AP English Literature — Poetry and Forms flashcards
10 of 69 cards free to study here · 3 topics · the whole deck is built into Willys
Meter and scansion, rhyme types, lines and stanzas, fixed forms from the sonnet to the sestina, blank and free verse, the speaker, sound devices and poetic devices, with brief public-domain examples.
Learn deck · part of AP English Literature and Composition · written against: College Board AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description (literary terms, devices and forms). Updated 2026-10-10.
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What is a metrical foot, and what does scansion do with it?A foot is the basic repeating unit of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of verse; scansion marks the stresses and divides the line into feet to identify its meter.Structure › Meter
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Which metrical foot does the word 'delight' (de-LIGHT) form?An iamb — an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one (da-DUM). It is the most common foot in English verse because it echoes the natural rise and fall of speech.Structure › Meter
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Which metrical foot does the word 'garden' (GAR-den) form?A trochee — a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one (DUM-da).Structure › Meter
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Which metrical foot does the word 'understand' (un-der-STAND) form?An anapest — two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one (da-da-DUM). Anapestic lines tend to gallop forward.Structure › Meter
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In a poem written in the first person, why shouldn't you assume the 'I' is the poet?The speaker is a voice the poet creates — a persona, a character or a version of the self shaped for the poem. Keeping poet and speaker separate lets you read the irony and distance the poet builds in.Narration › Speaker
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What is a dramatic monologue, and what does Robert Browning's 'My Last Duchess' show about the form?A dramatic monologue is spoken by a character to a silent listener at a specific moment. In 'My Last Duchess' the Duke's own words strongly imply that he had his wife killed, so the reader learns more than the speaker means to reveal.Narration › Speaker
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What makes a poem a lyric rather than a narrative poem?A lyric is a short poem expressing a single speaker's thoughts or feelings in a moment, rather than telling an extended story. Sonnets, odes and elegies are lyric forms; ballads and epics are narrative.Narration › Speaker
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'The silver sails slid softly from the shore.' Which sound device dominates, and what effect does it produce?Alliteration — repeated initial consonant sounds, here s. The hissing sibilance creates a smooth, hushed music that matches the gliding boats.Figurative Language › Sound Devices
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'The low moan of the old road.' What sound device links these words, and what is its effect?Assonance — repeated vowel sounds (the long o) in nearby words. Long, open vowels slow the line and give it a mournful tone.Figurative Language › Sound Devices
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'Mild and cold, the wind held still.' Which sound device links 'mild,' 'cold,' 'wind' and 'held,' and how does it differ from assonance?Consonance — repetition of consonant sounds (the ld and nd endings) in words whose vowels differ. Consonance repeats consonants; assonance repeats vowels.Figurative Language › Sound Devices
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About these cards
Review status: Second-reader reviewed, with corrections applied.
Checked against:
- Topic order follows the big ideas of the College Board AP English Literature and Composition Course and Exam Description (effective Fall 2024; structure, narration, figurative language), used as a skills outline only (no text copied).
- Prosody and form terms checked against M. H. Abrams and Geoffrey Galt Harpham, A Glossary of Literary Terms; The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics; Chris Baldick, The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms; The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature; the Poetry Foundation and Academy of American Poets glossaries; the University of Virginia's For Better For Verse; the University of Toronto's Representative Poetry Online; and Merriam-Webster and the American Heritage Dictionary (reference only; no text copied). Quoted lines are brief excerpts from public-domain poems; other examples are original.
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