Poetry: glossary terms + poems (oct 15)

Accentual-syllabic verse

Verse whose meter is determined by the number and alternation of its stressed and unstressed syllables, organized into feet. From line to line, the number of stresses (accents) may vary, but the total number of syllables within each line is fixed. The majority of English poems from the Renaissance to the 19th century are written according to this metrical system.

Anapest

A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by an accented syllable. The words “underfoot” and “overcome” are anapestic.

Blank verse

Unrhyming iambic pentameter, also called heroic verse.

Cadence

The patterning of rhythm in natural speech, or in poetry without a distinct meter (i.e., free verse).

Caesura

A stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause. A medial caesura splits the line in equal parts, as is common in Old English poetry (see Beowulf).

Couplet

A pair of successive rhyming lines, usually of the same length.

Dactyl

A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables; the words “poetry” and “basketball” are both dactylic.

Dimeter

A line of verse composed of two feet. “Some go local / Some go express / Some can’t wait / To answer Yes,”

End-stopped

A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period. A line is considered end-stopped, too, if it contains a complete phrase.

Enjambment

The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped.

Foot

The basic unit of measurement of accentual-syllabic meter. A foot usually contains one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable. The standard types of feet in English poetry are the iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee, and pyrrhic (two unstressed syllables).

Free verse

Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition.

Heptameter

A meter made up of seven feet and usually 14 syllables total

Hexameter

A metrical line of six feet, most often dactylic, and found in Classical Latin or Greek poetry, including Homer’s Iliad. In English, an iambic hexameter line is also known as an alexandrine.

Iamb

A metrical foot consisting of an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. The words “unite” and “provide” are both iambic. It is the most common metrical foot in English poetry (including all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare), as it is closest to the rhythms of English speech.

Meter

The rhythmical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse. The predominant meter in English poetry is accentual-syllabic. See also  accentual meter,  syllabic meter, and quantitative meter.  Falling meter refers to trochees and dactyls (i.e., a stressed syllable followed by one or two unstressed syllables). Iambs and anapests (i.e., one or two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed one) are called rising meter. See also foot.

Octave

An eight-line stanza or poem. See ottava rima and triolet. The first eight lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet are also called an octave.

Pentameter

A line made up of five feet. It is the most common metrical line in English.

Quatrain

A four-line stanza, often with various rhyme schemes.

Refrain

A phrase or line repeated at intervals within a poem, especially at the end of a stanza.

Rhyme

The repetition of syllables, typically at the end of a verse line.

Rhyme Royal

A stanza of seven 10-syllable lines, rhyming ABABBCC, popularized by Geoffrey Chaucer and termed “royal” because his imitator, James I of Scotland, employed it in his own verse. In addition to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, see Sir Thomas Wyatt’s “They flee from me” and William Wordsworth’s “Resolution and Independence.” 

Sestet

A six-line stanza, or the final six lines of a 14-line Italian or Petrarchan sonnet. A sestet refers only to the final portion of a sonnet, otherwise the six-line stanza is known as a sexain.

Shakespearean sonnet

The variation of the sonnet form that Shakespeare used—comprised of three quatrains and a concluding couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg—is called the English or Shakespearean sonnet form, although others had used it before him. This different sonnet structure allows for more space to be devoted to the buildup of a subject or problem than the Italian/Petrarchan form, and is followed by just two lines to conclude or resolve the poem in a rhyming couplet.

Sonnet

A 14-line poem with a variable rhyme scheme originating in Italy and brought to England in the 16th century. Literally a “little song,” the sonnet traditionally reflects upon a single sentiment, with a clarification or “turn” of thought in its concluding lines. There are many types of sonnets.

Spondee

A metrical foot consisting of two accented syllables. An example of a spondaic word is “hog-wild.”

Stanza

A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem. In modern free verse, the stanza, like a prose paragraph, can be used to mark a shift in mood, time, or thought.

Syllabic verse

Poetry whose meter is determined by the total number of syllables per line, rather than the number of stresses.

Tercet

A poetic unit of three lines, rhymed or unrhymed.

Tetrameter

A line made up of four feet.

Trimeter

A line of three metrical feet.

Trochee

A metrical foot consisting of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable. Examples of trochaic words include “garden” and “highway.” William Blake opens “The Tyger” with a predominantly trochaic line: “Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright.” Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” is mainly trochaic.

Verse

As a mass noun, poetry in general; as a regular noun, a line of poetry. Typically used to refer to poetry that possesses more formal qualities.

Volta

Italian word for “turn.” In a sonnet, the volta is the turn of thought or argument: in Petrarchan or Italian sonnets it occurs between the octave and the sestet, and in Shakespearean or English before the final couplet.

Murray Dreaming

Stephen Edgar

In Flanders Fields

John McCrae

Backdrop addresses cowboy

Margaret Atwood

Digging

Seamus Heaney

Winter: A Dirge

Robert Burns