IntroToLit, Part 2: Poetry Key Terms

poetry

one of the three major genres of imaginative literature, which has its origins in music and oral performance and is characterized by controlled patterns of rhythm and syntax (often using meter and rhyme); compression and compactness and an allowance for ambiguity; a particularly concentrated emphasis on the sensual, especially visual and aural, qualities and effects of words and word order; and especially vivid, often figurative language

poetry*

(1) writing that formulates a /concentrated/ imaginative awareness of experience in language chosen and /arranged/ to create a specific /emotional response/ through meaning, sound, and /rhythm/ (Merriam-Webster)

(2) composition in verse or some comparable /patterned arrangement/ of language in which the expression of /feelings/ and ideas is given /intensity/ by the use of distinctive style and /rhythm/ ... traditionally associated with explicit formal departure from the /patterns/ of ordinary speech or prose, e.g., in the use of elevated diction, figurative language, and syntactical reordering (The Oxford English Dictionary)

different as they are, both stress four elements: 1) the "patterned arrangement of language" to 2) generate "rhythm" and thereby both 3) express and evoke specific "emotion[s]" or "feelings" in 4) a "concentrated" way, or with "intensity"

character

an imaginary personage who acts, appears, or is referred to in a literary work

major/main characters

those characters who receive the most attention

minor characters

those characters who receive the least attention

flat characters

those characters who are relatively simple, have a few dominant traits, and tend to be predictable

round characters

those characters who are complex and multifaceted and act in a way that readers might not expect but accept as possible

static characters

those characters who do not change

dynamic characters

those characters who do change

stock characters

characters that represent familiar types that recur frequently in literary works, especially of a particular genre (e.g., the mad scientist of horror fiction and film or the fool in Renaissance, especially Shakespearean, drama)

action

any event or series of events depicted in a literary work; an event may be verbal as well as physical, so that saying something or telling a story within the story may be an event

plot

the arrangement of the action. the five main parts or phases are exposition, rising action, climax or turning point, falling action, and conclusion or resolution

narrator

someone who recounts a narrative or tells a story

speaker

(1) the person who is the voice of a poem

(2) anyone who speaks dialogue in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama

internal narrator

when the narrator is a character within the work, telling the story to an equally fictional auditor or listener; are usually first- or second-person narrators

external narrator

when the narrator is not a character within the work

first-person narrator

an internal narrator who consistently refers to themself using the first-person pronouns "I" or "we"

second-person narrator

a narrator who consistently uses the second-person pronoun "you" (a very uncommon technique)

third-person narrator

a narrator who uses third-person pronouns such as "she", "he", "they", "it", and so on; almost always external narrators

omniscient (third-person) narrator

when a third-person narrator describes the inner thoughts and feelings of multiple characters

limited third-person narrator

when a third-person narrator relates the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of only one characters (the central consciousness)

unreliable narrator

when the work encourages us to view a narrator's (usually first person) account of events with suspicion

intrusive narrator

a third-person narrator who occasionally disrupts their narrative to speak directly to the reader or audience in what is sometimes called direct address

diction

choice of words. often described as either informal or colloquial if it resembles everyday speech, or as formal if it is instead lofty, impersonal, and dignified. tone is determined largely through this

informal/colloquial diction

if the choice of words resembles everyday speech

formal diction

if the choice of words is lofty, impersonal, and dignified

syntax

word order; the way words are put together to form phrases, clauses, and sentences

conflict

a struggle between opposing forces; can be external or internal

external conflict

a struggle between opposing forces where it pits a character against something or someone outside themself — another character(s) or some impersonal force (e.g., nature or society)

internal conflict

a struggle between opposing forces where the opposing forces are two drives, impulses, or parts of a single character

figure of speech

any word or phrase that creates a "figure" in the mind of the reader by effecting an obvious change in the usual meaning of order of words, by comparing or identifying one thing with another; also called a trope. some common examples include metaphor, simile, metonymy, overstatement, oxymoron, and understatement

metonymy

a figure of speech in which the name of one thing is used to refer to another associated thing. when we say, "The White House has promised to veto the bill," for example, we use the White House to refer to the president and his administration. a specific type is a synecdoche

personification

a figure of speech that involves treating something nonhuman, such as an abstraction, as if it were a person by endowing it with humanlike qualities, as in "Death entered the room"

stanza

a section of a poem, marked by extra line spacing before and after, that often has a single pattern of meter and/or rhyme. conventional forms include ballad, Spenserian, ottava rima, and terza rima

rhyme

repetition or correspondence of the terminal sounds of words ("How now, brown cow?")

end rhyme

the most common type; occurs when the last words in two or more lines of a poem rhyme with each other

internal rhyme

occurs when a word within a line of poetry rhymes with another word in the same or adjacent lines, as in "The D/ews/ dr/ew/ quivering and chill" (Dickinson)

eye/sight ryhme

involves words that don't actually rhyme but look like they do because of their similar spelling ("cough" and "bough")

off/half/near/slant rhyme

a rhyme that is slightly "off" or only approximate, usually because words' final consonant sounds correspond, but not the vowels that proceed them ("phases" and "houses")

feminine rhyme

when two syllables rhyme and the last is unstressed or unaccented ("ocean" and "motion")

masculine rhyme

when a rhyme involves only a single stressed or accented syllable ("cat" and "hat")

situation

the basic circumstances depicted in a literary work, especially when the story, play, or poem begins or at a specific later moment in the action. in John Keat's "Ode to a Nightingale," for example, it involves a man (the speaker) sitting under a tree as he listens to a nightingale's song

setting

the time and place of the action in a work of fiction, poetry, or drama

spatial setting

the place or places in which action unfolds

temporal setting

the time in which action unfolds; the same as plot time

general setting

the general time and place in which all the action unfolds

particular settings

the times and places in which individual episodes or scenes take place

sonnet

a fixed verse form consisting of fourteen lines usually in iambic pentameter; includes Italian/Petrarchan and English/Shakespearean

Italian/Petrarchan sonnet

a sonnet that consists of eight rhyme-linked lines (an octave) plus six rhyme-linked lines (a sestet), often with either an abbaabba cdecde or abbacddc defdef rhyme scheme

English/Shakespearean sonnet

a sonnet that consists of three quatrains (four-line units) and a couplet and often rhymes abab cdcd efef gg

elegy

(1) since the Renaissance, usually a formal lament on the death of a particular person, but focusing mainly on the speaker's efforts to come to terms with their grief

(2) more broadly, and lyric in sorrowful mood that takes death as its primary subject. an example is W.H. Auden's "In Memory of W. B. Yeats"

narrative poem

a poem in which a narrator tells a story

dramatic

a poem structured so as to present a scene or series of scenes, as in a work of drama

lyric

originally, poem meant to be sung to the accompaniment of a lyre; now, any relatively short poem in which the speaker expresses their thoughts and feelings in the first person rather than recounting a narrative or portraying a dramatic situation

conventions

in literature, a standard or traditional way of presenting or expressing something, or a traditional or characteristic feature of a particular literary genre or subgenre. for poetry: division into lines and stanzas. for epic poems: a plot that begins in medias res and frequent use of epithets and extended similes

narrative poem*

like a work of prose fiction, this type of poem tells a story; in other words, it has a plot related by a narrator, though its plot might be based on actual rather than made-up events. in centuries past, was a (even the) dominant subgenre of poetry; as a result, there many different kinds: book-length epics; chivalric romances; grisly murder ballads, often rooted in actual events; and a range of harder-to-classify works of varying lengths

epic

a long narrative poem that celebrates the achievements of mighty heroes and heroines, usually in founding a nation or developing a culture, and uses elevated language and a grand, high style; other conventions include a beginning in medias res, an invocation of the muse, a journey to the underworld, battle scenes, and a scene in which the hero arms himself for battle. examples include "Beowulf" and Homer's "Iliad"

mock epic

a form of satire in which epic language and conventions are used to depict characters, actions, and settings utterly unlike those in conventional epics, usually (though not always) with the purpose of ridiculing the social milieu or types of people portrayed in the poem. a famous example is Alexander Pope's "The Rape of the Lock"

romance

(1) originally, a long medieval narrative in verse or prose written in one of the Romance languages (French, Spanish, Italian, etc.) and depicting the quests of knights and other chivalric heroes and the vicissitudes of courtly love; also known as chivalric romance

(2) later and more broadly, any literary work, especially a long work of prose fiction, characterized by a nonrealistic and idealizing use of the imagination

(3) commonly today, works of prose fiction aimed at a mass, primarily female, audience and focusing on love affairs (as in Harlequin romances)

chivalric romance

another term for romance, in the first sense of the term

Harlequin romances

another term for romance, in the third sense of the term

ballad

a verse narrative that is, or originally was, meant to be sung. were originally a folk creation, transmitted orally from person to person and age to age and characterized by relatively simple diction, meter, and rhyme scheme; by stock imagery; and by repetition; and often by a refrain. an example is "Sir Patrick Spens"

refrain

a recurrent phrase or series of phrases

verse drama

plays written in verse. for centuries, plays were written in verse; as a result, drama itself was understood not as a genre in its own right but rather as a subgenre of poetry — therefore, dramatic poetry meant and can still mean actual plays in verse

dramatic poem

any poem that consists wholly of dialogue among characters, unmediated by a narrator; even applies to poems in which narration is kept to the barest minimum. as plays were written in verse for centuries, drama was not understood as a genre in its own right but as a subgenre of poetry; thus, this meant and can still mean actual plays in verse (also called verse drama)

irony

a situation or statement characterized by a significant different between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant

verbal irony

occurs when a word or expression in context means something different from, and usually the opposite of, what it appears to mean; becomes sarcasm when the intended meaning is harshly critical or satiric

sarcasm

verbal irony where the intended meaning is harshly critical or satiric

situational irony

occurs when a character holds a position or has an expectation that is reversed or fulfilled in an unexpected way

dramatic irony

occurs when there is a gap between what an audience known and what a character believes or expects

tragic irony

when dramatic irony occurs in a tragedy

cosmic irony/irony of fate

sometimes used to refer to situation in which situational irony is the result of fate, chance, the gods, or some other superhuman force or entity

ode

a lyric poem characterized by a serious topic and formal tone but without a prescribed formal pattern in which the speaker talks about, and often to, an especially revered person or thing

dramatic monologue

a type or subgenre of poetry in which a speaker addresses a silent auditor or auditors in a specific situation and setting that is revealed entirely through the speaker's words; this kind of poem's primary aim is the revelation of the speaker's personality, views, and values. for example, Alfred Tennyson's "Ulysses" consists of an aged Ulysses's words to the mariners whom he hopes to convince to return to sea with him; includes most of Robert Browning's best-known poems

auditor

an imaginary listener within a literary work, as opposed to the actual reader or audience outside the work

tone

the attitude a literary work takes toward its subject or that a character in the work conveys, especially as revealed through diction

inversion

a change in normal syntax such as putting a verb before its subject. common in poetry, the technique is also famously used by Star Wars' Yoda, as in "When nine hundred years old you reach, look as good you will not"

epithet

a characterizing word or phrase that precedes, follows, or substitutes for the name of a person or thing, such as /slain civil rights leader/ Martin Luther King, Jr., or Zeus, /the god of trophies/. not to be confused with epitaph. epics conventionally make frequent use of these

epitaph

an inscription on a tombstone or grave marker; not to be confused with epigram, epigraph, or epithet

apostrophe

a figure of speech in which a speaker or narrator addresses an abstraction, an object, or a dead or absent person. an example occurs at the end of Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener": "Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!"

theme

(1) broadly and commonly, a topic explored in a literary work (e.g., "the value of all life")

(2) more narrowly and properly, the insight about a topic communicated in a work (e.g., "All living things are equally precious"). most literary works have multiple, thought some reserve the term for the central or main insight and refer to the others as subthemes. usually, it is implicitly communicated by the work as a whole rather than explicitly stated in it, though fables are an exception

subthemes

as most literary works have multiple themes, some people reserve the term "theme" for the central or main insight; these are the other themes in the work

enjambment

in poetry, the technique of running over from one line to the next without stop, as in the following lines by Willian Wordsworth: "My heart leaps up when I behold / A rainbow in the sky." the lines themselves would be described this

end-stopped

a line of verse that contains or concludes a complete clause and usually ends with a punctuation mark

alliteration

the repetition of usually initial consonant sounds through a sequence of words — for example, "While I /n/odded, /n/early /n/apping" in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven"

meter

the more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. this is determined by the kind of foot (iambic or dactylic, for example) and by the number of feet per line (e.g., five feet = pentameter, six feet = hexameter)

couplet

two consecutive lines of verse linked by rhyme and meter

heroic couplet

two consecutive lines of verse linked by rhyme and meter, the meter being iambic pentameter

blank verse

the metrical verse form most like everyday human speech; consists of unrhymed lines in iambic pentameter. includes many of Shakespeare's plays, as well as John Milton's "Paradise Lost" and Alfred Tennyson's "Ulysses"

ballad stanza

a common stanza form, consisting of a quatrain that alternates four-foot and three-foot lines; lines 1 and 3 are unrhymed iambic tetrameter (four feet), and lines 2 and 4 are rhymed iambic trimeter (three feet); as in "Sir Patrick Spens"

anapestic

referring to a metrical form in which each foot consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one. for example, "There are mán- | y who sáy | that a dóg | has his dáy" (Dylan Thomas, "The Song of the Mischievous Dog")

anapest*

a single foot of the metrical form where the foot consists of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one

villain

a character who not only opposes the hero or heroine (and is thus an antagonist) but also is characterized as an especially evil person or "bad guy"

persona

the voice or figure of the author who tells and structures the work and who may or may not share the values of the actual author

sequence

(1) the ordering of action in a fictional plot

(2) a closely linked series or cycle of individual literary works, especially short stories or poems, designed to be read or performed together, as in the sonnet sequences of Willian Shakespeare and Edna St. Vincent Millay

allusion

a brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside the text, whether another text (e.g., the Bible, a myth, another literary work, a painting, or a piece of music) or any imaginary or historical person, place, or thing

pastoral literature

a work or category of works — whether fiction, poetry, drama, or nonfiction — describing and idealizing the simple life of country folk, usually shepherds who live a painless life in a world full of beauty, music, and love. an example is Christopher Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love"

occasional poem

poem written to celebrate or commemorate a specific event such as a birth, marriage, death, coronation, inauguration, or military battle. examples include Edmund Spenser's "Epithalamion" (written for his own marriage) and W.B. Yeat's "Easter 1916" (about the Easter Uprising in Ireland)

carpe diem

literally, "seize the day" in Latin, a common theme of literary works that emphasize the brevity of life and the need to make the most of the present. Andrew Marvell's poem "To His Coy Mistress" is a well-known example

aubade

a poem in which the coming of dawn is either celebrated or denounced as a nuisance, as in "John Donne's "The Sun Rising"