Page 3 - 100 Best Loved Poems - Teaching Unit

100 Best-Loved Poems

Terms and Definitions

Alliteration - the repetition of sounds at the beginning of words. Example: More Mischief and
Merriment.

Allusion - a reference to a person, place, poem, book, event, etc., which is not part of the story,
that the author expects the reader will recognize. Example: In The Glass Menagerie, Tom
speaks of “Chamberlain’s umbrella,” a reference to British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain.

Anaphora - repetition of a word or group of words within a short section of writing. Example:
“A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is
planted.”–Ecclesiastes 3:2

Anthropomorphism - attributing human qualities, emotions, and behavior to animals. Examples:
In the Uncle Remus stories, the bear is usually portrayed as slow and dumb. Aesop’s Fables
also give animals emotions of jealousy, anger, revenge, etc., to illustrate a moral.

Assonance - repetition of an interior vowel sound within a short section. Example: Why does
my wife fly in the sky at night?

Ballad Stanza - a stanza of four lines of poetry with a rhyme scheme of abcb. Example:

It is an ancient Mariner, [A]
And he stoppeth one of three. [B]
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye. [C]
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?’ [B]

–The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Catalog Verse – a technique in poetry used to describe people, things, places, or ideas.
Example: W.H. Auden’s In Memory of W.B. Yeats.

Cliché - a familiar word or phrase that is used so often that it is no longer fresh or meaningful,
but trite. Example: “All’s well that ends well.”

Climax - the point of greatest dramatic tension or excitement in a story. Examples: Othello’s
murder of Desdemona. In To Kill a Mockingbird, the person chasing Scout is killed.

Colloquialism - a popular expression or term that may or may not be proper English. Example:
He hasn’t got any.

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