AP Lit: Poetry Terms

Poetry

a type of literature typically written in verse that attempts to stir a reader’s imagination or emotion using a distinctive style or rhythm

• “There Will Come Soft Rain” by Sara Teasdale

Theme

the underlying truth that a work of literature is about

• “if you want me to be there, I want to” (We Have Enough Dead Friends)

Tone

the general attitude of feeling expressed in a piece of writing

• caring and worried; “Do you want me to do the groceries?” (We Have Enough Dead Friends)

Mood

the emotional atmosphere a work evokes in readers

• melancholic but hopeful; “Come over. The doors are open, / my flat’s a mess and / so is my heart / but the doors are always open” (We Have Enough Dead Friends)

Speaker

the persona or voice narrating a piece of writing that is distinct from the author’s

• “I’m on the bathroom floor again” (We Have Enough Dead Friends)

Diction

writer’s specific word choice and style of expression

• “laden thing” (We Have Enough Dead Friends)

Denotation

literal or primary meaning of a word

• “Gas! GAS!” (Dulce Et Decorum Est)

Connotation

an idea or feeling a word evokes

• “we curse through sludge” (Dulce Et Decorum Est)

Genre

the classification of a literary work by its form, content, and style into categories

poetic structure/form

a set of rules that dictate the rhyme scheme, structure, rhythm, and meter of a poem

rhythm

the pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables, vowel and consonant sounds, and pacing

rhyme

repetition of syllables where rhymed words share sounds after the last stressed syllable

sound devices

literary devices used to stress certain sounds and create musical effects

• alliteration + consonance; “Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots” (Dulce Et Decorum Est)

rhetorical devices

techniques used to persuade, emphasize, or embrace messages by making language more engaging and impactful

• caesura; “Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—-An ecstasy of fumbling” (Dulce Et Decorum Est)

imagery

vivid or figurative language that appeals to readers’ sense

• “And watch the white eyes writhing in his face” (Dulce Et Decorum Est)

pastoral

literary genre idealizing rural life and natural world

• “Eclogue II” by Virgil. "The shepherd Cordon burned for the handsome Alexis…”

epic

long narrative poem where a hero protagonist engages in action of great mythic or historical significance

• “Beowulf”; “So. the Spear-Danes in days gone by…”

lyric

a short poem where the poet, poet’s persona, or another speaker expresses personal feelings

• “Sonnet 18” by Shakespeare. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

dramatic monologue

poem where an imagined speaker addresses a silent listener, usually not the reader

• “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning. “That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall…”

narrative

form of poetry used to tell a story

• “The Lady Shalott” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. “On either side the river lie…”

allegory

literary work where everything represents abstract ideas or moral concepts

• “The Haunted Palace” by Edgar Allan Poe. “In the greenest of our valleys…”

ode

a short lyric poem addressing/celebrating a person, place, thing, or idea

• “Ode on a Grecian Urn” by John Keats. “Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness…”

elegy

melancholic poem lamenting subject’s death but ends in consolation

• “O Captain! My Captain!” by Walter Whitman. “O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done…”

metaphor

comparison made without pointing out similarity with “like,” “as,” “than”

• “We are fish without blankets” (From “The Gaza Suite”)

simile

comparison made using “as,” “like,” “than”

• “hundreds of drones buzz like bees” (From “The Gaza Suite”)

personification

something non-human (animal, object, abstract ideas) is given humans qualities

• “A host of golden daffodils / …Fluttering and dancing in the breeze” (I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud)

metonymy

word is replaced with a related term

• “O, for a draught of vintage!” (Ode to a Nightingale)

synecdoche

a part is made to represent the whole or vice versa

• “I should have been a pair of ragged claws” (The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock)

hyperbole

exaggerated statements/claims not meant to be taken literally

• “one by one she scorched you with her radiance” (Poems to Some of My Recent Poems)

oxymoron

combines contradicting words with opposing meanings

• compound words, short phrases

• “His honour rooted in dishonour stood / And faithful unfaithful kept him falsely true” (Lancelot & Elaine by Alfred Lord Tennyson)

understatement

downplay something as less serious, significant, or smaller

• “The Woman Who Turned Down a Date with a Cherry Farmer” by Aimee Nezhukumatahil. “Of course I regret it. I mean there I was under umbrellas of fruit…”

litotes

ironic understatement where an affirmative is expressed by the negative of its contrary (emphasizes the extreme opposite→positive)

• “the sword was not useless to the warrior” (Beowulf)

ambiguity

word or situation with two or more possible meanings

• “Brute beauty and valor and act, oh, air, pride, plume here / Buckle!” (Beowulf)

pun

play on words, centering on a word with more than one meaning or words that sound alike

• “2B or not 2B?” (A Silly Poem by Spike Milligan)

paradox

seemingly self-contradictory phrase/concept that illuminates a truth

• usually statement, sentence, short phrase

• “Great Lord of all things, yet a pray to all” (An Essay on Man: Epistle II)

ellipsis

omission of words whose a sense doesn’t impede reader’s ability to understand the expression

• “You curled the papers from your hair, / Or clasped the yellow soles of feet / In the palms of both soiled hands” (Preludes by TS Elliot)

apostrophe

address to a dead/absent person or personification as if they were present (rhetorical device)

• “Wild nights - Wild nights!” by Emily Dickinson

antithesis

• contrasting or combining two terms, phrases, or clauses with opposite meanings

• “And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair / …And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite” (The Clod & The Pebble)

caesura

stop or pause in a metrical line, often marked by punctuation or by a grammatical boundary, such as a phrase or clause

• “their minds mourning. Mighty men” (Beowulf)

inversion

reversing the normal order of words within a line or phrase

• “And sorry I could not travel both” (The Road Not Taken)

allusion

reference to a person, event, or literary work outside the poem, usually implied or indirect

• “How like Eve’s apple doth they beauty grows” (Sonnet 93 by Shakespeare)

symbol

image, idea, or objects represents something other than literal meaning

• daffodils as happiness from nature; “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”

alliteration

repetition of initial stressed consonant sounds in series of words within phrase or verse line

• “With swift, slow; sweet, sour; dazzle, dim” (Pied Beauty by GM Hopkins)

assonance

repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants

• “With its leaping, and deep cool murmur” (In a Garden by Amy Lowell)

consonance

shared consonants, whether in sequence (“bed” and “bad”) or reversed (“bud” and “dab”)

also resemblance in sound between two words (initial rhyme)

• “Hi-Hat Hattie, Mama Mac, Her Haughtiness” (Hattie McDaniel Arrives at Coconut Grove)

onomatopeia

word imitates the sound associated with an action or an object

• “A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings” (Piano by DH Lawrence)

euphony

combining words with pleasing harmonious sounds for musical effect

• “Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, / To feel for ever its soft fall and swell” (Bright Star by John Keats)

cacophony

harsh discordant sounds for jarring effect, often from consonants

• “What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore” (The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe)

scansion

analysis of the metric patterns of a poem and classification of poem’s stanza, structure, rhyme scheme

meter

rhythmical pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in verse

foot

the basic repeating rhythmic unit that forms part of a line of a verse

iambic

an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable

trochaic

a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable

spondaic

two stressed syllables

pyrrhic

two unstressed syllables

anapestic

two unstressed followed by a stressed syllables

dactylic

a stressed followed by two unstressed syllables

monometer

one feet in a verse

dimeter

two feet in a verse

trimeter

three feet in a verse

tetrameter

four feet in a verse

pentameter

five feet in a verse

hexameter

six feet in a verse

heptameter

seven feet in a verse

octometer

eight feet in a verse

couplet

two-line stanza

triplet

three-line stanza

quatrain

four-line stanza

quintet/cinquain

five-line stanza

sestet

six-line stanza

septet

seven-line stanza

octave

eight-line stanza

Shakespearean/English/Elizabethan Sonnet

3 quatrains: question, statement, explanation

1 rhyming couplet: ironic twist, conclusion (sometimes indented)

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnet

octet (8 lines): problem

sestet (6 lines): solution (more freedom in rhyme scheme)

Petrarchan conceit

exaggerated comparisons to idealize a beloved's attributes

conceit

often unconventional, logically complex, or surprising metaphor whose delights are more intellectual than sensual

metaphysical conceit

complex and intellectually imaginative comparisons between abstract/spiritual ideas and concrete (often surprising) physical objects

• creating an intricate and intellectually challenging analogy

• often bridge diverse fields like science and philosophy, creating a unique blend of thought and emotion

anaphora

repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses/sentences (to provoke an emotional response)