Dancing in the Dark Trivia Quiz

Answer: alliteration

Together with rhyme, alliteration - the repetition of the same initial consonant sound in two or more adjacent words - is one of the most frequent and distinctive poetic devices. As in the title of this quiz (also the title of a number of popular songs), alliteration can make a piece of text particularly catchy and memorable. Not surprisingly, idioms and proverbs, such as "curiosity killed the cat", often feature alliteration - as do tongue-twisters such as the well-known "she sells sea-shells by the sea shore", based on the repetition of "s" and "sh" sounds. An adjective-noun pair linked by alliteration (such as "rocky road" or "quick quiz") is often referred to as "head rhyme".

Alliterative verse, which precedes the introduction of rhyme in Western poetry, is based on the connection created by alliteration between the two halves of a line. Examples of this use can be found in Anglo-Saxon poetry (such as "Beowulf"), or in the "Kalevala", the Finnish national poem. The famous quote in the question, from "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798), displays an extremely clever use of alliteration coupled with internal rhyme, which also creates an onomatopoeic effect - especially in the second line, where the repeated "f" sound imitates the sound of water in the wake of a ship.

Answer: enjambment

From the French for "straddling" or "encroaching", enjambment involves breaking up the syntax of a sentence at the end of a line, letting the meaning "run over" to the next line without the use of punctuation. The beginning of "The Burial of the Dead", the first part of "The Waste Land" (1921), quoted in the question, is one of the best-known instances of the use of this device. The pause at the end of the line, deliberately leaving the meaning incomplete, creates a sense of tension and urgency in the reader - whose eye is forced to shift from one line to the next in order to complete the natural flow of thought.

The opposite of enjambment, the end-stopped line, coincides with a complete sentence, so that the reader is able to receive the full message without any interruption. Though enjambment has been used in poetry since antiquity, it is particularly frequent in modern poetry, where it also appears in variants such as "broken rhyme", a favourite device of humorous verse, in which an individual word is split over two lines.

Answer: onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia is the use of a word that imitates or suggests a sound. The term means "name-making" in Greek, implying that onomatopoeic words are often created from scratch. Typical onomatopoeic words are the sounds made by animals, which are often (but not always) perceived similarly across languages. While onomatopoeia is an important component of poetry, it truly comes into its own in comic strips and advertising - as evidenced by the names of the Rice Krispies mascots, Snap, Crackle, and Pop, or the road safety advertisement "clunk click, every trip". There also objects that owe their name to onomatopoeia - such as flip-flops, named after the sound of these sandals' flat soles slapping against the ground.

In the 1842 verse adaptation of the well-known German folktale of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin", onomatopoeia plays a prominent role - the lines in the quote being just one example of the extensive use of this device throughout the poem. Much of the jaunty, humorous tone of the poem hinges on the effect of clusters of onomatopoeic words describing the scurrying of rats, or (as in the lines quoted) the quick, lively movement of the children lured away by the Pied Piper.

Another famous poem that relies on onomatopoeia is "The Bells" (1848), in which repetition and a rather offbeat metre are used to great effect in conjunction with words such as "tinkle", "shriek", "clang", "clash", and "roar" to mimic the various sounds of the titular objects.

Answer: caesura

Caesura means "cut" in Latin, and refers to a break in a verse - as aptly exemplified by the famous line presented in the question (from "Hamlet", Act 3, Scene 3). In standard literary analysis, caesura is marked by a double vertical bar (||), in particular when indicating the strong break within a line used in Old English and Old Norse poetry. Each of the two halves of a line is referred to as "hemistich".

Widely employed in Greek and Latin poetry to mark a juncture between two words within a metrical foot, in modern European poetry caesura generally coincides with a syntactic break within a verse - marked by punctuation such as the dash in the "Hamlet" quote. In this particular example, the caesura adds emphasis to the question contained in the first hemistich.

A caesura is called "masculine" if, as in the example, it follows a stressed syllable, "feminine" if it follows an unstressed syllable. Though a medial caesura (occurring in the middle of a verse) is the most common type, there are also initial and final caesurae. An initial caesura is often created by an interjection - a word or phrase followed by an exclamation mark - as in this famous line from "Romeo and Juliet" (Act 2, Scene 2): "But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?".

Answer: eye rhyme

As its name implies, an eye (or visual) rhyme is perceived by the eye, though not by the ear. In fact, it involves two or more words that have very similar spellings, but different pronunciations, as is the case of "wind" and "behind" in the rhyming couplet that ends "Ode to the West Wind" (1820). The first stanza of the poem also ends with an eye-rhyming couplet: "Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere/Destroyer and preserver: hear, o hear!". This device introduces an element of surprise in a rhyme scheme that might otherwise sound too predictable.

Examples of eye rhyme abound both in poetry and everyday contexts: for instance, the first stanza of "The Rape of the Lock" (1712) features the eye rhyme pairs of "foredoom" and "home", and "obey" and "tea". In older varieties of English many of these rhymes were indeed true rhymes, but were lost to changes in pronunciation (such as the Great Vowel Shift); these are known as "historical rhymes". One of the words whose pronunciation changed around the 18th century is "wind", which was originally pronounced like "wined", and would have previously formed a perfect rhyming pair with "behind".

Answer: oxymoron

From the Greek "oksús" ("sharp") and "moros" ("dull" or "foolish"), an oxymoron is a figure of speech in which two words with opposite meanings are juxtaposed. Also known as a contradiction in terms, it is a device that is widely used outside the literary context - including common phrases such as "jumbo shrimp", "original copy", or "virtual reality". The line in the question comes from Act 1, Scene 1 of "Romeo and Juliet", in which Romeo strings together a series of 13 oxymorons, emphasizing his emotional turmoil caused by unrequited love. Later in the play (Act 2, Scene 2), another well-known oxymoron - "parting is such sweet sorrow" - makes its appearance.

A special form of oxymoron, used for humorous effect, is the so-called "comical oxymoron", based on the claim that two words forming a commonly used expression contradict each other. Popular examples of this are "military intelligence", "happily married", and the name of the software "Microsoft Works" (implying that Microsoft products do not function properly).

Answer: anaphora

Meaning "carrying back" in Greek, anaphora is a rhetorical device that is used extensively in poetry and other literary genres, as well as in famous political speeches such as the "I Have a Dream" speech, or "We Shall Fight on the Beaches". It consists of the repetition of a sequence of words at the beginning of neighbouring sentences, clauses, or lines to achieve an emphatic effect - both in rhythm and in meaning. This device is also a distinguishing feature of many religious poems and songs, where it serves to drive the message home with particular intensity.

The quote in the question is the fourth stanza of the well-known poem "The Tyger" (1794), in which the question word "what" is repeated five times - four at the beginning of half-lines, and once preceded by the preposition "in". In fact, the whole poem is structured as a barrage of questions on the nature of the titular animal - the yin to the Lamb's yang. The second stanza of "London", another poem by the same author, makes use of a similar strategy by repeating "in every" four times in the space of just three lines.

Answer: internal rhyme

One of the most famous poems written in the English language, "The Raven" (1845) is made particularly memorable by the skillful use of a wide range of poetic devices - notably internal rhyme, as shown by the two lines quoted in the question. The rhyme occurs within the same line, then continues in the following line. The use of this device - coupled with caesura, alliteration, and repetition - creates an almost hypnotic, deeply musical rhythm that captures the reader's attention, as well as a sense of harmony and symmetry.

In classics such as "The Raven" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner", internal rhyme is normally used in combination with end rhyme. While the rhyming words generally appear at the end of each half of a single line, internal rhyme may also involve two separate (often consecutive) lines, or occur at the beginning or in the middle of a half line. A very versatile device, internal rhyme is used extensively, and to great effect, in contemporary poetry and in the lyrics of many pop, rap and hip-hop songs, which often eschew more conventional end-rhyme schemes.

Answer: assonance

Assonance is the repetition of similar vowel sounds within words in one or more lines; when consonant sounds are repeated, it is called "consonance". In the opening lines from "The Lady of Shalott" (1832), these two devices are combined - with the long "i" sounds in "either", "side", "lie" and "rye", and the long "e" in "fields and "barley" (possibly also "either", depending on the pronunciation), as well as the "l" sound of "lie", "long", "field" and "barley". The prevalence of long vowel sounds in these two lines creates a slow, leisurely pace - reinforced by the liquid "l" sounds - that mimics the flow of the river, mentioned again in the poem's second stanza.

Assonance is a subtle but very effective sound device, which can be skillfully employed to emphasize the meaning of the words. Another well-known example of this are the opening lines of "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (1819) - "Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness/Thou foster-child of silence and slow time" - where the long "i" sounds create a solemn, almost reverent atmosphere, underpinning the description of the urn as a symbol of beauty untouched by time.

Answer: personification

The common literary device of personification consists in attributing human qualities to a thing or abstract idea. When such an object is endued with human feelings and emotions, the device is generally referred to by the somewhat derogatory name of "pathetic fallacy". In poetry of religious or otherwise didactic content, virtues and vices are frequently personified, while in more descriptive poetic genres personification often involves elements of the landscape, such as mountains or bodies of water - as well as plants and animals.

In the celebrated sonnet "Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802", the city of London in the early hours of the morning is portrayed as a sleeping person - very much alive even if "its mighty heart" is lying in the stillness of repose. The line quoted in the question also uses a simile, equating the early morning light to clothing that envelopes the "body" of the city. In the last three lines of the sonnet, the river (which "glideth at its own sweet will") and the houses (which "seem asleep") are also personified. In another well-known poem by the same author, "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (1807), a "crowd, a host" of yellow daffodils growing beside a lake is described as "fluttering and dancing in the breeze" and "tossing their heads in sprightly dance".