AP Lit - Poetry Terms

Paradox

A statement that initially appears to be contradictory but on closer inspection makes sense.

Antithesis

The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, often in parallel structure. Es: Speech is silver, but silence is gold.

Parallelism

Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. Ex: She likes cooking, jogging, and reading.

Apostophe

A speaker directly addresses something or someone not living.

Pun

A play on words where the juxtaposition of meaning is ironic or humorous.

Epigram

A short quotation or verse that precedes a poem (or any text) that sets the tone, provides a setting, or gives some other context for the text.

Speaker

The narrative voice of a poem (usually not the author). Some have more than one.

Litotes

Deliberate use of understatement.

Synesthesia

Imagery that involves the use of one sense to evoke another. Ex: the color is loud.

Metaphysical conceit

An elaborate, intellectually ingenious metaphor.

End-stopped

Line that ends where one would normally pause in speech or punctuate in writing.

Refrain

A line or group of lines that are periodically repeated throughout a poem. (Similar to the chorus in a song).

Enjambment

A run-over line in poetry.

Haiku

Japanese. Three lines that follow 5,7,5 syllable pattern.

Elizabethean/English Sonnet

14 lines of iambic pentameter. Rhyme scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Three quatrains followed by a rhyming couplet.

Petrarchan'/Italian sonnet

Rhyme scheme ABBAABBA CDECDE

Villanelle

19 lines of five tercets (rhyme scheme is ABA). A concluding quatrain (rhyme scheme ABAA). Lines one and three of the first tercet serve as refrains in a pattern that alternates through line 15. This pattern is repeated again in lines 18 and 19.

Ballad

Short poem in song format (sometimes with refrains) that tells a story.

Elegy

A poem, the subject of which is death of a person or, in some cases, an idea.

Epic

Long, adventurous tale with a hero who is generally on a quest.

Lyric

Expresses love, inner emotions, and tends to be personal; usually written in first-person.

Narrative

The poet tells a story with characters and a plot.

Ode

A serious lyric poem, originally Greek.

Prose

Looks and may read like a paragraph but has poetic elements like imagrey, figurative language, and concise diction.

Epigram

A brief, witty poem that is often satirical.

Idyll/pastoral

Short, descriptive narrative, usually a poem, about an idealized country life.