Poetry Analysis

What is poetry?

A subjective first-person speaker or voice.

An unusual use of words and phrases.

Repetition of sounds.

Lines grouped in stanzas.

Stanza

A unit within a poem, consisting of a group of lines, often following a pattern of meter and rhyme.

Verse

Poetic composition written in meter.

Blank Verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Free Verse

Poetry without a fixed pattern of meter, rhyme, or other conventions.

Meter

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a verse.

Foot

The smallest rhythmic unit in poetry.

Iamb (Iambic Meter)

Unstressed-stressed (e.g., "control").

Trochee (Trochaic Meter)

Stressed-unstressed (e.g., "stupid").

Dactyl (Dactylic Meter)

Stressed-unstressed-unstressed (e.g., "clumsiness").

Anapest (Anapestic Meter)

Unstressed-unstressed-stressed (e.g., "contradict").

Spondee (Spondaic Meter)

Stressed-stressed (e.g., "snowstorm").

Monometer

One foot per line.

Dimeter

Two feet per line.

Trimeter

Three feet per line.

Tetrameter

Four feet per line.

Pentameter

Five feet per line.

Hexameter

Six feet per line.

End-stopped Line

A pause at the end of a line coinciding with a syntactic unit.

Run-on Line (Enjambment)

A sentence or phrase runs over from one line to the next.

Caesura

A pause within a line, marked by punctuation.

Rhyme Scheme

The pattern of rhyming lines in a poem.

Masculine Rhyme

Single-syllable rhyme (e.g., "man-fan").

Feminine Rhyme

Two-syllable rhyme (e.g., "ditty-pity").

Triple Rhyme

Three-syllable rhyme (e.g., "treacherous-lecherous").

Perfect Rhyme

Exact match of sounds in rhyming syllables.

Eye Rhyme

Words look alike but sound different (e.g., "love-move").

Half Rhyme

Imperfect rhyme (e.g., "loads-lids").

Internal Rhyme

Rhyme within the same line.

End Rhyme

Rhyme at the end of lines.

Couplet

aa bb

Cross Rhyme

abab

Half Cross Rhyme

abcb

Embracing Rhyme

abba

Simile

Direct comparison using "like" or "as."

Metaphor

Indirect comparison without "like" or "as" (e.g., "life is a journey").

Metonymy

Substituting a related word (e.g., "the crown" for "the queen").

Symbol

An object representing something else beyond its literal meaning.

Allegory

A narrative where characters/events symbolize broader ideas.

Personification

Giving human qualities to non-human things.

Synecdoche

A part represents the whole (e.g., "a roof over one's head" for "a house").

Anaphora

Repetition of words at the beginning of successive clauses.

Epiphora

Repetition of words at the end of lines.

Parallelism

Repetition of similar grammatical structures.

Chiasmus

Reversal of structures in successive clauses.

Hyperbole

Exaggeration for effect.

Oxymoron

Contradictory terms together (e.g., "war for peace").

Alliteration

Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words (e.g., "threatening throngs")

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds in stressed syllables (e.g., "stony-holy").

Onomatopoeia

Words that imitate sounds.