Poetry Devices and Meter: Key Concepts for Literary Analysis

Blank Verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter; the most common meter in English dramatic and narrative verse.

Masculine Ending

A line of verse that ends on a stressed syllable.

Feminine Ending

A line of verse that ends on an unstressed syllable.

Caesura

A pause within a line of poetry, often signaled by punctuation or natural speech rhythm.

End-Stopped Line

A line of verse that concludes with a natural pause, often marked by punctuation.

Run-On Line

A line that carries over into the next without a grammatical or syntactical pause; see enjambment.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence or clause beyond the end of a line of verse without pause.

Stress / Accent

The emphasis placed on a syllable in speech.

Meter

The organized pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry.

Prosody

The study of the technical elements of verse, including meter, rhythm, and sound.

Scansion

The process of analyzing a poem's meter by marking stressed and unstressed syllables.

Foot

The basic metrical unit of verse, consisting of a set pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.

Rising Meters

Metrical feet that move from unstressed to stressed syllables (e.g., iamb, anapest).

Falling Meters

Metrical feet that move from stressed to unstressed syllables (e.g., trochee, dactyl).

Line

A single row of words in a poem; often measured by meter and ending in a line break.

Rhythm

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in language; in poetry, it can be metrical or free.

Ballad

A narrative poem, often in quatrains, that tells a story and uses repetition and simple language.

Literary Ballad

A ballad composed by a known author that imitates the style of traditional folk ballads.

Onomatopoeia

A word whose sound imitates its meaning (e.g., buzz, hiss).

Alliteration

The repetition of initial consonant sounds in nearby words.

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds in nearby words.

Euphony

The use of pleasant, harmonious sounds in poetry.

Cacophony

The use of harsh, discordant sounds in poetry.

Rhyme

The repetition of similar sounds, usually at the ends of words.

Eye Rhyme

Words that look alike in spelling but do not rhyme in sound (e.g., love / move).

End Rhyme

Rhyme that occurs at the ends of lines in poetry.

Internal Rhyme

Rhyme that occurs within a single line of verse.

Masculine Rhyme

Rhyme of final stressed syllables (e.g., stand / land).

Feminine Rhyme

Rhyme of two or more syllables with stress on a syllable other than the last (e.g., sorrowing / borrowing).

Exact Rhyme

Words that have identical vowel and consonant sounds from the stressed syllable to the end (e.g., cat / hat).

Near Rhyme (Off Rhyme, Slant Rhyme, Approximate Rhyme)

Words with similar but not identical sounds, often in vowel or consonant (e.g., room / storm).

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the ends of words or within stressed syllables.