Poetry Terms

Alliteration

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew / The furrow followed free.

Allusion

Reference to a person, event or place with which the reader is presumed to be familiar. (Often biblical or to classical literature)

Apostrophe

Speaking directly to a real or imagined listener or inanimate object; addressing that person or thing by name. (Oh Caesar)

Assonance

Molten-golden notes

Assonance (definition)

The repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds. These sounds may appear in the same lines or in successive lines.

Connotation

The implied or suggested meaning of a word or expression. For example, the word springtime means the time between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, but the word usually makes most people think of things such as youth, rebirth, and romance.

Consonance

And all the air a solemn stillness holds

Consonance definition

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

Couplet definition

Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme

Couplet

This education forms the common mind

Just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined

Denotation

The literal or dictionary meaning or meanings of a word.

End Rhyme

Bid me to weep, and I will weep

While I have eyes to see

And having none, yet I will keep

A heart to weep for thee

End Stopped definition

A line that ends with punctuation; creates a pause

End Stopped

Shall I compare the to s summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Enjambment

The continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet or stanza.

Free Verse

Poetry that has no regular rhyme scheme, rhythm or line length

Imagery

The representation through language of sense experience including visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile.

Internal Rhyme definition

The rhyme of the end word with a word in the middle of the line

Internal Rhyme

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers

Juxtaposition

Placing two things side by side to create dramatic or ironic contrast

Lyric

A poem, usually a short one, that expresses a speaker’s personal thoughts or feelings

Metaphor

A figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that are basically dissimilar

Metonymy Definition

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

Metonymy

The White House = The President

Narrative Poem

A poem that tells a story

Onomatopoeia

Crack, growl, roar, howl, boom

Personification

A narrow wind complains all day

Personification definition

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.

Rhyme scheme

The pattern of rhyme in a poem

Simile

A comparison is made between two unlike things is expressed directly by the means of like or as

Slant rhyme

Ways rhyming with grace

Sonnet

A 14 line poem with a variable rhyme scheme originating in Italy. Literally a “little song,” this poem traditionally reflects upon a single sentiment, with clarification or “turn” of thought in its conducting lines.

Stanza

A group of lines or verses treated as a unit and superheated from other units by a space.

Symbol Definition

Any object, person, place, or action that has a meaning in itself and that also stands for something larger than itself such as a quality, an attitude, or a value.

Symbol

Rose = Love and beauty

Skull = Death

Synecdoche Definition

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

Synecdoche

Counting heads

Nice wheels

Synesthesia

Her voice was sweet

A loud aroma

Synesthesia definition

An attempt to fuse different senses by describing one kind of sense impression in words normally used to describe another.