Poetry Terms

Poem

A composition written for performance by the human voice.

Epic

A long, narrative poem, such as The Odyssey or Beowulf.

Dramatic

Poetry in the form of monologue or dialogue, similar to plays.

Lyric

A fairly short poem with a single speaker, often found in collections like the Norton Anthology.

Rhythm

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry.

u is unstressed and / is stressed

Scansion

The analysis of stressed and unstressed syllables by scanning to determine metrical feet.

Caesura

A pause in the speaking rhythm of a poem.

Meter

The system used to measure the recurring rhythm in poetry.

Accentual meter

A meter that organizes lines by stressed syllables and uses alliteration instead of rhyme.

Accentual Syllabic meter

The dominant meter in poetry, combining both accentual and syllabic measurements.

Syllabic meter

A meter that measures the number of syllables rather than the stress.

Quantitative meter

A meter that measures feet according to the duration of utterance rather than stress.

Iambic

A type of accentual meter consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

Trochaic

A type of accentual meter consisting of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

Anapestic

A type of accentual meter consisting of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable.

Dactylic

A type of accentual meter consisting of a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables.

Spondaic

A type of accentual meter consisting of two stressed syllables.

Pyrrhic

A type of accentual meter consisting of two unstressed syllables.

Monometer

A line of poetry that contains one foot.

Dimeter

A line of poetry that contains two feet.

Trimeter

A line of poetry that contains three feet.

Tetrameter

A line of poetry that contains four feet.

Pentameter

A line of poetry that contains five feet.

Hexameter

A line of poetry that contains six feet.

Heptameter

A line of poetry that contains seven feet.

Octameter

A line of poetry that contains eight feet.

Nonameter

A line of poetry that contains nine feet.

Decameter

A line of poetry that contains ten feet.

Blank verse

Unrhymed iambic pentameter.

Couplets

Pairs of rhymed lines in poetry.

Tercet

A three-line stanza in poetry.

Quatrain

A four-line stanza in poetry.

Rhyme Royal

A seven-line stanza rhyming ababbcc.

Ottava Rima

An eight-line stanza rhyming abababcc.

Spenserian Stanza

A nine-line stanza form in poetry.

Villanelle

A 19-line form consisting of 5 tercets followed by a quatrain with a specific refraining pattern.

Sonnet

A 14-line poem in iambic pentameter, following one of three main rhyme schemes.

Italian or Petrarchan sonnet

A sonnet with the rhyme scheme abba abba cde cde.

English or Shakespearean sonnet

A sonnet with the rhyme scheme abab cdcd efef gg.

Spenserian Sonnet

A sonnet with the rhyme scheme abab bcbc cdcd ee.

Sestina

A complex form of poetry with 6 stanzas of 6 lines each, followed by an envoy.

Limerick

A five-line poem with a distinct aabba rhyme scheme.

Open forms

Free verse poetry without traditional rhyme and meter.

Prose poem

A composition that appears as prose but contains elements of poetry.

Shaped poems

Poems that are arranged to look like the shape of the subject they describe.

Rhyme

The concurrence of the last stressed vowel and all speech sounds following that vowel in two or more lines.

End rhyme

Rhymes that occur at the ends of lines.

Internal rhyme

Rhymes that occur within a single line of poetry.

Rhyme scheme

The pattern of end rhyme in a poem.

Assonance

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds.

Consonance

The repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds.

Alliteration

The repetition of the initial consonant sounds.

Onomatopoeia

Words that resemble the sounds they denote.

Masculine rhyme

Rhymes that are a single stressed syllable.

Feminine rhyme

Rhymes that consist of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable.

Perfect rhyme

Rhymes where the correspondence of rhyming sounds is exact.

Eye rhyme

Words that are spelled alike but pronounced differently.

Imperfect rhyme

Also known as half rhyme or near rhyme, involving changes in either the vowel sound or the following consonants.

Vowel rhyme

A rhyme that goes beyond off rhyme where only the vowel sounds are shared.

Pararhyme

A rhyme where stressed vowel sounds differ but are flanked by similar consonants.