Poetry Terms

Alliteration

the repetition of the same sound at the start of a series of words in succession

Allusion

A brief, intentional reference to a historical, mythic, or literary person, place, event, or movement.

Ambiguity

A word, statement, or situation with two or more possible meanings

Anapest, Anapestic

unstressed, unstressed, stressed

Antithesis

Contrasting or combining two terms, phrases, or clauses with opposite meanings.

Approximate Rhyme

Sound similar but don’t actually rhyme

Assonance

the repetition of the vowel sound across words within the lines of the poem creating internal rhymes.

Aubade

a poem in praise of dawn

Audience

any listeners of the poet

intended reading audience of the poet

Ballad

Longer narrative poem that was written to be sung

Blank Verse

Non-rhyming lines of poetry that still follow a strict meter

Usually Iambic Pentameter

Caesura

Significant pause in the middle of a line of poetry

Carpe Diem

“seize the day”, seize the girl, time is short

Conceit

an elaborate and fanciful metaphor or analogy, or a witty and ingenious comparison between two things that do not naturally belong to each other

Consonance

Repetition of consonant sounds in a line of poetry

Couplet

two-line verse often joined by rhyme or meter

Dactyl, Dactylic

Stressed, Unstressed, Unstressed

Diction

Word Choice

Dimeter

2 feet

Dramatic Monologue

the writer takes on the voice of a character and speaks through them.

Elegy

Formal lament on the death of a person or on the passing of mankind and mankind’s things

End rhyme

Rhyme occurring at the end of a line

End-stopped line

Thought ends at the end of the line

English sonnet aka Shakespearean

sonnet with the rhyme scheme

abab cdcd efef gg

Enjambment

Thought extends from line to line

Extended metaphor

a version of metaphor that extends over the course of multiple lines, paragraphs, or stanzas of prose or poetry.

Feminine Rhyme

repetition of accented vowel sounds + weak beats

Foot

a unit of measure consisting of one stressed and one or more unstressed beats

free verse

no rhyme or meter

hexameter

6 feet

Hyberbole

over exaggeration

iamb, Iambic

Unstressed, Stressed

Implied metaphor

a type of metaphor that compares two things that are not alike without actually mentioning one of those things.

Internal Rhyme

Rhyme occurring in the middle of a line of poetry

Italian Sonnet aka Petrarchan

Rhyme Scheme:

abbabba cdcdcd

litotes

a form of understatement in which the speaker asserts something by negating the opposite

Masculine Rhyme

repetition on sound emphasis on the final beat

metaphor

a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

meter

the pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in the lines of poetry

Metonymy

use some associated object to represent a thing

Monometer

1 foot

narrative poem

poem that tells a story

Octave

8 line verse

ode

long lyric poem on a serious subject written in a elevated style

Onomatopoeia

A figure of speech in which the sound of a word imitates its sense

Oxymoron

A figure of speech that brings together contradictory words for effect

paradox

a seemingly self-contradictory phrase or concept that illuminates a truth

parallelism

phrases with grammatical symmetry

pentameter

5 feet

personification

human like qualities to something not capable of them

quatrain

4 line stanza

Rhyme Scheme

the pattern of sounds that repeats at the end of a line or stanza

Run-on-line

enjambed lines

Scansion

indicating the stressed and unstressed syllables in a line

sestet

6 line

simile

The subject of the poem is described by comparing it to another object or subject, using 'as' or 'like'

slant rhyme

sound similar but don’t actually rhyme

sonnet

14 Iambic pentameter lines following a strict rhyme scheme

Spondee, Spondaic

Stressed, Stressed

Stanza

A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem

Synecdoche

using part of the thing to represent the whole

tetrameter

4 feet

tone

attitude taken toward the subject ( or sometimes audience) by the speaker (or poet)

Trimeter

3 feet

trochee, trochaic

Stressed, Unstressed

Villanelle

19 lines

5 stanzas

first line is repeated as the last line of stanzas 2 and 4

Third line is repeated as the last line of stanzas 3 and 5

last two lines of the poem

aba

volta

“turn”, shift in idea, perspective, tone, etc