Poetry Vocab

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 reader 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.

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

the implied or suggested meaning of a word or expression.

Consonance

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

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.

Imagery

language that evokes one or more of the five senses.

Figurative Language

language that uses figures of speech, such as simile, metaphor, personification, etc.

Sound Devices

elements that enhance the auditory quality of poetry, such as alliteration, assonance, and onomatopoeia.

Theme Statement

the central idea or underlying message of a poem.

Speaker/POV

the voice or perspective from which the poem is narrated.

Tone

the attitude or emotional quality conveyed by the poet's choice of words.

Setting/Situation

the context or environment in which the poem takes place.

Rhyme Scheme

the pattern of rhymes at the end of each line of a poem.

Dramatic Poetry

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

Elegiac Poem

a type of poem that meditates on death or has a serious theme.

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 for special effect.

Imagery

The representation through language of sense experience.

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

a 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.

Metonymy

the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself.

Narrative Poem

a poem that tells a story.

Visual Imagery

an image that occurs in the mind's eye.

Auditory (Aural) Imagery

an image which represents a sound.

Olfactory Imagery

an image which represents a smell.

Gustatory Imagery

an image which represents a taste.

Tactile Imagery

an image which represents touch.

Iamb

a metrical foot consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Trochee

a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

Anapest

a metrical foot consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.

Dactyl

a metrical foot consisting of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

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.

Refrain

a group of words, a line, or a 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 or sounds at the end of words.

Rhyme Scheme

the pattern of rhyme in a poem.

Satiric Poem

a type of poem based on criticism of people and society through ridicule.

Scansion

The indication of foot divisions and accents in metrical verse.

Simile

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

Sonnet (Shakespearean or English 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 units by a space.

Symbol

any object, person, place, or action that has a meaning in itself and that also stands for something larger than itself.

Synecdoche

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

Verbal Irony

Saying the opposite of what one means.

Verse

a line of poetry.

Villanelle

a type of English poem consisting of 19 lines (5 tercets and a final quatrain).