Poetry Terms

Lyric Poem

 A subjective, reflective form of poetry that does not tell a story but rather expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of a speaker. There are several subcategories of lyric poetry, including odes, dramatic monologues, elegies, pastorals, and sonnets.

Ode

a lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner. Odes often have “Ode to _____” as their title. John Keats's “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous example of this type of poem.

Dramatic Monologue

A lyric poem in the form of a speech by an imagined person to an audience. The speaker inadvertently reveals aspects of their character while describing a particular situation or series of events.

Elegy

A lyric poem of lament, meditating on the death of an individual.

Pastoral (Idyll)

A lyric poem that depicts rural life in a peaceful, idealized way.

Sonnet

A lyric poem that is 14 lines long. Italian (AKA Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into an  eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, with the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde (or cdcdcd). English (AKA Shakespearean) sonnets are composed of three four-line quatrains and a final two-line couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. English sonnets are generally written in iambic pentameter.

Volta

The turn of thought in a poem. In an Italian sonnet, it often appears near the end of the octave and the beginning of the sestet. In an English sonnet, it typically appears between the second and third quatrains or between the third quatrain and the couplet. Voltas are often indicated by punctuation, such as a dash or colon, or by a transition word or words. Poems that are not sonnets can also have voltas, and in some cases more than one volta.

Narrative poem

 A form of poetry that tells a story, with characters, plot, conflict, and other characteristics of storytelling. There are several subcategories of narrative poetry, including epics and ballads.

Epic

A long, dignified narrative poem that tells the story of a heroic figure. Two of the most famous epic poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, which tell about the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus on his voyage home after the war.

Ballad

A narrative poem which tells a story to be sung or recited, typically in a folksy tone and style. The main difference between a ballad and a pastoral is that the ballad tells a story.

Alliteration

The repetition of sounds at the beginning of words within a line of poetry: “What would the world be, once bereft / Of wet and wildness?” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”).

Assonance

The repetition of vowel sounds within a line of poetry. The placement of the sound in the word can be anywhere but the beginning: “Thou still unravished bride of quietness,/Thou foster child of silence and slow time” (John Keats, “Ode to a Grecian Urn”).

Consonance

The repetition of consonant sounds within a line of poetry. The placement of the sound in the word can be anywhere but the beginning, as in lost and past or confess and dismiss.

Onomatopoeia

A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds. Examples of onomatopoeic words are buzz, hiss, zing, clippety-clop, and tick-tock. 

Meter

The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a poem: “Because I could not stop for death / He kindly stopped for me . . .” (Emily Dickinson, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”).

Metrical foot

Two or more syllables that together make up the smallest unit of rhythm in a poem. For example, an iamb is a foot that has two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed (such as in the word “report”). A trochee is also a foot that has two syllables, but its first is stressed and its second is unstressed (such as in the word “couplet”).

Scansion

The act of analyzing a poem’s metrical pattern. It requires looking for a pattern of metrical foot and identifying how many of that pattern are in a given line, such as iambic trimeter, tetrameter, pentameter, or hexameter.

Iambic

 A metrical foot of two syllables, one unstressed followed by one stressed.  There are four iambs in the line “Come live / with me / and be / my love,” from a poem by Christopher Marlowe. (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The iamb is the reverse of the trochee. 

Trochaic

 A metrical foot of two syllables, one stressed followed by one unstressed. There are four trochees in the line “One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish . . .” (The stressed syllables are in bold.) The trochee is the reverse of the iamb.

Iambic pentameter

A type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The prefix penta- means “five,” as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare's plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of meter in English poetry. An example of an iambic pentameter line from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is “But soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks?” 

Free verse

Poetry with no distinct pattern of rhyme or meter. It emerged in the 1900s.

Blank verse

Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse.

Stanza

 Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme. In the same way that prose is divided into paragraphs, poetry is divided into stanzas.

rhyme

The occurrence of the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more words. The pattern of rhyme in a stanza or poem is shown usually by using a different letter for each final sound. In a poem with an aabba rhyme scheme, the first, second, and fifth lines end in one sound, and the third and fourth lines end in another. The letters would start over again with a at the beginning of the next stanza.

Internal rhyme

: Rhyme that occurs within one line of poetry, such as “The splendour falls on castle walls / and snowy summits old in story” (Alfred, Lord Tennyson). 

Half rhyme (slant rhyme)

Approximate rhyme, such as “When have I last looked on / 

The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies / Of the dark leopards of the moon?” (W. B. Yeats, “Lines Written in Dejection”).

Enjambement

 a line of poetry that rolls into the next line without punctuation that would indicate a pause, such as “”Green rustlings, more-than-regal charities / Drift cooly from that tower from that tower of whispered light” (Hart Crane, “Royal Palm”).  

Caesura

A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line. There is a caesura right after the question mark in the first line of this sonnet: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways” (Elizabeth Barrett Browning, “Sonnet 43”).

Euphony

When the sound of words is harmonious to the ear, such as “"So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, / So long lives this, and this gives life to thee" (William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 18”). It often uses words with soft consonants, like L, M, N, and R, instead of harsh consonants like T, P, and K. Vowel sounds are also more euphonious, especially longer vowels.

Cacophony

 When the sound of words is disharmonious or jarring to the ear, such as “Double, double toil and trouble / Fire burn and cauldron bubble . . .” (Macbeth 4.1). The consonants most commonly used to create cacophony are B, D, K, P, T, and G because they sound more harsh.

Metaphor

A figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would be expected. Some examples of metaphors from Shakespeare include “the world's a stage” and “a sea of troubles.”

Simile

A figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared using the word “like” or “as.” An example of a simile using like occurs in Langston Hughes's poem “Harlem”: “What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?”

Conceit

An extended metaphor or simile that typically spans multiple lines or sometimes even an entire stanza or an entire poem. An example of a conceit can be found in Shakespeare's Sonnet 18 when he asks, “Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?” and builds the entire sonnet upon the foundation of this comparison. 

Metonymy

Substituting a word related to an object or person to be named in place of the name itself, such as "The serpent that did sting thy father's life / Now wears his crown" (Hamlet 1.5.37-41). In this quote, a serpent is associated with the father’s killer.

Snyechdoche

A figure of speech in which a part represents the whole, such as "Not a hair perished" (The Tempest 1.2.258).

Imagery

 Language that appeals to one or more of the five senses - visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory. 

Symbolism

Using an object to suggest an idea, such as in Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” when the fork in the road represents a major life decision.

Hyperbole

 A figure of speech in which deliberate exaggeration is used for emphasis. Many everyday expressions are examples of hyperbole: tons of money, waiting for ages, a flood of tears, etc. Hyperbole is the opposite of litotes.

Litotes

Understatement for effect, such as “I am the American heartbreak- / The rock on which Freedom / Stumped its toe” (Langston Hughes, “American Heartbreak”).

Personification

 A figure of speech in which animals, objects, or abstract ideas are given human attributes, such as “The waves beside them danced” (William Wordsworth, “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”).

Apostrophe

Addressing a person or thing that is not intended to literally respond, such as “Little Lamb, who made thee?” (William Blake, “The Lamb”).

Allusion

 A reference to an outside fact, event, or other source, such as "The serpent that did sting thy father's life / Now wears his crown" (Hamlet 1.5.37-41). The mention of the serpent is a biblical allusion to the Garden of Eden.

Situational Irony

When something occurs that is the opposite of one's expectations, such as an English teacher making a spelling mestaek.

Verbal Irony

Meaning one thing and saying the opposite, such as in A Modest Proposal when Swift writes, “I rather recommend buying the children alive and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs.” Swift intends to point out that the government should not treat Irish people like animals, but to do so, he uses language that compares the Irish to animals.

Dramatic Irony

When the audience or reader knows what the character does not, such as in the Prologue to Romeo and Juliet when the Chorus tells the audience that in the play, two  “star-crossed lovers take their life.” Throughout the rest of the performance, the audience knows what is coming, but the characters are unaware. 

Paradox

A statement that appears self-contradictory, but underlines a basic truth, such as in Macbeth when the witches chant, “Fair is foul, and foul is fair . . .” (Macbeth 1.1). Their statement appears to contradict itself, but it makes more sense when the audience realizes that the play is about a character who is initially good becoming a villain. 

Oxymoron

Contradictory words placed side by side for effect, such as “Beautiful tyrant! Fiend angelical! / Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb!” (Romeo and Juliet 3.2.76-77).

Tone

 Described with an adjective, it is the writer's attitude toward the audience and/or subject, such as an affectionate tone, a bitter tone, or a celebratory tone.

Dramatic Situation

The circumstances of a poem's speaker - to whom they are speaking, and the context in which they are speaking. For example, in a love sonnet, is the speaker speaking to a lover about heartbreak, or are they celebrating the lover’s companionship?