Poetry Terms

Alliteration

the repetition of sounds, usually consonant sounds but sometimes some successive vowel sounds, at the beginning of words in the same line or in successive lines

Allusion

reference to a person or place or event with which the reader is presumed to be familiar.

Apostrophe

a digression in the form of an address to someone not present or to a personified object or an idea, as "O Death, Where is thy sting?"

Assonance

the repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonant sounds. These sounds may appear in the same lines or in successive lines.

Ballad

a story told in verse and usually meant to be sung.

Connotation

the implied or suggested meaning of a word or expression. For example, the word springtime literally means the time between the vernal equinox and the summer solstice, but the word usually makes most people think of such things as youth, rebirth, and romance.

Consonance

repetition of final consonant sounds in the stressed syllables of words though the vowel sounds are different.

Couplet

two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme.

Denotation

the literal or dictionary meaning or meanings of a word.

Diction

a writer's choice of words particularly for clarity, precision, and effectiveness.

Didactic Poem

a type of poem that teaches a lesson, presents a moral, or is somehow instructive.

Elegiac Poem

a type of poem that meditates on death or has a serious theme.

Free Verse

poetry that has no regular rhyme scheme, rhythm, or line length.

Blank Verse

poetry using unrhymed iambic pentameter (ten syllables a line)

Hyperbole

a figure of speech employing obvious exaggeration or overstatement for special effect.

Internal Rhyme

the rhyming of the end word with a word in the middle of the line.

Refrain

a group of words, a line, or a group of lines repeated throughout a poem, usually at the end of each stanza.

Lyric

a poem, usually a short one, which expresses a speaker's personal thoughts or feelings.

Metaphor

a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two things that are basically dissimilar.

Repetition

a literary technique in which words or phrases are repeated at regular intervals to secure emphasis.

Onomatopoeia

the use of words which in their pronunciation suggest their meaning.

Metonymy

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

Narrative Poem

a poem that tells a story.

Personification

a figure of speech in which something non-human is given human qualities.

Rhyme

repetition of the same (or similar) sounds or sounds at the end of words. Usually, in poetry, rhyming means the ending of two or more lines with words that sound alike.

Rhyme Scheme

the pattern of rhyme in a poem. A rhyme scheme uses a different letter of the alphabet to stand for each different rhyming sound.

Synecdoche

a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole or the whole signifies the part.

Verse

a line of poetry

Scansion

The indication of foot divisions and accents in metrical verse.

Symbol

any object, person, place, or action that has a meaning in itself and that also stands for something larger than itself such as a quality, an attitude, or a value. A rose is often a symbol of love and beauty; a skull if often a symbol of death; spring and winter often symbolize youth and old age.

Simile

a figure of speech in which the comparison between two unlike things is expressed directly, usually by means of like or as.

Stanza

a group of lines of verses treated as a unit and separated from other units by a space. A 3-line stanza is called a tercet / a 4-line stanza is called a quatrain

Tone

the attitude the writer takes toward his/her subject through diction - creates a mood. Examples: cheerful, mournful, playful, informal, formal, ironic, satiric, optimistic, pessimistic.

Satiric Poem

type of poem based on criticism of people and society through ridicule. The satirist aims to reduce practices attacked by laughing scornfully at them -and being witty enough to allow the readers to laugh also. May employ other devices such as irony, hyperbole, figurative language)

Enjambment

the running over of a sentence or phrase from one verse to the next without end punctuation (run-on lines)

Imagery

The representation through language of sense experience

Dramatic Poetry

a poem that uses dialogue of the characters involved to tell a story or portray a situation.

Caesura

a stop or pause in a metrical line of poetry often marked by a dash, semicolon, colon, etc.

Sonnet

(Shakespearean or English Sonnet): a 14-line lyric poem in iambic pentameter consisting of three quatrains and a final couplet.

Villanelle

a type of English poem consisting of 19 lines (5 tercets and a final quatrain). Consists of only two rhymes with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain (aba abaa) Most famous villanelle: Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"

Cacophony

or dissonance: harsh sounding language

Figurative Language

a word or phrase that departs from everyday literal language for the sake of comparison, emphasis, clarity or freshness.( ie. metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, synecdoche, puns). Also known as a Figure of Speech.

Visual Imagery

an image that occurs in the minds eye

Auditory (aural) Imagery

an image which represents a sound

Olfactory Imagery

an image which represents a smell

Gustatory Imagery

an image which represents a taste

Tactile Imagery

an image which represents touch

Verbal Irony

aying the opposite of what one means. In a sense, irony is the discrepancy between what is said and what is meant.

Meter

The pattern created in a particular poem by the repetition of a basic grouping of accented syllables. Each grouping is called a foot. There are four groupings in English metrical poetry: da dum, dum da, da da dum, and dum da da. A line of metrical poetry can consist of any number of feet.

Iambic pentameter

A line which consists of five iambs