Guide to Poetic Terms

anaphora

The repetition of a word or phrase, usually at the beginning of a line.

alliteration

The repetition of sounds in a sequence of words.

allegory

A narrative with two levels of meaning, one stated and one unstated.

apostrophe

Direct address to an absent or otherwise unresponsive entity.

assonance

The repetition of vowel-sounds.

beat

A stressed (or accented) syllable.

binary

Dual, twofold, characterized by two parts.

blank verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

caesura

An audible pause internal to a line, usually in the middle.

chiasmus

A 'crossed' rhetorical parallel, changing from a🅱🅰b to a🅱🅱a.

climax

The high point; the moment of greatest tension or intensity.

consonance

The repetition of consonant-sounds.

couplet

Two lines of verse, usually rhymed.

diction

Word choice, specifically the 'class' or 'kind' of words chosen.

elegy

A reflective poem that laments the loss of something or someone.

end-stopped line

A line that ends with a punctuation mark and whose meaning is complete.

enjambed line

A 'run-on' line that carries over into the next to complete its meaning.

foot

The basic unit of accentual-syllabic and quantitative meter.

free verse

Poetry in which the rhythm does not repeat regularly.

imagery

The visual (or other sensory) pictures used to render a description more vivid.

meter

A regularly repeating rhythm, divided for convenience into feet.

metonymy

A figure of speech in which something is represented by another associated with it.

ode

A genre of lyric, tending to be a long meditation on an elevated subject.

prosody

The study of versification, focusing on form and sound patterns in poetry.

refrain

A phrase or line recurring at intervals.

rhythm

Patterns of stresses, unstressed syllables, and pauses in language.

scansion

The identification and analysis of poetic rhythm and meter.

simile

A figure of speech that compares two distinct things using 'like' or 'as'.

speaker

The 'I' of a poem, equivalent to the 'narrator' of prose.

speech act

The manner of expression, encompassing various forms such as questions and declarations.

stanza

A group of lines in a poem, separated by extra white space.

symbol

An image that stands for something larger and more complex.

symbolism

The sustained use of symbols to represent or suggest other things or ideas.

synecdoche

A figure of speech in which a part of something represents the whole.

tone

The speaker’s or author’s attitude toward the reader or subject matter.

topos

A traditional theme or motif.

trope

A figure of speech, such as a metaphor.

valediction

An act or utterance of farewell.