○ Free verse: open form of poetry, that does not use a specific pattern of rhyme
○ End rhyme: rhyme at the end of a line
○ Internal rhyme: rhyme within a line
○ Eye rhymes: rhymes you are able to hear
○ Near rhyme: when a poet uses poetic license to rhyme words that do not sound quite the same (“worm” and “swarm” is an example)
○ Quatrain: four-line stanza (poetic paragraph)
○ Couplet: two lines of poetry
○ Rhyme scheme: pattern of rhyme for an entire poem
○ Lines in structured poems often follow a regular pattern of rhythm
■ A meter counts the measure of a line
○ Feet: the pattern of stressed or unstressed syllables
○ Iambic Meter: very common; in a poetic foot, it is two syllables with the stress on the second syllable
■ “Again” or “by far” are examples of this
○ Iambic pentameter: line consists of five iambic feet
○ Iambic tetrameter: measures four iambic feet
○ Blank verse: unrhymed iambic pentameter
○ Gives hints about how the structure of a poem relates to the meaning of it
○ Look at how the structure reinforces the meaning of he poem
○ Sonnet: most common forms; traditionally written as love poems, but can also be written as war poems, protest poems, and parodies
■ Consist of 14 lines
■ Usually in an iambic pentameter
● Petrarchan sonnet: also known as Italian sonnet. Is divided into an octave (eight lines) rhyming abba, abba and a sestet (six lines), with a variety of rhyme schemes.
● Shakespearean sonnet: also known as English sonnet. Consists of three four-line stanzas and a couplet at the end.
○ Elegy: a poem about death, or about someone who has died
○ Lyric: short poem expressing personal thoughts and feelings; first person speaker
○ Ode: form of poetry used to address a single object or condition.
○ Villanelle: form of poetry that contains five tercets that are followed by a quatrain. At the end of tercets two and four, the first line of tercet one is repeated. At the end of tercets three and five, the last line of tercet one is repeated.
○ Enjambment: run on line, where one line ends without a pause and continues to the next line
○ Caesura: pause within line of poetry
○ Musical quality of poetry
○ Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds
○ Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds
○ Onomatopoeia: use of a word that refers to a noise
■ “Boom” is an example. It is mimicked by the noise
● To outline and annotate your prompt and prose, you must have:
○ A strong thesis statement: This is one of the most important things in AP Literature. You must be able to answer the prompt as stated without missing important details.
■ A thesis statement can look like: In [poet’s name] poem, [name of poem], [short summary; very brief], the usage of [two to three literary devices; very important to put descriptive adjectives in front of your main points] reveals [rephrase the prompt], demonstrating/in order to show/portraying, [universal theme].
○ You should also have three pieces of textual evidence per main point outlined in the thesis statement.
○ When reading the poem, you should look for and annotate:
■ Figurative language
■ Shifts in tone or meaning
■ Poetic structure and form
■ Diction and syntax that relate to main idea (very commonly used in the thesis statement)
○ Try to practice multiple choice questions