Last Minute Preparation for the Final Exam

A group of lines of poetry is called a stanza, and stanzas of different lengths have different names:

2 lines = couplet

3 lines = tercet

4 lines = quatrain

5 lines = cinquain

6 lines = sestet

7 lines = septet

8 lines = octave

A break within a line of poetry that represents a pause is called a caesura.

Poets use words to translate an emotion from themselves to a reader or listener, and word choice, also known as diction, is crucial in that process. In selecting the right words, poets consider connotation, denotation, and even the etymology of the word. Etymology is the study of the history of words.

Edgar Allan Poe is credited for creating the sub-genre of the short story known as The Detective Story.

Throughout this semester we have study prose and prosody. It's important to know the difference. Prose is the term used to denote everyday language. Essays and short stories are examples literature written in prose. In short, prose is everything that is NOT poetry.

Prosody, on the other hand, is the sound of poetry. Rhythm, rhyme, and alliteration are all examples of what contributes to a poem's prosody.

To round out your knowledge, be sure to review the crossword puzzles and the "unscrambling poetic terms" worksheets that I distributed in class.

The literature questions that correspond to the short stories that we have studied are not new to you. In fact, most of them come from either quizzes or the questions at the end of each story.