BA 3rd Semester English Chapter 2 Question Answer | Prosody Chapter Answer | NEP-2026

Prosody

1. What is the primary difference between poetry and verse?

Ans: Poetry emphasizes expressive language, emotion, and imagination, whereas verse specifically refers to the rhythmic and metrical structures within poetry.

2. What is a syllable?

Ans: A syllable is a unit of sound in a word, usually made up of a vowel sound alone or accompanied by consonants.

3. What is an accent in poetry?

Ans: In poetry, an accent refers to the emphasis or stress placed on a syllable within a word or line of verse.

4. Define rhythm in poetry.

Ans: Rhythm in poetry refers to the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line, establishing a flow and movement throughout the poem.

5. What is meter in poetry?

Ans: Meter is the rhythmic structure of a verse line, determined by the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

6. What is an iambic meter?

Ans: Iambic meter features lines with alternating unstressed and stressed syllables, creating a “da-DUM” pattern.

7. Define trochaic meter.

Ans: Trochaic meter consists of lines with alternating stressed and unstressed syllables, following the “DA-dum” pattern.

8. What is a spondee in poetry?

Ans: A spondee is a metrical foot made up of two consecutive stressed syllables, such as in the phrase “dead end.”

9. Define dactylic

Ans: Dactylic meter consists of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables, exemplified by the pattern “DA-da-dum.”

10. What is amphibrachic meter?

Ans: Amphibrachic meter consists of a stressed syllable flanked by two unstressed syllables, following the pattern “da-DUM-da.”

11. Define pauses in poetry.

Ans: Pauses in poetry are breaks within a line or verse, indicated by punctuation or the natural rhythms of speech.

12. Define a sestina.

Ans: A sestina is a structured poetic form consisting of six stanzas of six lines each, followed by a three-line envoi, featuring a specific pattern of repeated words.

13. What is the Spenserian stanza?

Ans: The Spenserian stanza is a nine-line stanza with the rhyme scheme ABABBCBCC, famously employed by Edmund Spenser in “The Faerie Queene.”

14. What is free verse?

Ans: Free verse is a type of poetry that lacks a fixed meter or rhyme scheme, providing greater flexibility in expression.

15. What is anaphora?

Ans: Anaphora is the repetition of a word or phrase at the start of consecutive lines or clauses.

16. Explain chiasmus.

Ans: Chiasmus is a rhetorical device in which words or concepts are repeated in reverse order in successive phrases.

17. What is a metaphor?

Ans: A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares one thing to another, emphasizing their similarities.

18. Define personification.

Ans: Personification is a literary device that assigns human traits to non-human entities or abstract ideas.

19. What is a pun?

Ans: A pun is a play on words that uses similar sounds or multiple meanings for humorous or rhetorical effect.

20. Define synecdoche.

Ans: Synecdoche is a figure of speech where a part signifies the whole, or vice versa, where the whole represents a part.