Poetry Terms: English

Visual

Relating to sight

Auditory

Relating to sound

Gustatory

Relating to taste

Olfactory

Relating to smell

• Tactile

Relating to touch (texture, heat, cold, wetness, hardness, etc.)

Organic

Relating to an internal sensation (hunger, thirst, fatigue, nausea, etc.)

Kinesthetic

Relating to movement or tension in the muscles or joints

Figures of Speech

Metaphor

Implied or explicit comparison of two things (“The clouds galloped…”)

Simile

Explicit comparison using like, as, than, just so (“hungry as a lion”)

Personification

Giving human qualities to something nonhuman (“The tree reached into the night sky”)

Apostrophe

Addressing someone absent, dead, or nonhuman as if they could respond

Paradox

An apparent contradiction that is nevertheless true (“less is more”)

Hyperbole

Outrageous exaggeration for emphasis/humor (“I could eat a horse”)

Understatement (litotes)

Deliberate understatement, often affirming the negative (“not bad” as a compliment)

Verbal Irony

Discrepancy between what one says and what one means

Synaesthesia

Describing one sense in terms of another (“The singer’s voice was smooth and velvety”)

Dramatic Irony (Drama)

Discrepancy between what the audience knows and what the character knows

Dramatic Irony (Poetry)

Discrepancy between what the speaker says and what the poem means

Irony of Situation

Discrepancy between what is expected and what actually happens (dying of thirst at sea)

Oxymoron

Condensed paradox; two contradictory terms combined (“cold fire,” “sick health”)

Iamb/Iambic (u ´)

Unstressed + stressed (attack, decide)

Trochee/Trochaic (´ u)

Stressed + unstressed (Panther, apple)

Anapest/Anapestic (u u ´)

Two unstressed + stressed (interfere, underneath)

Dactyl/Dactylic (´ u u)

Stressed + two unstressed (alphabet, oxidize)

Spondee/Spondaic (´ ´)

Two stressed (“No, no”)

Trimeter

3 feet

Tetrameter

4 feet

Pentameter

5 feet

Hexameter

6 feet

Caesura

A pause in the middle of a line (often punctuation)

Enjambment

When a phrase continues past the end of a line into the next

End-stopped line

When a phrase ends at the end of a line

Couplet

Two lines (usually rhymed)

Heroic Couplet

Rhymed iambic pentameter couplet, syntactically complete

Tercet

Three lines

Quatrain

Four lines

Sestet

Six lines

Octet/Octave

Eight lines

Pure/Perfect Rhyme

Exact sound repetition (hand/sand, master/disaster)

Slant Rhyme

Approximate rhyme using assonance or alliteration (comb/coat, hope/heap)

Internal Rhyme

Rhyme within a single line

Alliteration

Repetition of consonant sounds (“fun,” “phone,” “rough”)

Assonance

Repetition of vowel sounds (“vein,” “obey,” “sate”)

Onomatopoeia

Words imitating sounds (buzz, hiss, clash; “The surf crashed…”)

Sonnet (general)

14 lines, iambic pentameter, rhyme scheme, two parts with a “turn” (problem

Shakespearean Sonnet

3 quatrains + rhyming couplet (abab cdcd efef gg), turn at line 13

Petrarchan Sonnet

Octave (abbaabba) + sestet (cdcdcd or cdecde), turn at line 9

Variations

Poets often alter rhyme schemes, meter, or turn placement