Poetry terms

Alliteration

The repetition of sounds, usually consonant sounds but sometimes some successive vowel sounds, at the beginning of words in the same line or in successive lines.

Allusion

Reference to a person or place or event with which the read is presumed to be familiar.

Apostrophe

A digression in the form of an address to someone not present or to a personified object or an idea, as “O Death, Where is thy sting?”

Assonance

the repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds. These sounds may appear in the same lines or in successive lines.

Ballad

A story told in verse and usually meant to be sung

Blank Verse

poetry using unrhymed iambic pentameter (Ten syllables a line)

Cacophony

or dissonance: harsh sounding language

Caesura

A stop or pause in a metrical line of poetry often marked by a dash, semicolon, colon, etc.

Connotation

Implied or suggested meaning of a word or expression despite its literal term, home represents comfort and peace and home is a structure

Consonance

Repetition of final consonant sounds in the stressed syllables of words though the vowel sounds are different.

Ex: And alL the air a soLemn stiLLness hoLds

Couplet

Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme

Denotation

The literal or dictionary meaning or meanings of a word

Diction

A writer’s choice of words particularly for clarity, precision, and effectiveness

Didactic Poem

a type of poem that teaches a lesson, presents a moral, or is somehow instructive

Dramatic Poetry

a poem that uses dialogue of the characters involved to tell a story or poetry a situation

Elegiac Poem

A type of poem that meditates on death or has a serious theme v 1wqa

Enjambment

The running over of a sentence or phrase from one verse to the next without end punctuation (run-on lines)

Euphony

Pleasing or sweet sound; a harmonious succession of words having a pleasing sound

Figurative Language

a word or phrase that departs from everyday literal language for the sake of comparison, emphasis, clarity or freshness. (ie. metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, synecdoche, puns). Also known as a Figure of Speech

Free Verse

poetry that has no regular rhyme scheme, rhythm, or line length

Hyperbole

A Figure of Speech employing obvious exaggeration or overstatement fro special effect

Imagery

The representation through language of sense experience

Visual imagery- an image that occurs in the mind’s eye

auditory (aural)- an image which represents a sound

Olfactory imagery- an image which represents a smell

Gustatory- an image which represents a taste

Tactile- an image which represents touch

Internal Rhyme

the rhyming of the end word with a word in the middle of the line

Lyric

a poem, usually a short one. which expresses a speaker’s personal thoughts or feelings

Metaphor

figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that are basically dissimilar

Meter

The pattern created In a particular poem by the repetition of a basic grouping of accented syllables. Each grouping is called a foot. There are four groupings in English metrical poetry: da dum, dum da, da da dum, and dum da da. A line of metrical poetry can consist of any number of feet. (dum is louder than da; thus it receives the accent)

Metonymy

the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself. Ex: The Crown= the King/queen

Narrative poem

A poem that tells a story

Onomatopoeia

The use of words which in their pronunciation suggest their meaning

personification

A Figure of speech in which something non-human is given human qualities

Refarin

Group of words, a line, or group of lines repeated throughout a poem, usually at the end of each stanza

Repetition

A literary technique in which words or phrases are repeated at regular intervals to secure emphasis

Rhyme

repetition of the same (or similar) sounds at the end of words. Usually, in poetry, rhyming means the ending of two or more lines with words that sound alike.

Rhyme scheme

The pattern of rhyme in a poem. A rhyme scheme uses a different letter of the alphabet to stand for each different rhyming sound.

Satiric Poem

A type of poem based on criticism of people and society through ridicule. The satirist aims to reduce practices attacked by laughing scornfully at them- and being witty enough to allow the readers to laugh also. May employ other devices such as irony, hyperbole, figurative language

Scansion

The indication of foot divisions and accents in metrical verse

Simile

A figure of speech in which the comparison between two unlike things ins expressed directly, usually by means of like or as

Sonnet

A 14-line lyric poem in iambic pentameter consisting of three quatrains and a final couplet

Stanza

A group of lines of verses treated as a unit and separated from other unity by a space. A 3-line stanza is called a tercet and a 4-line stanza is called a quatrain

Symbol

any object, person, place, or action that has a meaning in itself and that also stands for something larger than itself such as a quality. an attitude, or a value. A rose is often a symbol of love and beauty; a skull is a symbol of death; spring and winter often symbolize youth and old age.

Synecdoche

a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole or the whole signifies the part.

Ex: “all hands on deck” = all sailors

“counting heads” = counting whole people

Tone

The attitude the writer takes toward his/her subject through diction - creates a mood. Examples: Cheerful, playful, mournful informal, formal, ironic, satiric, optimistic, pessimistic.

Verbal Irony

Saying the opposite of what one means. In a sense, irony is the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant

Verse

A line of poetry

Villanelle

A type of English poem consisting of 19 lines (5 tercets and a final quatrain) Consists of only two rhymes with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain (aba abaa) “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”