Poetry Words 2

Alliteration

Alliteration

Repeating a consonant sound in close proximity to others, or beginning several words with the same vowel sound.

Anapest

A foot or unit of poetry consisting of two light syllables followed by a single stressed syllable. Some words and phrases in English that constitute anapests include the following examples: understand, interrupt, comprehend, anapest, New Rochelle, contradict, "get a life," condescend, Coeur d'Alene, "in the blink of an eye," and so on. Anapestic meter consists of lines of poetry that follow this pattern of "light stress, light stress, heavy stress" pattern. For example: "The Assyrian came dówn like a wólf on the fóld" (Lord Byron, "The Destruction of Sennacherib") or "Oh he flies through the air with the greatest of ease."

Assonance

Repeating identical or similar vowels (especially in stressed syllables) in nearby words. Assonance in final vowels of lines can often lead to half-rhyme. Deutsche notes that assonance is a common technique in the poetry of G. M. Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, and more generally in popular ballad

Blank Verse

(also called unrhymed iambic pentameter): Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents. Blank verse has been called the most "natural" verse form for dramatic works, since it supposedly is the verse form most close to natural rhythms of English speech, and it has been the primary verse form of English drama and narrative poetry since the mid-Sixteenth Century. Such verse is blank in rhyme only; it usually has a definite meter. (Variations in this meter may appear occasionally.) The Earl of Surrey first used the term "blank verse" in his 1540 translation of The Aeneid of Virgil. As an example, in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, T

Cacophony

The term in poetry refers to the use of words that combine sharp, harsh, hissing, or unmelodious sounds. It is the opposite of euphony.

Consonance

A special type of alliteration in which the repeated pattern of consonants is marked by changes in the intervening vowels--i.e., the final consonants of the stressed syllables match each other but the vowels differ. As M. H. Abrams illustrates in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, examples include linger, longer, and languor or rider, reader, raider, and ruder.

Dactyl

A three-syllable foot consisting of a heavy stress and two light stresses. Examples of words in English that naturally constitute dactyls include strawberry, carefully, changeable, merrily, mannequin, tenderly, prominent, buffalo, glycerin, notable, scorpion, tedious, horrible, and parable. Verses written in feet that follow this pattern are said to be in dactylic meter.

Euphony

Attempting to group words together harmoniously, so that the consonants permit an easy and pleasing flow of sound when spoken, as opposed to cacophony, when the poet intentionally mixes jarring or harsh sounds together in groups that make the phrasing either difficult to speak aloud or grating to the ear.

End Rhyme

Rhyme in which the last word at the end of each verse is the word that rhymes. This contrasts with internal rhyme, in which a word in the middle of each line of verse rhymes, or so-called head rhyme, in which the beginning consonant in a word alliterates with another beginning consonant in a different word.

Exact Rhyme

Exact rhyme or perfect rhyme is rhyming two words in which both the consonant sounds and vowel sounds match to create a rhyme. The term "exact" is sometimes used more specifically to refer to two homophones that are spelled dissimilarly but pronounced identically at the end of lines. Since poetry is traditionally spoken aloud, the effect of rhyme depends upon sound rather than spelling, even words that are spelled dissimilarly can rhyme. Examples of this sort of exact rhyme include the words pain/pane, time/thyme, rein/reign, and bough/bow. However, it is equally common to use the term exact rhyme in reference to any close rhyme such as line/mine, dig/pig, and so on. Contrast exact rhyme with eye rhymes, and inexact rhymes or imperfect rhymes. The last two of these three contrasting terms include subtypes such as half rhyme, near rhyme, or slant rhyme. Exact rhyme is also referred to as perfect rhyme, full rhyme, or true rhyme.

Feminine Rhyme

Feminine rhyme is also known as “double rhyme.” This kind of rhyme occurs within words that have the same beginnings and the same endings. For example, “measles” and “weasels” in which “wea” and “mea” rhyme as well as “ les” and “els.”

Often, this type of rhyme uses the dactylic meter. This refers to the arrangement of beats in lines of verse. With a dactylic meter, one long syllable comes before two unstressed or short syllables. The word “dactyl” comes from the Greek meaning “finger,” and there are three common types of dactylic meter. They are pentameter, hexameter, and a double dactyl. It is the opposite of an anapaest which consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. When one considers the arrangement of feminine rhymes, the latter format (an anapaest) is also a possibility.

Foot

A basic unit of meter consisting of a set number of strong stresses and light stresses.

Heroic Couplet

Two successive rhyming lines of iambic pentameter. The second line is usually end-stopped. It was common practice to string long sequences of heroic couplets together in a pattern of aa, bb, cc, dd, ee, ff (and so on). Because this practice was especially popular in the Neoclassic Period between 1660 and 1790, the heroic couplet is often called the neoclassic couplet if the poem originates during this time period. Note that "heroic" in this case has nothing to do with subject-matter. By all means, do not follow in the footsteps of one confused student who mistakenly listed Romeo and Juliet as an example of a "heroic couplet."

Iamb/Iambic

unit or foot of poetry that consists of a lightly stressed syllable followed by a heavily stressed syllable. Some words in English naturally form iambs, such as behold, restore, amuse, arise, awake, return, Noel, support, depict, destroy, inject, inscribe, insist, inspire, unwashed, and so on. A line of poetry written with syllables falling in this pattern of stress are said to be in iambic meter. See extended discussion under meter. Click here to download a PDF handout that contrasts iambs with other types of poetic feet. An iamb is also called an iambus in classical scholarship. a lightly stressed syllable followed by a heavily stressed syllable.

Internal Rhyme

poetic device in which a word in the middle of a line rhymes with a word at the end of the same metrical line.

Masculine Rhyme

Rhymes that end with a heavy stress on the last syllable in each rhyming word.

Meter

A recognizable though varying pattern of stressed syllables alternating with syllables of less stress. Compositions written in meter are said to be in verse. There are many possible patterns of verse. Each unit of stress and unstressed syllables is called a "foot." Iambs and anapests, since the strong stress is at the end, are called "rising meter"; trochees and dactyls, with the strong stress at the beginning with lower stress at the end, are called "falling meter." Additionally, if a line ends in a standard iamb, with a final stressed syllable, it is said to have a masculine ending. If a line ends in a lightly stressed syllable, it is said to be feminine.e name a metric line according to the number of "feet" in it. If a line has four feet, it is tetrameter. If a line has five feet, it is pentameter. Six feet, hexameter, and so on. English verse tends to be pentameter, French verse tetrameter, and Greek verse, hexameter. When scanning a line, we might, for instance, describe the line as "iambic pentameter" (having five feet, with each foot tending to be a light syllable followed by heavy syllable), or "trochaic tetrameter" (having four feet, with each foot tending to be a long syllable followed by a short syllable).

Onomatopoeia

The use of sounds that are similar to the noise they represent for a rhetorical or artistic effect. For instance, buzz, click, rattle, and grunt make sounds akin to the noise they represent. A higher level of onomatopoeia is the use of imitative sounds throughout a sentence to create an auditory effect. For instance, Tennyson writes in The Princess about "The moan of doves in immemorial elms, / And murmuring of innumerable bees." All the /m/ and /z/ sounds ultimately create that whispering, murmuring effect Tennyson describes. In similar ways, poets delight in choosing sounds that match their subject-matter, such as using many clicking k's and c's when describing a rapier duel (to imitate the clack of metal on metal), or using many /s/ sounds when describing a serpent, and so on. Robert Browning liked squishy sounds when describing squishy phenomena, and scratchy sounds when describing the auditory effect of lighting a match, such as in his poem "Meeting at Night": "As I gain the cove with pushing prow, / And quench its speed i' the slushy sand. / a tap at the pane, the quick sharp, scratch / and blue spurt of a lighted match." The technique is ancient, and we can find a particularly cunning example in Virgil's Latin, in which he combines /d/ and /t/ sounds along with galloping rhythm to mimic in words the sound of horses he describes: "Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum. . . ." Onomatopoeia appears in all languages, and it is a common optional effect in various genres such as the Japanese haiku.

Pyrrhic Foot

In classical Greek or Latin poetry, this foot consists of two unaccented syllables--the opposite of a spondee. At best, a pyrrhic foot is an unusual aberration in English verse, and most prosodists (including me!) do not accept it as a foot at all because it contains no accented syllable. Normally, the context or prevailing iambs, trochees, or spondees in surrounding lines overwhelms any potential pyrrhic foot, and a speaker reading the foot aloud will tend artificially to stress either the first or last syllable.

Rhyme Scheme

The pattern of rhyme. The traditional way to mark these patterns of rhyme is to assign a letter of the alphabet to each rhyming sound at the end of each line. Thus, the rhyme scheme for each stanza in the poem above is ABABCCDD. It is conventional in most poetic genres that every stanza follow the same rhyme scheme, though it is possible to have interlocking rhyme scheme such as terza rima. It is also common for poets to deliberately vary their rhyme scheme for artistic purposes--such as Philip Larkin's "Toads," in which the poetic speaker complains about his desire to stop working so hard, and his rhymes degenerate into half-rhymes or slant rhymes as an indication that he doesn't want to go to the effort of perfection. Among the most common rhyme schemes in English, we find heroic couplets (AA, BB, CC, DD, EE, FF, etc.) and quatrains (ABAB, CDCD, etc.), but the possible permutations are theoretically infinite.

Rhythm

The varying speed, loudness, pitch, elevation, intensity, and expressiveness of speech, especially poetry. In verse the rhythm is normally regular; in prose it may or may not be regular.

Shift

A general term in linguistics for any slight alteration in a word's meaning, or the creation of an entirely new word by changing the use of an expression. Or a change in emotion or though within a poem.

Slant Rhyme

Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa. This type of rhyme is also called approximate rhyme, inexact rhyme, near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, analyzed rhyme, or suspended rhyme.

Sound Devices

Sound devices are special tools the poet can use to create certain effects in the poem to convey and reinforce meaning through sound. The four most common sound devices are repetition, rhyme, alliteration, and assonance.

Spondee

In scansion, a spondee is a metrical foot consisting of two successive strong beats. The spondee typically is "slower" and "heavier" to read than an iamb or a dactyl. Some words and phrases in English naturally form spondees when they alone constitute a poetic foot. Examples of such spondees include football, Mayday, shortcake, plop-plop, fizz-fizz, dumbbell, drop-dead, goof-off, race track, bathrobe, breakdown, dead man, black hole, and love song.

Sprung Rhythm

Also called "accentual rhythm," sprung rhythm is a term invented by the poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins to describe his personal metrical system in which the major stresses are "sprung" from each line of poetry. The accent falls on the first syllable of every foot and a varying number of unaccented syllables following the accented one, but all feet last an equal amount of time when being pronounced. The result of this technique is unusual metrical irregularity, but Hopkins claimed that sprung rhythm is found in most speech and in prose and music. This poetic method actually predates Hopkins, as it was not unknown in Old English and Middle English alliterative verse. However, Hopkins' poetry helped revitalize interest in accentual rhythm, and sprung rhythm has had a profound influence on T. S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and Ted Hughes, as well other modernists.

Trochee/Trochaic

A two-syllable unit or foot of poetry consisting of a heavy stress followed by a light stress. Many words in English naturally form trochees, including happy, hammer, Pittsburgh, nugget, double, incest, injure, roses, hippie, Bubba, "beat it," clever, dental, dinner, shatter, pitcher, Cleveland, chosen, planet, chorus, widow, bladder, cuddle, slacker, and so on. A line of poetry written in successive trochees is said to be written in trochaic meter.