Figures of Speech and Poetic Form
What the examiner tests
This domain tests the vocabulary of figures of speech and the architecture of poems. You should recognise common figures quickly, then use form terms precisely: couplet, quatrain, octave, sestet, sonnet, ode, elegy, ballad, lyric, dramatic monologue, blank verse, free verse and refrain. The exam rewards correct form-to-feature matching, not decorative naming.
Core rules
- Figures: simile, metaphor, personification, apostrophe, hyperbole, oxymoron, antithesis, pun, alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia.
- A sonnet has 14 lines. Petrarchan: octave (abbaabba) plus sestet (cdecde or variant). Shakespearean: three quatrains plus couplet (abab cdcd efef gg).
- Blank verse is unrhymed iambic pentameter; free verse has no fixed metre or rhyme. They are not the same.
- Ode: elevated address or meditation, often irregular or Pindaric/Horatian. Elegy: lament for the dead. Ballad: narrative song, often quatrains and refrain. Lyric: short personal meditation. Dramatic monologue: one speaker addresses an implied listener and reveals character.
- Metre counts feet: iamb (unstressed-stressed), trochee, anapest, dactyl. Pentameter means five feet.
- Rhyme scheme uses letters for end sounds; sight rhyme looks alike but sounds different.
Worked example
A 14-line poem has three four-line stanzas and a final couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. It is a Shakespearean sonnet, not a Petrarchan sonnet, because the octave-sestet division is absent. If the poem addresses a season and ends with a turn in the couplet, note the volta. The reasoning must name line count, stanza pattern and rhyme scheme; calling it 'a sonnet' from length alone is incomplete.
Traps
Calling any 14-line poem a sonnet; confusing blank verse with free verse; mislabelling an ode as an elegy; forcing rhyme where there is sight rhyme; saying 'verse' when you mean 'stanza'; ignoring the volta.