Medium
Poetry
Forms & Metre
The rules behind the forms, and the poets who shaped them.
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A sonnet traditionally consists of how many lines?
Figures of Speech in Verse
These are the named moves in a poem: what each one does, and what it is usually paired against.
About this topic
Poetic devices sound like a schoolroom list and work like a set of tools. Each has a job, and most have an opposite that clarifies what the job is. Enjambment only means something against the end-stopped line. Hyperbole is easier to see next to litotes. The volta matters because a sonnet has spent its opening lines setting up something to turn against. The vocabulary is mostly Greek and Latin because it was assembled by classical rhetoricians who were teaching public speaking rather than verse. Poets inherited it, kept the useful parts, and quietly dropped the several hundred terms nobody needed. What remains is a small, durable set that describes what actually happens on the page.
Questions & answers
Figures of Speech in Verse: all 10 questions and answers
Every question in this quiz is listed below with its correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Play first if you would rather not see the answers — or read through as a study sheet.
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1A simile differs from a metaphor in which way?
- A It compares only living things
- B It must appear at the end of a line
- C It always involves colour
- D It states the comparison using "like" or "as" Correct
Answer: D. It states the comparison using "like" or "as"
Why: A metaphor asserts the identity outright instead of flagging it. That directness is why metaphor can carry more force in fewer words.
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2Enjambment occurs when what happens?
- A Two lines rhyme unexpectedly
- B A stanza is left one line short
- C A sentence runs past the line ending without a pause Correct
- D A line repeats the previous line exactly
Answer: C. A sentence runs past the line ending without a pause
Why: The opposite is the end-stopped line, which closes on its own punctuation. Milton used enjambment heavily to keep blank verse from sounding like a series of separate statements.
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3What is a caesura?
- A An extra stress on a weak beat
- B A pause falling within a line of verse Correct
- C A missing syllable at a line ending
- D A rhyme shared by three lines
Answer: B. A pause falling within a line of verse
Why: Old English verse was built around one, with two stressed syllables on either side. Editors sometimes mark it with a double vertical line.
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4Personification gives a non-human thing what?
- A Human qualities or actions Correct
- B A rhyming partner
- C A capital letter
- D A fixed number of syllables
Answer: A. Human qualities or actions
Why: When the poet then speaks directly to that thing, the device shifts into apostrophe. Both were once considered slightly suspect, on the grounds that they falsify the world.
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5Assonance is the repetition of what?
- A Consonant sounds
- B Whole words
- C Line lengths
- D Vowel sounds Correct
Answer: D. Vowel sounds
Why: Consonance does the same job with consonants. Neither needs the words to rhyme fully, which is why both can work in the middle of lines.
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6A refrain in a poem is what?
- A A line borrowed from another poet
- B An unrhymed opening line
- C A line or phrase repeated at intervals Correct
- D The final couplet of any stanza
Answer: C. A line or phrase repeated at intervals
Why: The device comes straight out of song. A villanelle builds its entire structure on two of them, alternating and then joining at the end.
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7The volta in a sonnet is what?
- A The rhyme scheme of the octave
- B A turn in the argument or mood Correct
- C The opening statement of the theme
- D A deliberate metrical error
Answer: B. A turn in the argument or mood
Why: In the Italian form it usually falls after the eighth line. The English form often postpones it to the closing couplet, which makes the ending sharper.
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8Which term describes deliberate exaggeration for effect?
- A Hyperbole Correct
- B Litotes
- C Metonymy
- D Zeugma
Answer: A. Hyperbole
Why: Litotes does the reverse, understating by denying the opposite, as in "not bad". The two are often used within a few lines of each other.
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9Metonymy substitutes what for the thing meant?
- A Its exact opposite
- B A word that sounds similar
- C A longer technical term
- D Something closely associated with it Correct
Answer: D. Something closely associated with it
Why: "The crown" standing for the monarchy is the stock example. Synecdoche is the narrower case in which a part stands for the whole.
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10An elegy is a poem of what kind?
- A A short comic verse
- B A poem addressed to a city
- C A lament, usually for someone who has died Correct
- D A celebration of a public victory
Answer: C. A lament, usually for someone who has died
Why: In Greek the word described a metre rather than a mood. The narrowing to grief happened much later, in English and other European traditions.
Frequently asked questions about Figures of Speech in Verse
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Figures of Speech in Verse has 10 questions and takes about 6 minutes to finish. It is rated Medium and sits in our Poetry category.
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Yes. All 10 questions carry a written explanation of why the correct answer is right, so the quiz works as a study sheet as well as a test.
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