails throw. - Alliteration
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The repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words
Ex: map-moon,preach-approve
Important words and accented syllables beginning with vowels may also be said to alliterate with each other inasmuch as they all have the same lack of initial consonant sound. - Sonnet
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A fixed form of fourteen lines, normally iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme conforming to o rapproximating one of two main types--Italian or the English.
Example: try search for some of Shakespeare's works online. - Terza rima
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An interlocking rhyme scheme with the pattern aba bob cdc
Ex: Dante's Inferno - Allusion
- A referance, explicit or implicit, to something in literature or history.
- Spondee
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A metrical foot consisting of two syllables equally or almost equally accented
Example: true blue; fast fact, etc - End Rhyme
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Rhyme in which the rhyming words occur at the ends of lines. Also known as terminal rhyme.
My weekend was like nay other,
I went to a movie with my Mother. - Rhetorical Poetry
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Def: poetry using artificially eloquent language; that is, language too high-flown for its occasion and unfaithful to the full complexity of human experience
Examples:
Whereat with blade, with bloody, blameful blade,
He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast. Shakespeare
"From the rocky coast of Maine to the sun-washed shores of California." - Approximate rhyme
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Def: words in a rhyming pattern that have some kind of sound correspondence but are not perfect rhymes.
Ex: Daylight Saving-Dorothy Parker
My answers are inadequate
To those demanding day and date
And ever set a tiny shock
Through strangers asking what's o'clock;
Those days are spent in whittling rhyme... - Iambic meter
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A meter in which the majority of feet are iambs.
Examples of this are iambic dimeter(2 feet), iambic trimeter(3 feet), iambic tetrameter(4), iambic pentameter(5)
Literary example: "Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,/ The bridal of the earth and sky;/ The dew shall weep thy fall to night,/ For thou must die." - Virtue by George Herbert - Irony of Situation
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A situation in which there is an incongruity between actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate
*or*
between what is anticipated and what acutally happens. - Overstatement (hyperbole)
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A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used in the service of truth, An exaggerated statement not meant to be taken literally, to exaggerte
if something is OVER the top it is an OVERstatement
ex. a thousand apologies, this book weighs a ton, I could sleep a year - Rhetorical Stress
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Def: in natural speech, as in prose and poetic writing, the stressing of words or syllables so as to emphasize meaning and sentence structure
Examples:
"I don't believe you."
This phrase can have different meanings depending on which word is stressed. - Symbol
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A figure of speach in which something (object, person, situation, or action) means more than what it is.
A symbol, in other words, may be read both literally and metaphorically. - Aubade
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Def: A pem about love; a morning love song
Ex: look at page 372 in Sound and Sense Book
Clue: Think Aubade...serenade (to serenade someone with a love song) - Imagery
- The representation through language of sense experience. A set of mental pictures or images. The use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects.
- Italian Sonnet
- A sonnet consisting of an octave, abbaabba, and a sestet, cdcdcd or cdecde.
- Oxymoron
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A compact paradox in which two successive words seemingly contradict each other,two words that seem to contradict one another
greek word formed from the words SHARP and DULL
ex. deafening silence, cheerful pessimist, sophomore comes from the words wise and foolish - Synechdoche
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Def: when one uses a part as a whole
Ex: *"Give me a hand" when you just want help
*the song "Hotel of California" throughout the song, the use of california is meant to represent the United States in general - Rhythm
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Def: any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound; found in all forms of language
Synonym: Stream
Eight Types:
-Iamb
-Anapest
-Trochee
-Dactyl
-Spondee
-Pyrrhic
-Amphibrach
-Amphimacer
Examples:
TELL me NOT in MOURNful NUMbers.
THIS is the FORest priMEval, the MURmuring PINES and the HEMlock. - Internal rhyme
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A rhyme in which one or both of the rhymed words occurs within the line. NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH END RHYME!
Ex: "the grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother" - Dylan Thomas
~~grains rhymes with veins~~ - Paradox
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A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements, a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement even if it is well-founded, a person or thing conflicting with preconceived notion of what is possible or reasonable
ex. I always lie, wild civility - Understatement
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A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrents, statement below the truth
ex. Ms. Rinker is cool - Masculine Rhyme
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When the last syllable of the word is the rhyming one and it is a vowel sound.
(example):
i like to dance
in my new pants