Couplet | Example of Couplet

 Couplet:

A couplet is a pair of successive lines of verse having the same meter and often forming a complete thought. Couplet generally appears in poetry. A couplet generally consists of two lines of verse which rhyme together & are of the same length. “The Night Before Christmas,”  “The Canterbury Tales” are written entirely in couplets. Shakespeare and Alexander Pope were both well known for their writing in heroic couplets.

Example of couplet:

"A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

Here the last word of the first line and second line has the similar sounds ‘ing’.

Conceit | Example of Conceit

Conceit:

Conceit is an elaborate poetic image or a far-fetched comparison of very dissimilar things. Conceit is a witty or ingenious turn of phrase. A conceit invites the reader into a more sophisticated understanding of an object of comparison by manipulating images and ideas in surprising ways.

Example of Conceit:

In “A Valediction Forbidding Mourning “Donne compares between two lovers’ soul & the two arms of a pair of compasses.

 If they be two, they are two so

A stiff twin compasses are two;

Climax | Example of Climax

Climax:

Climax is the highest or more intense point or the peak of importance in a play or in a story. Climax is the point of which the rise of action ends and the fall of action begins. The climax of Hippolytus, written by Euripides, for example, is the point at which, when Phaedra hears Hippolytus react rudely because of her love for him. It is the time that Aphrodite's curse is finally fulfilled, and while not action-packed. It is the turning point of the whole play.

Classicism

Classicism:

Classicism is a doctrine of art and literature. Classicism was  followed by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Classicism is opposite to romanticism. Classicism's main features are:

a) Clarity, simplicity and balance:
b) Respect and tradition;
c) Restraint or control;
d) Precision;

e) Predominance of reason over emotion;
g) Importance to form rather than to content;

Chorus

Chorus:

Chorus is a group of performers in a play who comment on the action and provide mood and atmosphere for it. Milton uses such a chorus in Samson Agonistes. The number of persons in a chorus may be reduced from group to a single person; such a chorus is usually called single chorus. The Fool in King Lear is an example of a single chorus.

Chiasmus | Examples of Chiasmus

Chiasmus

Chiasmus is the inversion in the order of words or phrases when repeated. Chiasmus is used to make the meaning more impressive. Chiasmus was popular both in Latin and Greek literature.

Examples of Chiasmus:

" Beauty is truth, truth beauty, "

(Keats: "Ode on a Grecian Urn" )

Or,   " Fair is foul, and foul is fair;"

(Shakespeare: Macbeth)

Catharsis

Catharsis

Catharsis means the purgation or purification of pity and fear. Catharsis is a dramatic presentation of suffering and defeat arouses pity and fear in spectators to such an extent that a spectator, after watching such scenes, feels relieved of those emotions as after storm comes calmness and serenity.

Catastrophe

Catastrophe

A catastrophe is the final scene of  a tragedy in which the action ends with the death of the hero and other characters. Catastrophe takes place in the last scene of King Lear in which all the important characters- King Lear, Cordelia, Regan, Goneril, Edmund and Gloucester- die. 

In Othello Catastrophe occurs when Othello kills Desdemona and then kills himself. 

The catastrophe of Hamlet is in the death of Hamlet, Gertrude and Laertes ( son to Polonius ). Catastrophe is the tragic outcome of a tragedy.

Caesura | Example of Caesura.

Caesura

Caesura is a pause in the rhythmic progression in a line of poetry. Caesuras or caesurae is the plural form of Caesura. The caesura often is used to stress the formal metrical structure of a line but it more of sometimes introduces the cadence of natural speech patterns and habits of phrasing into the metrical scheme. 

Example of Caesura

Caesura is indicated by the mark " | | " as is shown in the following lines of Dryden's Absalom and Achitophel :

In friendship false, | | implacable in hate,

Resolved to ruin | | or to rule the state;

Caesura is used to bring variety in the natural rhythm. It also produces metrical subtlety and makes meanings sharp and distinct.

Blank Verse | Examples of Blank Verse Poetry.

Blank Verse:

Blank verse is a form of poetry. Blank verse is poetry consisting of iambic pentameter lines without rhyme at the end. Blank verse is any kind of verse consisting of unrhymed  lines all in the same meter, usually iambic pentameter. An iambic pentameter line is a line of five iambic feet. William Shakespeare wrote most of his play in Blank verse.

Example of Blank Verse:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

(Macbeth by William Shakespeare)

Assonance: Examples of Assonance

Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of a vowel sound without the recurrence of a consonant sounds which would make a rhyme within phrases or sentences. Love and dove is a case of rhyme as both vowels and consonants are repeated. But there is an assonance in write and ride as a vowel sound ("ai" ) is repeated. For one more example notice the repetition of "o" in the following line of Keats' "To Autumn":

"Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies:"

Like alliteration, assonance also imparts musical effects to the language in which it is used.

Examples of Assonance/ Assonance Examples

Lots of examples of assonance can be found in prose and poetry. Assonance is the repetition of a vowel. Assonance occurs when vowels are repeated in words which are close to each other. Sometime Assonance examples are too hard to find because they work subconsciously.

A few examples of assonance:

1.Notice the repetition of "u" in the following line of  Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Frost at Midnight"

“That solitude which suits astruser musings”

2.  “The Princess VII.203” by Alfred Lord Tennyson  is another example of assonance

 

“And murmuring of innumerable bees”

Archaism- Defination and Examples of Archaism.

Archaism: An archaism is the use of a form of speech or writing that is no longer current. A word or style of expression which has already been outdated. Example of archaism-

Lord, thou hast examined me and knowest me.

Thou knowest all, whether I sit down or rise up:

thou hast discerned my thoughts from afar.

(The Bible, "Psalms"-139)

Here the words "thou" for you,  " for know, "hast" for has. A modern writer uses it to add gravity to his meanings.

Aphorism-definition and examples of Aphorism.

Aphorism: A terse expression of a universal truth. Example of Aphorism-

"Wives are young men's mistresses; companions for middle age; and old men's nurses."

(Bacon: "Of Marriage and Single Life")

The use of aphorism reflects the depth of an author's personal experience. It is different from a proverb: a proverb is an anonymous expression of a general truth while an aphorisms are individual.

Anti-climax or Bathos- Definition of Anti-climax or Bathos.

Anti-climax or Bathos: Anti-climax or Bathos is a statement in which there is a sudden fall from the serious to trivial, from the sublime to the ridiculous. Example of Anti-climax or Bathos:

Not louder shrieks to pitying heaven are cast,

When husbands, or when lapdogs breathe their last;

(Pope: The Rape of the Lock)

Here is a sudden fall of importance from husbands to dogs. Poets use anti-climax to produce humour.

Anapaest-anapest- examples of Anapaest.

Anapaest or anapest: An Anapaest (also spelled anapest) is a metrical foot comprising three syllables of which the first two are unstressed and the third is stressed. Example of Anapaest:

Like a child/ from the womb,/ like a ghost/ from the tomb,

I arise/ and unbuild/ it again.

(Shelley: "The Cloud")

The use of anapaest gives swiftness to the movement of the verse line in which it is used. Poets create the illusion of swift-movement and action by its use.

Allusion-examples of Allusion- What is an Allusion?

Allusion: Allusion is an implicit or indirect reference to another work of art or literature, to a historical person or event. Example of  Allusion:

Not half so fixed the Trojan could remain,
While Anna begged and Dido raged in vain.
(Pope: The Rape of the Lock)

Here is an allusion to the dilemma of Aeneas, the hero of Virgil's Aeneid. Aeneas falls in love with Dido, the queen of Carthage. Dido implores Aeneas to marry her and get settled permanently in Carthage. Though Aeneas is deeply in love with her, he cannot ignore his duty to continue his voyage in search of a permanent empire for his future generation. He is torn between love and duty. This dilemma of Aeneas has been recalled here to suggest the intensity of Belinda's crisis. An allusion, which clarifies meanings and suggests a great deal in a few words, makes a work of literature difficult to understand but adds dignity to it.

Alliteration-examples of Alliteration- Define Alliteration.

Alliteration: Alliteration is a Literary Terms. Alliteration means repetition of a consonant in two or more words. Notice the following line from Pope's The Rape of the Lock:

Puffs, powders, patches, Bibles, billet-doux.

Here "p" has been repeated thrice and "b" twice. So there are two cases of alliteration in this line. Alliteration is used both in poetry and in prose for musical effects.