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Allegory
An extended metaphor in which the characters, places, and objects in a narrative carry figurative meaning. Often the meaning is religious, moral, or historical in nature.
Anaphora
Often used in political speeches and occasionally in prose and poetry, this is the repetition of a word or words at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, or lines to create a sonic effect.
EX: The clouds, the clouds, the clouds, they cover this gloomy day
Anastrophe
inversion of usual word order.
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called vowel rhyme.
EX: “Go slow on the road”
Asyndeton
Omission or lack of conjunctions.
Aubade
A love poem or song welcoming or lamenting the arrival of the dawn.
Blank Verse
Unrhyming iambic pentameter, also called heroic verse. This 10-syllable line is the predominant rhythm of traditional English dramatic and epic poetry, as it is considered the closest to English speech patterns.
Canon
A list of authors or works considered to be central to the identity of a given literary tradition or culture.
Chiasmus
Repetition of any group of verse elements (including rhyme and grammatical structure) in reverse order, such as the rhyme scheme ABBA. Examples can be found in Biblical scripture ("But many that are first / Shall be last, / And many that are last / Shall be first"; Matthew 19:30).
Concrete Poetry
Verse that emphasizes nonlinguistic elements in its meaning, such as a typeface that creates a visual image of the topic.
Consonance
A resemblance in sound between two words, or an initial rhyme (see also Alliteration). It can also refer to shared consonants, whether in sequence ("bed" and "bad") or reversed ("bud" and "dab").
Ekphrastic
An —— (" description" in Greek) poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art. Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the "action" of a painting or sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.
Elegy
In traditional English poetry, it is often a melancholy poem that laments its subject's death but ends in consolation.
Enjambment
The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation; the opposite of end-stopped.
EX:
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills
Epigraph
A quotation from another literary work that is placed beneath the title at the beginning of a poem or section of a poem.
Foot
The basic unit of measurement of accentual-syllabic meter. this usually contains one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable.
Free Verse
Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in these lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition.
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 meter of poetry in English (including all the plays and poems of William Shakespeare), as it is closest to the rhythms of English speech.
Litotes
A deliberate understatement for effect; the opposite of hyperbole. For example, a good idea may be described as "not half bad," or a difficult task considered "no small feat." It is found frequently in Old English poetry; "That was a good king," declares the narrator of the Beowulf epic after summarizing the Danish king's great virtues.
Metonomy
A figure of speech in which a related term is substituted for the word itself. Often the substitution is based on a material, causal, or conceptual relation between things. For example, the British monarchy is often referred to as the Crown. In the phrase "lend me your ears," "ears" is substituted for "attention."
EX: “Can you give me a hand?”
Mimesis
Greek for "imitation." In aesthetic theory, this can also connote " representation" and has typically meant the reproduction of an external reality, such as nature, through artistic expression.
Pentameter
A line made up of five feet.
Poet Laureate
An official position created by the British crown in 1688, a poet who is officially appointed by a government or organization to write poems for special occasions or to promote poetry.
Polysyndeton
The repetition of conjunctions in a series of coordinate words or phrases.
Quatrain
A four-line stanza, rhyming
Shakespearean Sonnet
The variation of the sonnet form that Shakespeare used - comprised of three quatrains and a concluding couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.
Synecdoche
A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole (for example, "I've got wheels" for "I have a car," or a description of a worker as a "hired hand"). It is related to metonymy.
Tautology
A statement redundant in itself, such as "free gift" or "The stars, O astral bodies!" Also, a statement that is necessarily true—a circular argument - such as "she is alive because she is living."
Tercet
Poetic unit of three lines, rhymed or unrhymed
End-stopped
A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break - such as a dash or closing parenthesis - or punctuation such as a colon, semicolon, or period. A line is considered this, too, if it contains a complete phrase. Opposite of enjambment.
EX: The sun sets slowly, casting long shadows.
