Introduction to Poetry

Spenserian Sonnet

ABAB BCBC CDCD EE

Shakespearean/English Sonnet

ABAB CDCD EFEF GG

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet

ABBA ABBA CDCDCD / ABBA ABBA CDECDE

High register

Formal/literary/archaic language

Low register

Cussing/coarse language

Regular register

Normal language

Denotation

The primary meaning of a word in a given context. For example, the denotation of the word “home,” according to the OED, is “the place where a person or animal dwells.”

Connotation

The secondary, associative meaning of a word (and also of sounds, images, etc.) in a given context. For example, possible connotations of the word “home” are “comfort, warmth, protection, family.”

Semantic field/lexical set

A group, or family, of words which all refer to the same subject.  For example, the semantic field of the words “cell,” “species,” and “evolution” is biology, which is part of a scientific semantic field.

Old English/Anglo-Saxon Germanic

These words usually, though not always, have one syllable. The word “home,” for example

Middle English/Latin/French

These words usually, though not always, have two or more syllables

Neutral Word Order

Subject-Verb-Object (Adjunct/Complement)

Marked Word Order

Any deviation from normal word order

Caesura

Pause/break in the middle of the poetic line (comma, full stop, semi-colon, colon)

Enjambment

Sentence continues from one line to the next

Imagery

The verbal representation of a sense impression

Synesthesia

The blending of two (or more) senses

Simile

A figure of comparison that makes it clear that it is a comparison, by using words such as “like,” “as,” or “resemble”

Metaphor

A figure of comparison made by applying or transferring a term associated with one thing to another. For example: The moon sails in the sky (moon=ship)

Tenor

The object of the comparison

Vehicle

The figurative element representing the object of the comparison

Grounds

The basis on which the comparison between the tenor and vehicle is made

Conceit

An elaborate, extended, and complex (even outrageous) comparison

Volta

The “turn” in the sonnet, that leads it to a new direction. Usually appears between sections

Personification

A figure of comparison between something that is not human and the human realm.

Pathetic Fallacy

Ascribing nature with the feelings of human beings — feelings exist in the poet, not in nature

Reification

A person turned into something not human

Allusion

A reference in a literary text to another literary text

Topos

A poetic convention that is being used time and again through many literary works

Seduction Topos

The speaker (usually male) tries to seduce someone else (usually female)

Carpe Diem

A declaration of the urgent need to “seize the day” (the phrase’s meaning in Latin), namely to make haste and grasp life’s opportunities while there is still time

Memento Mori

An allusion to death, often through macabre representations of elements associated with death — such as skulls, worms, or graves — or some form of bodily decay

Microcosm/Macrocosm

The human world or body is seen as a microcosmic representation of the larger world or the cosmos as a whole (the macrocosm), or vice versa

Modesty Topos

A disclaimer by the speaker of his or her abilities and talents. The speaker often apologizes for not being able to adequately convey what he or she means

Poetry Defying Time

The speaker claims that the destructive power of time is countered by the permanence of the text, and that the addressee is immortalized through the poem

Blason/Blazon

The beloved’s qualities — usually physical — are listed and praised, often through exaggerated comparisons

Metonymy

One thing stands for another ex: “ears” = “attention!”

Synecdoche

Specific type of metonymy: a figure where a part stands for the whole or vice-versa ex: “crown” = king

Apostrophe

Address to someone who cannot really read the poem

Antithesis

Two opposing ideas or images are put together to achieve contrasting effect; oppositional imagery “to err is human, to forgive is divine”

Parallelism

Phrases in sequence with parallel grammatical structure, imagery, or assertions. Example: I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea,

Anaphora

A repetition of a word or a phrase in order to introduce successive clauses/sentences/lines. Example: This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,

Refrain

A repeated line in the poem

Epistrophe

Repeating the end of the line or phrase

Diacope

A repetition of the same word in succession: “well, well, well, look who it is”

Congerie

A collection of words that pile up, saying the same thing. “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”

Chiasmus

A pattern of reversal, either of sounds or of words, in a sequence of xyyx. Example: If you put him in a house he would much prefer a flat,

Hyperbole

The rhetoric of exaggeration. Example: I’ll love you, dear, I’ll love you Till China and Africa meet And the river jumps over the mountain And the salmon sing in the street. W. H. Auden, “As I Walked Out One Evening”

Litotes

The rhetoric of understatement. Example: Hildeburh had little cause To credit the Jutes: son and brother, She lost them both on the battlefield. Beowulf, trans. Seamus Heaney

Pun (Paranomasia)

A word with one more (unrelated) meaning. Example: Not I, believe me: you have dancing shoes With nimble soles: I have a soul of lead So stakes me to the ground I cannot move. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (Act I, scene 4)

Polyptoton

The repetition of a root word in a variety of ways:

Paradox

As a figure of speech, it is a seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that illuminates a truth.

Oxymoron

An oppositional, self-contradictory, and therefore paradoxical image. This is more condensed than the paradox, and often does not bear the same level of truth-revealing. Example: alone in the crowd.

Zeugma

One word applies to two or more clauses/objects/words in a different sense

Irony

Implies a distance between what is said and what is meant. Based on the context, the reader is able to see the implied meaning in spite of the contradiction

Meter

The organized rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Meter

The organized rhythm of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Accentual verse

A verse that measures the number of string beats in a line, regardless of syllable count. For example: Old English and Middle English revival, where every line must have four heavy stresses.

Syllabic verse

The meter is measured by the number of syllables, regardless of which are stressed. For example: the Japanese Haiku, which must have seventeen syllables divided into three lines: 5, 7, 5.

Accentual-syllabic verse

Both syllables and stresses are counted in each line, creating a pattern. This is what we see in most English poetry.

Quantitative verse

Measures the duration of each syllable, i.e. long and short as opposed to stressed and unstressed. Cannot occur in English, but one could see this metrical system in Greek or Sanskrit poetry. (You don’t need this for the exam or the assignments! This is just for knowledge)

Free verse

Poetry that does not follow a regular metrical pattern.

Scansion

The art of interpreting poetic meter; a full marking of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetic verse.

Foot

The basic metrical unit, which usually contains two or three syllables. The length of the line is measured by the number of feet it contains. Here are the most common:

Dimeter

A line containing two feet.

Trimeter

A line containing three feet.

Tetrameter

A line containing four feet.

Pentameter

A line containing five feet.

Hexameter (Alexandrine)

A line containing six feet.

Sonnet

A poem with 14 lines, usually in iambic pentameter, usually with a volta

Iamb

A foot containing two syllables, unstressed and stressed (u /). For example: Do not.

Trochee

A foot containing two syllables, stressed and unstressed (/ u). For example: Donut.

Spondee

A foot containing two syllables, both stressed (/ /). For example: Don’t! don’t!

Pyrrhic

A foot containing two syllables, both unstressed (u u). It is often found when there is a transition from one type of foot to another.

Dactyl

A foot containing three syllables, one stressed followed by two unstressed (/ u u). For example: Agitate.

Anapest

A foot containing three syllables, two unstressed followed by a stressed one (u u /). For example: Understand.

Deviation

When we deviate from the pattern – a foot/line that does not match the rest of the metric rhythm. Suddenly we have a pyrrhic foot in a trochaic hexameter.

Elision

The dropping of syllables from words in the poetic line, usually to keep the meter. For example: over à o’er.

Accent grave

When the è has a little apostrophe (French accent) that causes it to be a vowel: “cursed” is 1 stressed syllable, “cursèd” is 2, stressed then unstressed (a trochee)

Blank Verse

Verses in iambic pentameter, but without rhymes. The poetic power of blank verse stems from the complexity of its syntax and its use of imagery. It is often found in drama – such as in the plays of Christopher Marlowe – but can also be seen in other poetic forms.

Feminine ending

A line of verse that ends with an unstressed syllable. Sometimes we can find an addition of an unstressed syllable to an existing pattern that should end stressed.

Onomatopoeia

The sound of the word(s) imitates the sound made or associated with what it describes. For example: click, hiss, pop, snap. Buzz Lightyears

Alliteration

Repetition of the first consonant sound(s) in a series of words. For example: fair-foul; goodness-gracious. Minerva McGonagall

Assonance

Repetition of a vowel sound(s) anywhere in a sequence of words. For example: great-pain. Anne Hathaway

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sound(s) in the middle or the end of a sequence of words. For example: quick-chuckle-kick. Angelina Jolie

Full Rhyme

Repetition of the final vowel and consonant sounds. For example: grown-stone; fear-cheer. Shaquille O’Neale

Half-Rhyme

Repetition of the final consonant sound. It is different from consonance by focusing solely on the consonant sound at the end of the words, and not on all the sequence of syllables sharing that same consonant sound. For example: soap-shape-keep; Sean Penn

Eye Rhyme

End syllables that look like they should rhyme with one another, but do not. For example: through-rough. Sean Bean

Reverse Rhyme

Repetition of the first consonant and vowel sounds. For example: son-summer; great-grave. Bugs Bunny

Pararhyme

Repetition of the first and final consonant sounds in a series of words. For example: live-love; chit-chat; man-moon. Peter Parker

Rime Riche

Homophones (words that sound the same but have different meanings entirely, whether spelled differently or the same) are used as end rhymes. For example: tale-tail; sea-see; bark-bark.

End Rhyme

Each rhyming word is placed at the end of the poetic line.

Internal Rhyme

At least one of the rhyming words is placed within the poetic line.

Poet

A historical person, who lived in a specific time and place.

Speaker

A textual construction, the persona (“character”) the poet assumes and the one who “performs” the poem.

Voice

This is the identity of the speaker. Is it a man/woman/child? Is it a contemporary/historical/fictional figure? Is it human? What is the speaker’s role in society? Does the speaker have a certain job or belongs to a certain group?

Tone

The mood in which the speaker speaks: Calm? Melancholic? Ironic? Euphoric?

Addressee

The imagined person whom the speaker addresses. More than just a passive listener, but rather actively shapes the poem: his or her reactions, even if not mentioned in the text, influence the speaker’s utterance. Not all poems have one.