AP English Literature Poetry: Terms and Vocabulary

Alliteration

the repetition of initial consonant sounds

Example: "Silence surged softly..."

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called "vowel rhyme."

Example: "purple curtain;" "young love;" “And shout into the ridges of the wind”; "light a fire."

Cacophony

the opposite of euphony; a harsh, unpleasant combination of sound. Cacophony may be an unconscious flaw, or it may be used consciously for effect. As an effect, it often creates emphasis by breaking a more euphonious pattern.

Consonance

the repetition in two or more words of final consonants, most typically in stressed syllables. Often used to produce slant rhyme or half rhyme. Example: "stroke" and "luck"; "east and west"; “pitter patter”; “twist and shout”; “odds and ends,”; “short and sweet.”

More broadly and more simply, "consonance" often just refers to the repetition of consonant sounds, as seen below:

The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard

And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,

Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.

Euphony

describes a sonic texture or pattern that is “good sounding.” (eu = good; phon = sound). Opposite of cacophony.

Meter

a generally regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

Feet

the individual building blocks of meter. In English-language poetry, the most common feet are Anapestic, Dactylic, Trochaic, and Iambic.

Iambic

duh-DUH, as in "above"; “retreat;” “aghast;” “bemoan.” (slack STRESS)

Condemn’d/to hope’s/ delus/ive mine,As on/ we toil/ from day/ to day.

(Samuel Johnson, ‘Elegy upon the Death of Mr Robert Levet’)

Trochaic

DUH-duh, as in "pizza," “stupid,” “donkey,” “shovel,” “filthy,” “wretched,” “happy,” “silly.” (STRESS slack)

Anapestic

duh-duh-DUH as in "but of course" or “at the drop/of a hat” or “in the still/of the night.” (slack slack STRESS)

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

Dactyllic

DUH-duh-duh, as in "honestly;” “elephant,” “terrible,” “wonderful,” "poetry," "basketball." (STRESS slack slack)

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Approximate/slant/near rhyme

two words are alike in some sounds, but aren't precise rhymes; typically produced through assonance or consonance.

Words like "fish" and "flesh" or "young" and "long" aren't "true" rhymes or "full" rhymes, but they are sonically proximal enough to register as a pattern.

End rhyme

a rhyme scheme in which rhymes occur at the ends of lines

Internal rhyme

a rhyme occurring within a single line rather than at the ends of lines.

Example:

“Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,/

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,/

As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door./

Tis some visitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door…/

Ah, distinctly I Remember it was in the bleak December;/

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor./

Eagerly I wished the morrow; – vainly I had sought to borrow/

From my books surcease of sorrow – sorrow for the lost Lenore…”

(From “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe)

rhyme scheme

the pattern of end rhymes in a poem, which (for the purpose of analysis) can be labeled with capital letters placed at the ends of lines

ballad

a song or poem that often tells a story of tragedy, adventure, betrayal, revenge, or jealousy; often organized into quatrains with an ABCB rhyme scheme; ballads often use simple language and often have a sing-song quality. Ballads often contain dialogue, and are often told by a third-person speaker/narrator or by a speaker who is participating in the story. A "ballad stanza" is a phrase often used to describe a four-line stanza in iambic meter in which the first and third unrhymed lines have four metrical feet and the second and fourth rhyming lines have three metrical feet.

Example of a "ballad stanza":

There lived a wife at Usher's Well,/

And a wealthy wife was she;/

She had three stout and stalwart sons,/

And sent them o'er the sea.

Pastoral

Poems written in the tradition of Theocritus (3 BCE), who wrote idealized accounts of shepherds and their loves living simple, virtuous lives in Arcadia, a mountainous region of Greece.

Poets writing in English drew on the pastoral tradition by retreating from the trappings of modernity to the imagined virtues and romance of rural life, as in Edmund Spenser's The Shepheardes Calendar, Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love," and Sir Walter Ralegh's response, "The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd." The pastoral poem faded after the European Industrial Revolution of the 18th century, but its themes persist in poems that romanticize rural life or reappraise the natural world.

blank verse

poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. This 10-syllable line is the predominant rhythm of traditional English dramatic and epic poetry, as it is considered the closest to English speech patterns.

Example:

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:/

Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce/

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:/

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n

Dramatic Monologue

a poem in which a character speaks to one or more listeners who remain silent or whose replies are not revealed; frequently, dramatic monologues occur at a crisis or an important moment in the speaker's life, and the poem functions to convey the speaker's character.

Elegy

a poem of mourning, typically over the death of an individual. An elegy has no specific structure, and is defined by the purpose of the poem rather than any precise formal requirements.

Epic

a long narrative poem that relates the great deeds of a larger-than-life hero who embodies the values of a particular society.

Epitaph

an inscription on a gravestone or a commemorative poem written as if it were for that purpose

Free verse

unrhymed poetry not written in a regular rhythmical pattern or meter, often seeking to capture the rhythms of speech

Heroic couplet

Two lines of poetry that rhyme and are in iambic pentameter. Historically, the "heroic" aspect of the "heroic couplet" derives from the tendency of English-language poets to convey epic narratives in rhyming couplets of iambic pentameter.

Example

Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief;/

Ah, more than share it, give me all thy grief.

Limerick

a humorous, rhyming five-line poem with a specific meter and rhyme scheme

lyric poetry

poetry that expresses the personal observations and feelings of a single speaker; in contrast with more objective or impersonal poems, the focus of lyrical poetry is the expression of the speaker's viewpoint

narrative poem

a poem that tells a story; as compared to a poem that is more focused on contemplation or description, a narrative poem contains the rudiments of a dramatic scene or situation, if not a fully realized or developed story

ode

a complex and often lengthy lyric poem, often written in a dignified formal style on a lofty or serious subject; typically, a poem of "praise"

Shakespearean/English Sonnet

a sonnet which consists of three quatrains and a couplet. The most common rhyme scheme is abab cdcd efef gg, though this can be varied. Etymologically, "sonnet" derives from "little song" in Italian.

Petrarchan/Italian sonnet

a sonnet which consists of an octave and a sestet with the rhyme scheme being abbaabba cdecde. There is usually a pronounced tonal shift between the octave and sestet as well.

Sestina

a poem that consists of six stanzas of six lines each, and a three-line envoy. It makes no use of refrain. The form is usually unrhymed; rather, it has a fixed pattern of end-words which demands that these end-words in each stanza be the same, though arranged in a different sequence each time.

Villanelle

a poem that has 19 lines, 5 stanzas of three lines (tercets) and 1 stanza of four lines with two rhymes and two refrains. The 1st, then the 3rd lines alternate as the last lines of stanzas 2, 3,and 4, and then stanza 5 (the end) as a couplet. It is usually written in tetrameter (4 feet) or pentameter (five feet).

Caesura

A pause or break in a line of verse. Typically, a caesura will be marked in modern poetry with a semi-colon, period, or an exclamation or question mark.

End-stopped

A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period. A line is considered end-stopped, too, if it contains a complete phrase. In these lines from Alexander Pope's "Essay on Criticism," all of the lines are end-stopped:

A little learning is a dangerous thing;/

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring./

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,/

And drinking largely sobers us again.

Enjambment

a run-on line; the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction of a verse or couplet on to the next verse or couplet. In other words, the line is not end-stopped, but wraps around to the next line.

William Carlos Williams’ “Between Walls” is a poem in which all lines are enjambed (except the last):

the back wings/

of the/

hospital where/

nothing/

will grow lie/

cinders/

in which shine

the broken/

pieces of a green/

bottle

Stanza

a group of lines in a poem, considered as a unit, like a paragraph in prose. Etymologically, the roots of the word "stanza" derive from "stare" in Latin, which implied "a standing place." In a poem, the reader is expected to come to a full stop at the end of a stanza, and stanzas often function as a key element of structure and sequencing.

Rhyming or metrical stanzas or often referred to with specific terms:

Couplet: 2 lines

Tercet-- 3 lines

Quatrain -- 4 lines

Cinquain -- 5 lines

Sestet 6 -- lines

Septets -- 7 lines

Octaves -- 8 lines

Elision

The omission of unstressed syllables (e.g., “ere” for “ever,” “tother” for “the other”), usually to fit a metrical scheme. “What dire offence from am’rous causes springs,” goes the first line of Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, in which “amorous” is elided to “am’rous” to establish the pentameter (five-foot) line.

Allusion

reference to a well-known person, text, historical event, literary work, or specific knowledge outside the text. In Western literature, the most common sources of allusions are classical mythology, the Bible, and Shakespeare.

Apostrophe

when an absent person, an abstract concept, or an important object is directly addressed as if they were present, or capable of hearing. An entire poem can be structured as an apostrophe, or an apostrophe can appear temporarily as a literary device within a poem. Apostrophe is similar to a dramatic monologue, except that the premise of a dramatic monologue usually entails the poem's speaker directly addressing a silent but literal human listener. An apostrophe generally entails a more figurative situation in which the speaker is addressing a listener that isn't literally capable of listening to the speaker's address, such as a speaker addressing an abstraction like "hope" or "death," an inanimate object like a statue or a pen, or a person who is already dead.

Conceit

extended metaphor, often including a surprising comparison between two seemingly dissimilar comparitors; to be properly understood as a conceit, the two objects of comparison should be so strikingly implausible as comparitors that the audience becomes curious as to how the speaker will arrive at plausible points of comparison. Etymologically, "conceit" derives from "conception," as in a "birth," with the implication that the poet has "given birth" to an especially clever comparison.

epic simile

an extended simile that sometimes includes multiple points of comparison; often used to describe an individual; sometimes referred to as a “Homeric simile” because Homer often created them; an epic simile is typically more extensive and more elaborate in its comparison than a regular simile.

Example:

“Like the swarms of clustering bees that issue forever/

in fresh bursts from the hollow in the stone, and hang like/

bunched grapes as they hover beneath the flowers in springtime/

fluttering in swarms together this way and that way,/

so the many nations of men from the ships and the shelters/

along the front of the deep sea marched in order/

by companies to the assembly […]”

(from The Odyssey by Homer)

Metonymy

a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it. (meta = change; nym = name). Referring to the king as "the crown" or "the throne," or even as "the scepter," is a figurative re-naming in which the literal name of the tenor is being replaced with a figurative vehicle.

Synechdoche

a figure of speech in which the name of one object is substituted for that of another closely associated with it; basically, a sub-instance of metonymy. If a speaker refers to their car by calling it "wheels," we are referring to a whole (the car) by one of its parts (the wheels). While all instances of synechdoche are also instances of metonmy, not all instances of metonymy are also synechdoche. In metonymy, a tenor is renamed because it is strongly associated with something else, and the source of the association is not necessarily a part of the tenor. If a rich person (tenor) is renamed as "moneybags," the moneybags are not a "part of the whole."

Synesthesia

from the Greek (syn-) "union", and (aesthesis) "sensation": the mixing of the senses; when a literal sensory input is described with a figurative sensory input, so that one sense is used to describe another sense. In colloquial English, examples of synesthesia include "loud clothing," "feeling blue," or "salty language."

Examples:

"dull blunt wooden stalactite / Of rain creaks, hardened by the light."

"the dazzling, deafening debauch / of bugles."

the land "where the sun is silent."

Vehicle and Tenor

in a comparative figure (simile, metaphor, metonymy, etc..), the literal aspect of the comparison is the tenor, and the figurative aspect is the vehicle; e.g. "My dog is like a precious diamond;" the tenor is "dog" and the vehicle is "diamond."

In some cases, such as metaphorical verbs, a figurative construction might involve an absent but implied tenor (i.e. the tenor has been removed from the sentence and replaced with a figurative vehicle).

In a sentence like, "I flew up the stairs," "flew" is a vehicle and the absent but implied tenor is something like "moved very quickly."

In cases of personification, the tenor is the literal non-human thing that is being compared to a person, and the vehicle is always "a person."

In a sentence like, "The refrigerator beckoned me," the refrigerator is literal, but its human-like behavior is figurative, so the tenor is "refrigerator" and the vehicle is "a person."

Motif

An intentional and meaningful repetition of some element within a work

Adage

a proverb or short statement expressing a general truth; synonym of "aphorism"

Aphorism

a short saying or expression that conveys a general truth; synonym of "adage"

Idyll

a poem that typically describes a picturesque or idealized scene or incident, especially in rural life. Often very similar to a pastoral.

Soliloquy

used in drama to reveal the innermost thoughts of a character. It can convey the progress of action of the play by means of expressing a character's thoughts about a certain character or past, present or upcoming event while talking to himself without acknowledging the presence of any other person (unlike a dramatic monologue, in which the speaker is typically speaking to a silent character, rather than to themselves, or the audience).

Dialect

a subsection of a language that has its own syntax and diction; dialects are often associated with specific regions or specific groups of people; sometimes, poems or prose fiction might be composed in dialect, either in whole or in part

Concrete

type of poetry in which the shape or printing arrangement of the poem is an intentional and essential function of the poem

Idiom

the conventions and customs associated with a particular style of discourse (a stylized way of talking)

Satire

comedy or wit that comes with a critique; an argument or criticism conveyed through comedy

Parody

comedy based upon preserving the form of something, while distorting or exaggerating its content

Analogy

a sustained and fully developed comparison between two things

Euphemism

literally means "good speech"; uses "good speech" to mask something unpleasant, as in: "air sickness receptacle" for "puke sack"

Ellipsis

device that omits some parts of a sentence or event, which gives the reader a chance to fill the gaps while acting or reading it out. It is usually written between the sentences as "...".

Malapropism

the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar-sounding one, often with unintentionally amusing effect, as in, for example, "dance a flamingo" (instead of flamenco ).

Parable

a seemingly simple story used to convey a spiritual or ideological principle.

Carpe Diem

Latin expression that means 'seize the day.' A common source of thematic development in poems in which the fleetingness of life and the inevitability of death are emphasized, often as a means of encouraging immediate or hedonistic pleasures.