English Poetry Terms

Denotation

the meaning of a word as defined in the dictionary

Connotation

the overtones or suggestions of additional meaning a word gains from context

Imagery

language of sense experience. Must be concrete rather than abstract; the mental pictures experienced by the reader of the poem.

Allusion

a meaningful reference, either direct or indirect, to something outside the poem itself. A means of reinforcing the emotion or ideas of one's own work with the emotion or ideas of another work.

Irony

When something happens that is contrary to what is expected or predicted.

Paraphrase

rewriting literature in your own words, usually in prose, to clarify its meaning, tone, and imagery while remaining faithful to the original, line-by-line or stanza-by-stanza.

Similie

an explicit comparison that uses "like" or "as". It can also be "than", "similar", "to", "resembles", or "seems".

Metaphor

a figure of speech that regards a comparison made between to unalike things.

Personification

applying human attributes to an animal, object, or an abstraction.

Symbol

an object that means more than itself.

Allegory

a description that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically moral or political one.

Stanza

a group of lines

Refrain

words, phrases, or lines repeated at intervals.

Repetition

the repeating of punctuation, words, or structure.

Title

use the title as a guide for conveying the meaning to the reader.

End-stopped

a line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark.

Enjambment

the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next.

Alliteration

a succession of similar sounds, usually consonants.

Euphony

when the wound of words pleases the mind and ear.

Cacophony

opposite of euphony; harsh joining of sounds.

Assonance

repetition of vowel sounds

Consonance

the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. Usually refers to words in which the ending consonants are the same but the vowels that come, before them are different.

Onomatopoeia

a word that captures or approximates the sound of what it describes.

Rhyme

occurs when two or more words or phrses contain an identical or similar vowel-sound, usually accented, and the consonant sounds that follow the vowel-sounds are identical.

Anaphora

a technique in which successive phrases or lines begin with the same words, often resembling a litany.

Subject

what the poem is about; the topic or event the poet chooses to engage.

Speaker

(who?): the "voice" of the poem. NEVER assume that the poet is the speaker. Always try to fully characterize your speaker: what is their personality? emotion? diction? background?

Setting

(where? and when?): Are we in a field in the 15th century or the subway in the 21st century? Why are we here? What event, memory, or topic instigates this poem?

Theme

(why?): the purpose of the poem. What the poem has to say about its subject; the central idea; the meaning of the poem. What does the poem endeavor to tell us about life, humanity, the world? What is the overall message?

Tone

the attitude the poet takes toward the subject and theme (optimistic? sweet? cynical? sad? angry? bitter?)

Mood

the feelings that the poet evokes in the reader of the poem through the setting, tome and theme, which all help establish this atmosphere

Ode

a lyric address to an event, a person, or a thing not present