Contemporary Literature Terms

• Anaphora is a rhetorical device where the same word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of successive clauses or sentences. For example, "I have a dream" in Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech is an example of [blank].
• Parataxis is a literary technique where phrases and clauses are placed on after another independently without the use of conjunctions to create a sense is immediacy and simplicity.
• A metaphor is a figure of speech that directly refers to one thing by mentioning another for rhetorical effect, often by implying a comparison. For example, "Time is a thief."
• A simile is a figure of speech that directly compares two different things using words "like" or "as". For example, "Her eyes sparkled like diamonds."
• An image refers to a mental picture or representation of something, often created through vivid language in literature.
• Personification is a figure of speech in which human qualities are attributed to non-human entities or objects.
• Enjambment occurs in poetry when a sentence or phrase continues from one line or stanza to the next without a pause at the end of the line.
• In poetry, an end-stopped line is a line that ends with a natural pause or punctuation mark, indicating a definite pause in the rhythm.
• End rhyme occurs when the lase syllables or words in two or more lines of a poem rhyme with each other.
• Internal rhyme occurs when a rhyme occurs within a single line of verse, rather than at the end of two lines.
• Slant rhyme, also known as near rhyme or imperfect rhyme, occurs when the sounds of the words are similar but not identical.
• Synecdoche is a figure of speech in which a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa.
• Ekphrasis is a literary description of or commentary on a visual work of art.
• Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words.
• Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within nearby words in a sentence, phrase, or line of poetry.
• Syllabics is a poetic form where the poet arranges the syllables of words to create a desired rhythm or pattern.
• A sonnet is a poetic form consisting of 14 lines. The Italian or Petrarrchan [blank] typically consists of an octave followed by a sestet, while the Shakespearean or English [blank] typically consists of three quatrains and a final couplet.
• Free verse is poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter.
• Blank verse is poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter.
• Iambic meter is a poetic meter consisting of lines with five iambs, or metrical feet, per line, with each foot consisting of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable.