1. Couplet Two lines of poetry with the same rhyme and Meter, often expressing a complete and self-contained thought. EX: Alexander Pope's "Elegy to the Memory of an Unfortunate Lady“ Tis Use alone that sanctifies Expense, Tis Use alone that sanctifies Expense, And Splendor borrows all her rays from Sense.

2. Dactylic: In poetry, a foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented. EX: Man-ni-kin or Josh-u-a

3. Denotation: The dictionary meaning of a word, as opposed to connotation.

4. Dialects: When the speech of two groups or two persons both speaking the same language exhibits very marked differences, the groups or persons are said to speak different dialects. EX: Southern dialect: What ya’ll fixin’ to do tonight?

5. Diction: The choice and arrangement of words in a literary work. EX: “pure eyes” of Mrs. Wilkins.

6. Didactic: From the Greek, didactic literally means “teaching.” Didactic works have the primary aim of teaching or instructing, especially the teaching of moral and ethical principles. Some of the maxims in Poor Richard’s Almanac are didactic like “Early to bed, early to rise make a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

7. Dramatic Monologue: A monologue set in a specific situation and spoken to an imaginary audience. (Similar to a soliloquy). EX: Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess”

8. Elegy: A lyric poem that laments the death of a person or the eventual death of all people. In a conventional elegy, set in a classical world, the poet and subject are spoken of as shepherds. In modern criticism, the word elegy is often used to refer to a poem that is melancholy or mournfully contemplative. EX: John Milton's "Lycidas"

9. Enjambment: The running over of the sense and structure of a line of Verse or a couplet into the following line or couplet. EX: Andrew Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" "My vegetable love should grow Vaster than empires and more slow."

10. Epigram: A pithy saying, often using contrast. The epigram is also a verse form, usually brief and pointed. “Man proposes but God disposes” or “Only those deserving of scorn are apprehensive of it.”