Poetry Terms

Inversion

changing the normal word order to fit a rhyme scheme or a meter

Syntax

normal word order

Meter

a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

Iambic foot

one unit of poetic meter with two syllables

Monometer

one iambic foot, two syllables

Dimeter

two iambic feet, four syllables

Trimeter

three iambic feet, six syllables

Tetrameter

four iambic feet, eight syllables

Pentameter

five iambic feet, ten syllables

Scansion/Scanning

identifying stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry

Couplet/ rhyming couplet

a pair of lines in poetry that rhyme and/or have the same meter

Lyric poem

a poem that expresses feelings and has a rhyme scheme and meter

Slant rhyme

formed by words with similar but not identical sounds

Poetic license

when a writer departs from conventions and rules of language in order to create an effect

iambic pentameter

A line of poetry that contains five iambic feet with a stress/unstressed meter

Octave

the first eight lines of an Italian sonnet

Sestet

the last six lines of an Italian sonnet

What does an octave do?

introduces a subject

What does a sestet do?

forms commentary about the octave

Elizabethan/Shakespearean Sonnet

contains three four-line groups followed by a rhyming couplet

Anne Bradstreet

- considered America's first poet
- Puritan
- "Upon the Burning of our House"
- "To My Dear and Loving Husband"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

- transcendentalist poet/ romantic
- "The Tide Rises; The Tide Falls"
- "The Cross of Snow"

Puritan poetry

GOD

Romantic poetry

NATURE AND EMOTIONS