Lewis Poetry Terms Final

Lyric Poetry

Subjective, reflective poetry expressing the poet’s thoughts and feelings; often regular rhyme and meter; creates a single emotional impression.

Examples: Arnold Dover Beach; Blake The Lamb, The Tyger; Dickinson Because I Could Not Stop for Death

Narrative Poetry

Objective, non-dramatic verse that tells a story; usually regular rhyme and meter.
Examples: Coleridge Kubla Khan; Eliot Journey of the Magi; Tennyson Ulysses

Sonnet

A rigid 14-line poem with a structured rhyme scheme and meter

Shakespearean (English) Sonnet

Three quatrains + a concluding couplet; iambic pentameter; rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.
Example: Shakespeare Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day?

Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet

Octave + sestet with a volta (shift in thought); common rhyme scheme abba abba cde cde.
Examples: Milton On His Blindness; Donne Death, Be Not Proud

Ode

A formal lyric poem addressing a serious, dignified theme.
Examples: Keats Ode on a Grecian Urn; Shelley Ode to the West Wind

Blank Verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Examples: Shakespeare Macbeth; Milton Paradise Lost; Frost Mending Wall

Free Verse

Poetry without regular rhyme or meter.
Examples: Whitman The Last Invocation; Williams Rain

Epic

A long narrative poem celebrating a hero significant to a nation or culture.
Examples: Homer The Iliad, The Odyssey; Milton Paradise Lost

Dramatic Monologue

A poem in which a single speaker reveals character while addressing a silent listener at a dramatic moment.
Examples: Browning My Last Duchess; Eliot Prufrock

Elegy

A poem mourning the death of an individual.
Examples: Milton Lycidas; Tennyson In Memoriam

Ballad

Simple narrative poem meant to be sung or recited.
Examples: Keats La Belle Dame sans Merci; Robinson Richard Cory

Villanelle

19-line French verse form with repeating refrains; rhyme scheme aba aba aba aba aba abaa.
Example: Dylan Thomas Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night

Haiku

Three-line Japanese poem with 5–7–5 syllables; focuses on nature and imagery.

Limerick

Five-line humorous poem with rhyme scheme aabba; anapestic meter.

Meter

The rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

Iamb/Iambic

Unstressed followed by stressed syllable (˘ ´).

Trochee/Trochaic

Stressed followed by unstressed syllable (´ ˘).

Anapest/Anapestic

Two unstressed followed by stressed (˘ ˘ ´).

Dactyl/Dactyllic

Stressed followed by two unstressed (´ ˘ ˘).

Spondee/Spondiac

stressed followed by stressed

Scansion

The analysis of a poem’s meter and rhythm.

Momometer

one foot

Dimeter

two feet

Trimeter

three feet

Tetrameter

Four feet

Pentameter

five feet

Hexameter

six feet

Heptameter

Seven feet

Octometer

Eight feet (rare)

Iambic Pentameter

Five iambic feet per line; most common English meter.

2 Stanza Lines

couplet

3 Stanza lines

tercet

4 Stanza lines

quatrain

5 Stanza lines

cinquain

6 Stanza lines

sestet

7 Stanza lines

septet

8 Stanza lines

octet (octave)

9 or more Stanza lines

x-lined stanza

amphibrach

a foot with unstressed, stressed, unstressed syllables (as Chicago)

anàcrusis

an extra unaccented syllable at the beginning of a line before the regular meter begins
"Mine / by the right / of the white / election" (Emily Dickinson)

amphimacer

a foot with stressed, unstressed, stressed syllables (as attitude)

catalexis

an extra unaccented syllable at the ending of a line after the regular meter ends (opposite of anacrusis).

"I'll tell / you how / the sun / rose" (Emily Dickinson)

caesura

a pause in the meter or rhythm of a line.

Flood-tide below me! I! I see you face to face! (Walt Whitman: "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry")

enjambment

a run-on line, one continuing into the text without a grammatical break.

Green rustlings, more-than-regal charities Drift coolly from that tower of whispered light. (Hart Crane: "Royal Palm")

Rime

old spelling of rhyme, which is the repetition of like sounds at regular intervals, employed in Versification, the writing of verse.

End Rhyme

rhyme occurring at end of verse line; most common rhyme form.

I was angry with my friend, I told my wrath, my wrath did.end.

(William Blake, "A Poison Tree")

Internal Rhyme

rhyme contained within a line of verse.

The splendour falls on castle walls And snowy summits old in story:

The long light shakes across the lakes And the wild cataract leaps in glory.

(Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Blow, Bugle, Blow")

Rhyme Scheme

pattern of rhymes within a unit of verse; in analysis.

eachend rhyme-sound is represented by a letter.

Take, O take those lips away, —a That so sweetly were forsworn; —b And those eyes, the break of day, —a Lights that do mislead the morn: —b But my kisses bring again, bring again; —

Seals of love, but seal'd in vain, seal'd in vain. —c (William Shakespeare, "Take, O Take Those Lips Away")

Masculine Rhyme

rhyme in which only the last, accented syllable of the rhyming words correspond exactly in sound; most common kind of end rhyme.

She walks in beauty like the night Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that's best of dark and bright Meet in her aspect and her eyes:

Thus mellowed to that tender light Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

(Lord Byron, "She Walks in Beauty")

Feminine Rhyme

rhyme in which two consecutive syllables of the rhyme-words correspond, the first syllable carrying the accent; double rhyme.

Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying.

O the pain, the bliss of dying!

(Alexander Pope, "Vital Spark of Heavenly Flame")

Half Rhyme (Slant Rhyme)

imperfect, approximate rhyme.

In the mustardseed sun,

By full tilt river and switchback sea

Where the cormorants seud,

In his house on stilts high among beaks (Dylan Thomas, "Poem on His Birthday")

Assonance

repetition of two or more vowel sounds within a line.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes (William Blake, "The Tiger") And I do smile, such cordial light

(Emily Dickinson, "My Life Had Stood, A Loaded Gun")

Consonance

repetition of two or more consonant sounds within a line.

And all is seared with trade; bleared smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares men's smell: the soil (Gerard Manley Hopkins, "God's Grandeur")

Alliteration

repetition of two or more initial sounds in words within a line.

Bright black-eyed creature, brushed with brown.

(Robert Frost, 'To a Moth Seen in Winter")

He clasps the crag with crooked hands (Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "The Eagle")

Onomatopoeia

the technique of using a word whose sound suggests its meaning. •

The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard (Robert Frost, "Out, Out")

Veering and wheeling free in the open (Carl Sandburg. "The Harbor")

Euphony

 the use of compatible, harmonious sounds to produce a pleasing, melodious effect.

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,

When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them.

(Theodore Roethke, "I Knew a Woman")

And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flow's (Alexander Pope, "Sound and Sense")

Cacophony

the use of inharinonious sounds in close conjunction for effect; opposite of euphony.

Or, my scrofulous French novel On grey paper with blunt type!

Simply glance at it, you grovel Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:

(Robert Browning, "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister")

But when loud surges lash the sounding shore (Alexander Pope, "Sound and Sense")

Metaphor

A figure of speech which makes a direct comparison of two unlike objects

All the world's a stage (William Shakespeare, As You Like It)

Simile

a direct comparison of two unlike objects, using like or as.

The holy time is quiet as a nun

(William Wordsworth. "On the Beach at Calais")

Conceit

an extended metaphor comparing two unlike objects with Powerful effect. (It owes its roots to elaborate analogies in Petrarch and lu the Metaphysical poets, particularily Donne. ]

If they be two, they are two so As stiff twin compasses are two:

Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do.

(John Donne, "A Valediction Forbidding Mourning")

Personification

figure of speech in which objects and animals have human qualities.

When it comes, the landscape listens,

Shadows hold their breath.

(Emily Dickinson, "A Certain Slant of Light")

Apostrophe

addressing a person or personified object not present.

Little Lamb, who made thee?

(William Blake, "The Limb")

Metonymy

the substitution of a word which relates to the object of person to be named, in place of the name itself.

The serpent that did sting thy father's life

Now wears his crown.

(William Shakespeare, Hamlet)

Synecdoche

figure of speech in which a part represents the whole object or idea.

Not a hair perished. (person)

(Willian Shakespeare, The Tempest

Hyperbole

gross exaggeration for effect: overstatement

Love you ten years before the Flood.

And you should, if you please, refuse Till the conversion of the Jews.

(Andrew Marvell. "To his Coy Mistress")

Litotes

a form of understatement in which the negative of an antonym is used to achieve emphasis and intensity.

He accused himself, at bottom and not unveraciously of a fantastic, a demoralized sympathy with her.

(Henry James, "The Pupil")

Irony

the contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning

Verbal Irony

meaning one thing and saying another. next to of course god america i love you (e.e. cummings)

Dramatic Irony

two levels of meaning-what the speaker says and what he means, and what the speaker says and the author means.

Situational Irony

when the reality of a situation differs from the anticipated or intended effect: when something unexpected occurs

Symbolism

the use of one object to suggest another, hidden object or idea.

In Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken," the fork in the road represents a major decision in life, each road a separate way of life.

Imagery

the use of words to represent things, actions, or ideas by sensory description.

Night after Night Her purple traffic

Strews the land with Opal Bales-

Merchantmen-poise upon Horizons-

Dip-and vanish like Orioles!

(Emily Dickinson, "This is the land Where Sunset Washes").

Paradox

a statement which appears self-contradictory, but underlines a basis of truth.

Elected silence, sing to me.

(Gerard Manley Hopkins, "The Habit of Perfection")

Oxymoron

contradictory terms brought together to express a paradox for strong effect

Allusion

a reference to an outside fact, event, or other source.

World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras

Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings

What a star sang and careless Muses heard

(Pythagoras-Greek mathematician: Muses-mythological goddesses of beauty and music)

(William Butler Yeats, "Among School Children")