Poetry Vocab 1-15

assonance

the repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in non-rhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible (e.g., penitence, reticence )

caesura

a slight natural pause in a line of poetry.

consonance

a feature of language in poetry whereby words with identical consonants but different vowels are used; for example, slip and slop, creak and croak.

ear rhyme

a true rhyme when spoken aloud, but looks as if it shouldn’t be by its spelling; for example, ‘choirs’ and ‘shires’.

epigraph

a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a literary work, intended to suggest its theme.

end-stopped line

a line of poetry that expresses a complete thought.

enjambment

(also known as a ‘run-on line’) a line of poetry where the meaning runs on into the following line (from a French word meaning ‘straddling’).

euphony

a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. Its opposite is cacophony.

extended metaphor

the identification of similar qualities elaborated over a number of lines, perhaps throughout an entire poem or paragraph of prose.

eye rhyme

when two words look as if they should rhyme from their spelling but don’t; for example ‘rough’ and ‘cough’.

foot

two or three syllables recurring in a pattern to form a metrical unit of rhythm

free verse

verse with no regular metrical or rhyme scheme, but linking devices such as repetition, parallelism and the careful use of very short lines, enjambments, direct speech and sound effects make it as careful a construct as a rhymed iambic pentameter.

half-rhyme

(also known as ‘imperfect rhyme’, ‘near-rhyme’, ‘oblique rhyme’, ‘off-rhyme’ and ‘slant-rhyme’) when the final consonant sound in words is repeated without the vowel sound corresponding; can help to create a sense of unease or disturbance.

incremental repetition

the name given to an effect of repeated lines recurring again and again; a line is repeated in a changed context or with minor changes in the repeated part

internal rhyme

when words within the same line rhyme.