Poetry Literary Terms Honors World Literature

apostrophe

A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply.

Ex: “Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!”

connotation

what a word suggests beyond its basic definition; a word’s overtones of meaning

Ex: if someone describes another's cooking with the word “stench” rather than “aroma,” it's likely the reader is going to be disgusted at the thought, and that disgust will continue over the next few lines as they consider what the smell might be.

denotation

the basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word

ekphrasis

the poetic representation of a painting or sculpture in words

Ex: “The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars. / Oh starry starry night!” These lines are from The Starry Night by Anne Sexton, a poem that vividly portrays the famous painting by Vincent van Gogh—The Starry Night

epigram

(1) A short, witty poem expressing a single thought or observation.

(2) A concise, clever, often paradoxical statement

A poem expressing an idea in a clever or amusing way.

Ex: “There are no gains without pains.”

extended language

(also knows as sustained figure) A figure of speech (usually metaphor, simile, personification, or apostrophe) sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem

figurative language

language employing figures of speech; language that cannot be taken literally or only literally

figure of speech

Broadly, any way of saying something other than the ordinary way; more narrowly (and for the purposes of this class) a way of saying one thing and meaning another

juxtaposition

positioning opposites next to each other to heighten the contrast

Ex: “All is fair in love and war.”

metaphor

A figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike

Ex: “Her mouth was a fountain of delight.”

metonymy

A figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience

Ex: “Bring home the bacon” - you are not actually bringing home bacon - it is a metonym for income or achievement

onomatopoeia

The use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound

Ex: boom, click, plop

personification

a figure of speech in which human attributes are given to an animal, an object, or a concept

Ex: The flowers danced to the wind.

rhythm

any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound

sentimentality

unmerited or contrived tender feeling; that quality in a story that elicits or seeks to elicit tears through an oversimplification or falsification of reality

simile

A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. The comparison is made explicit by the use of some such word or phrase as like, as, than, similar to, resembles, or seems

Ex: busy as a bee

synecdoche

a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole. In this class, it is subsumed under the term Metonymy

alliteration

the repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words

Ex: map-moon, kill-code, preach-approve

anapest

a metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable

Ex: understand

anapestic meter

A meter in which a majority of the feet are anapests

approximate rhyme

(also known as imperfect rhyme, near rhyme, slant rhyme, or oblique rhyme)

A term used for words in a rhyming pattern that have some kind of sound correspondence but are not perfect rhymes

Ex: arrayed-said

assonance

the repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words

Ex: hat-ran-amber, vein-made

ballad meter

stanzas formed of quatrains of iambs in which the first and third lines have four stresses (tetrameter) and the second and fourth lines have three stresses (trimeter). Usually, the second and fourth lines rhyme (abcb), although it is often not followed strictly

blank verse

poetry with a meter, but not rhymed, usually in iambic pentameter

consonance

the repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words

ex: book-plaque-thicker

couplet

two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme

Ex: Double, double, toil and trouble / Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

dactyl

a metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables

Ex: merrily

dactylic meter

a meter in which a majority of the feet are dactyls

end rhyme

rhymes that occur at the ends of lines

end-stopped line

a line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation - the opposite of enjambment

enjambment

or run on line, a line which has no natural speech pause at its end, allowing the sense to flow uninterruptedly into the succeeding line - the opposite of an end stopped line

english (or Shakespearean) sonnet

A sonnet rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. Its content or structure ideally parallels the rhyme scheme, falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet; but it is often structured, like the Italian sonnet, into octave and sestet, the principal break in thought coming at the end of the eighth line

feminine rhyme

a rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words

ex: picky, tricky

foot

the basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of verse. Usually contains one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables

free verse

nonmetrical verse. Arranged in lines, may be more or less rhythmical, but has no fixed metrical pattern or expectation

half rhyme

(sometimes called slant rhyme, sprung, near rhyme, oblique rhyme, off rhyme or imperfect rhyme), is consonance on the final consonants of the words involved

heroic couplet

poems constructed by a sequence of two lines of (usually rhyming) verse in iambic pentameter. If these do not rhyme, they are usually separated by extra white space

iamb

a metrical foot consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented syllable

ex: rehearse

iambic meter

a meter in which the majority of feet are iambs, the most common English meter

internal rhyme

a rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme-words occur within the line

italian (or Petrarchan) sonnet

A sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abbaabba and of a sestet using any arrangement of two or three additional rhymes, such as cdcdcd or cdecde

masculine rhyme

(Also known as a single rhyme) A rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words

Ex: rhyme, sublime

meter

Regularized rhythm; an arrangement of language in which the accents occur at apparently equal intervals in time

octave

(1) an eight line stanza. (2) the first eight lines of a sonnet, especially one structured in the manner of an Italian sonnet

perfect rhyme

A rhyme in which is when the later part of the word or phrase is identical sounding to another

Ex: masculine & feminine

pentameter

A metrical line containing five feet

quatrain

(1) a four line stanza. (2) a four line division of a sonnet marked off by its rhyme scheme

refrain

A repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines, normally at some fixed position in a poem written in stanzaic form

rhyme

The repetition of an identical or similarly accented sound or sounds in a work.

rhyme scheme

Any fixed pattern of rhymes characterizing a whole poem or its stanzas

scansion

The process of measuring verse, that is, of marking accented and unaccented syllables, dividing the lines into feet, identifying the metrical pattern, and noting significant variations from that pattern

sestet

(1) a six line stanza. (2) the last six lines of a sonnet structured on the Italian model

spondee

A metrical foot consisting of two syllables equally or almost equally accented

Ex: true, blue

stanza

A group of lines whose metrical pattern (and usually its rhyme scheme as well) is repeated throughout a poem

syntax

The arrangement of words to form phrases , clauses, and sentences; sentence construction

Word organization and order

Terza Rima

A three line stanza form borrowed from the Italian poets. The rhyme scheme is: aba, bcb, cdc, ded…

tetrameter

A metrical line containing 4 feet

trimeter

A metrical line containing 3 feet

triple meter

A meter in which a majority of the feet contain three syllables. Anapestic and dactylic are both examples of this meter

trochaic meter

A meter in which the majority of feet are trochees

trochee

A metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by one unaccented syllable

Ex: barter, garden

ballad

• A narrative folk song.

• Traced back to the middle ages

• Usually created by common people and passed orally due to the illiteracy of the time

• Subjects include killings, feuds, important historical events, and rebellion

elegy

A type of literature defined as a song or poem that expresses sorrow or lamentation, usually for one who has died

epic

A long poem in a lofty style about the exploits of heroic figures. These often come from an oral tradition of shared authorship or from a single, high-profile poet imitating the style

lyric

A song like poem written mainly to express the feelings of emotions or thought from a particular person, thus separating it from narrative poems. These poems are generally short, averaging roughly twelve to thirty lines, and rarely go beyond sixty lines. These poems express vivid imagination as well as emotion and all flow fairly concisely

narrative poem

A poem that tells a story. It can come in many forms and styles, both complex and simple, short or long, as long as it tells a story. A few examples are epics, ballads, and metrical romances

ode

Usually a lyric poem of moderate length, with a serious subject, an elevated style, and an elaborate stanza pattern. Often praises people, the arts of music and poetry, natural scenes, or abstract concepts

sonnet

A fixed form of 14 lines, normally iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme conforming to approximating one of two main types—the Italian or the English