Name: Zannatul Ferdaus Nayna
ID: 22103015
A Glossary of Literary Terms
for ENG 113 Home-Task
1. Alliteration: Repetition of a consonant at the beginning of two or more words or stressed
syllables. Example: “Haply some hoary-headed swain may say”
(Thomas Gray: “Elegy Written in a Country
Churchyard”)
2. Allusion: An allusion, which clarifies meanings and suggests a lot in a few words, may make
a literary work difficult but it enriches its literary quality. Example: “Nor shall death brag
thou wander’st in his shade.” (William Shakespeare:
“Sonnet 18”)
3. Assonance: Repetition of a vowel sound in nearby words. Example:
“Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;” (Keats: "To
Autumn")
4. Blank verse: Iambic pentameter verse lines without rhyme at the end. Example:
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race, (Tennyson:
"Ulysses")
5. Carpe diem: It is a Latin phrase often used by pedantic scholars. Carpe means “pluck”.
Carpe Diem means “pluck the day when it is ripe.” Example: Breaking in a sweat
Like a bomb threat
Is your silhouette fading out?
6. Conceit: Comparison between two far-fetched objects of different kinds. Example:
Where can we find two better hemispheres,
Without sharp North, without declining West? (John Donne: "The Good-
Morrow")
7. Connotation: The indirect meaning of a word. Example: “Shall I Compare Thee to a
Summer’s Day” (William Shakespeare: “Sonnet 18”)
8. Consonance: Repetition of consonants without similar vowels for two or more times at
the end of accented syllables. Example: “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May”
(Shakespeare: “Sonnet 18”)
9. Couplet: Two verse lines rhyming together at the end. Examples:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep, (Robert Frost: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”)
10. Denotation: The direct meaning of a word and it is also called literal or dictionary meaning.
Example: The denotation of the word "bird" is a winged biped that can fly.
11. Dramatic Monologue: It is a poetic form or a poem that presents the speech or conversation
of a person in a dramatic [Link]: And seemed as they would ask me- if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus.” (Robert Browning : “My Last Duchess” )
12. Elegy: An elegy is a form of poetry that typically reflects on death or loss. Traditionally, an
elegiacal poem addresses themes of mourning, sorrow, and lamentation. Example: “Elegy
Written in a Country Churchyard” by Thomas Gray–inspired by the death of the poet Richard
West.
13. Epic: An epic is a long narrative poem that is elevated and dignified in theme, tone,
and style. As a literary device, an epic celebrates heroic deeds and historically important
events. Example: The Mahābhārata: an epic poem from ancient India composed in Sanskrit.
14. Foot: A unit of two or more stressed and unstressed syllables in a verse line. Example: "The
ctfr / few t611s / the knell / of part / Ing day" (Thomas Gray: “Elegy Written in a
Country Churchyard”)
15. Free verse: Free verse is a literary device that can be defined as poetry that is free from the
limitations of a regular meter or rhythm and does not rhyme with fixed forms. Example:
“Come slowly, Eden
Lips unused to thee.” (Emily Dickinson: “Come Slowly, Eden”)
16. Hyperbole: An exaggerated statement or an extreme overstatement. Examples: “Ten
thousand saw I at a glance” (William Wordsworth: "Daffodils)
17. Image/ Imagery: “Picture in words”. It is a replica produced in the mind of the reader by
sense perception. Example: “The black cat is now in the dark room” reflects in our mind a
picture of an animal.
18. Metaphor: An implicit comparison between two different things. Example: “But thy eternal
summer shall not fade.” ( William Shakespeare: “Sonnet
18” )
19. Onomatopoeia: A figure in which the sound of the words and phrases suggests the sense.
Example: “With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run” (John Keats: “To Autumn”)
20. Oxymoron: A figure of speech in which two contradictory words are put together. Example:
“Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone” (W.H. Auden: Funeral Blues)
21. Personification: A figure of speech in which lifeless objects or ideas are given imaginary
life. Examples: “There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail” (Tennyson:
“Ulysses”)
22. Refrain: Refrain is a verse, a line, a set, or a group of lines that appears at the end of the
stanza, or appears where a poem divides into different sections.
Example: And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep. (Robert Frost: “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening”)
23. Simile: A simile is an explicit comparison between two different things. Usually “as” and
“like” are used in it. Example: As your hours do, and dry
Away
Like to the summer’s rain; (Robert Herrick; “To Daffodils”)
24. Sonnet: A sonnet is a poem generally structured in the form of 14 lines, usually
iambic pentameter, that expresses a thought or idea and utilizes an established rhyme
scheme. Example: Sonnet 116 (Shakespearean sonnet)
25. Symbol: A symbol is an image or thing that stands for something else. Example: Robert
Herrick’s poem “To the Virgins” uses a symbol of rosebuds in its first stanza.
