English

• persona


  the voice / person speaking in a poem

  
• tone


  the writer's or speaker's attitude towards what they are writing/speaking about.

  
• rhetorical question


  a question that doesn't expect an answer

  
• repetition


  the same word or phrase used in successive lines of poetry

  
• sibilance


  consonants produced with a hissing sound

  
• onomatopoeia


  words which imitate the sound they describe

  
• alliteration


  several words beginning with the same sound

  
• assonance


  repeated vowel sounds

  
• metaphor


  comparison of two unlike objects, without using 'like' or 'as

  
• personification


  giving an inanimate object human characteristics

  
• imagery


  language that appeals to the reader's senses, creating pictures in the reader's mind

  
• simile


  comparison of two unlike objects using the words 'like' or 'as

  
• enjambment


  the meaning of a line of poetry flows into another line without punctuation

  
• caesura


  a punctuation pause in the middle of a line of poetry

  
• stanza


  a verse of poetry

  
• volta


  a point in a poem where the tone/meaning changes dramatically

  
• rhyme


  repeated sounds at the end of lines

  
• metre


  a regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem

  
• couplet


  two lines together- sometimes rhyming

  
• sonnet


  a 14 line poem in iambic pentameter, with a regular rhyme scheme

  
• semantic field


  a group of closely related words distributed through a text

  
• ellipsis ...

  
• contrast


  a comparison showing differences between two things or people

  
• sensory description


  description that appeals to the senses of smell, sight, hearing, taste and touch

  
• hyperbole


  exaggeration

  
• free verse


  a form of poetry that does not have a regular metre or rhyme scheme - sounds like a person's free-flowing thoughts

  
• narrative poem


  a poem that tells a story

  
• epic poem


  a very long narrative poem

  
• Standard English


  English that is grammatically correct

  
• colloquialism


  informal words or language - a literary way of saying 'slang

  
• figurative language


  imagery that goes beyond the literal: simile, metaphor, personification

  
• foreshadowing


  A narrative device that hints at coming events; often builds suspense or anxiety in the reader

  
• dramatic irony


  Irony that occurs when the meaning of the situation is understood by the audience but not by the characters in the play

  
• in medias res


  into the middle of things - a common way of beginning a story - jumping straight into the midst of the action, usually at a crucial point, where clearly a lot has already happened. The author will then flash back to what happened earlier and fill in the details.

  
• blank verse


  Lines of iambic pentameter that do not rhyme. Much of Macbeth is written in blank verse.

  
• prose


  Ordinary form of written language - the way you would write an essay or a story. NOT poetry. Occasionally, Shakespeare uses prose in Macbeth.
• rhymed verse


  Lines of poetry that rhyme. Sometimes used in Macbeth.
• anaphora


  Repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences e.g. I believe I can fly. I believe I can touch the sky. I believe I can pass GCSE English.

  
• epistrophe


  The repetition of a word or words at the end of successive clauses or sentences.

  
• allegory


  A story that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.