Poetry Terms

alliteration

the repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at

the beginnings of words.

allusion

a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work,

especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work.

antithesis

a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words,

clauses, sentences, or ideas, as in Man proposes; God disposes.

apostrophe

a figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always

absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as

though present.

assonance

the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.

ballad meter

a four-line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and

three and three feet in lines two and four.

blank verse

unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the meter of most of

Shakespeare’s plays, as well as that of Milton’s Paradise Lost.

cacophony

a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones. It may be an

unconscious flaw in the poet’s music, resulting in harshness of sound or difficulty

of articulation, or it may be used consciously for

effect, as Browning and Eliot often use it.

caesura

a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by

the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause.

conceit

an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things.

consonance

the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words.

couplet

a two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same.

devices of sound

the techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially

in poetry. Among devices of sound are rhyme, alliteration, assonance,

consonance, and onomatopoeia. The devices are used for many reasons,

including to create a general effect of pleasant or of discordant sound, to imitate

another sound, or to reflect a meaning

diction

he use of words in a literary work

didactic poem

a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson.

dramatic poem

poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or

elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends.

elegy

a sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditations upon

death or another solemn theme.

end-stopped

a line with a pause at the end.

enjambment

the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from

one line of poetry to the next.

extended metaphor

an implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried

throughout a stanza or an entire poem.

euphony

a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear

predominate.

eye rhyme

rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or

slant rhyme from the pronunciation

feminine rhyme

a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as

“waken” and “forsaken” and “audition” and “rendition.”

figurative language

writing that uses figures of speech (as opposed to literal

language or that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, irony,

and simile.

free verse

poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still

rhythmical.

heroic couplet

two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc

with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit.

hyperbole

a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration.

imagery

the images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the

figurative language of a work. I

irony

the contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another

meaning.

internal rhyme

rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end.

lyric poem

any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses

thoughts and feelings.

masculine rhyme

rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of

the rhyme-words.

metaphor

a figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed

without the use of a comparative term like “as,” “like,” or “than.”

meter

the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry.

metonymy

a figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a

term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself.

mixed metaphor

the mingling of one metaphor with another immediately

following with which the first is incongruous.

narrative poem

a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a

narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short

octave

an eight-line stanza.

oxymoron

a form of paradox that combines a pair of contrary terms into a

single expression. This combination usually serves the purpose of shocking the

reader into awareness.

paradox

a situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on

inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense.

parallelism

a similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry.

paraphrase

a restatement of an ideas in such a way as to retain the meaning

while changing the diction and form.

personification

a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract

ideas human characteristics

poetic foot

a group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented

syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it.

pun

a play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply

diverse meanings.

quatrain

a four-line stanza with any combination of rhymes

refrain

a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one

or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza.

rhyme

close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables

occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse.

rhyme royal

a seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc, used

by Chaucer and other medieval poets.

rhythm

the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables.

sarcasm

a type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something

but is actually insulting it.

satire

writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by

ridicule.

scansion

a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the

number and the type(s) of feet per line.

sestet

a six-line stanza.

simile

a directly expressed comparison;

sonnet

normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem.

stanza

usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter

and rhyme scheme

strategy

the management of language for a specific

effect.

structure

the arrangement of materials within a work; the relationship of the

parts of a work to the whole; the logical divisions of a work.

style

the mode of expression in language;

symbol

something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else.

synecdoche

a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the

whole.

syntax

the ordering of words into patterns or sentences. If a poet shifts words

from the usual word order, you know you are dealing with an older style of poetry

or a poet who wants to shift emphasis onto a particular word.

tercet

a stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme.

terza rima

a three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc,etc. Dante’s Divine

Comedy is written in terza rima

theme

the main thought expressed by a work.

tone

the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the

intonation of the voice that expresses meaning.

understatement

It is a kind of irony that

deliberately represents something as being much less than it really is.

villainelle

a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain