English Poetry Terms

Alliteration

The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of a word

Anaphora

The repetition of a word or word group at the beginning of successive sentences, clauses, paragraphs, or poetic lines

Apostrophe

Figure of speech in which a thing, an abstract quality, or an absent or imaginary person is addressed as if present and able to understand

Assonance

 *The repetition of a vowel sound within words.*

Caesura

A pause placed in the middle of a line for effect.

Consonance

 *The repetition of consonant sounds within and at the end of words.*

Enjambment

The continuation of the sense and grammatical construction of a line of poetry onto the next line or of a couplet or stanza into the succeeding couplet or stanza

Extended metaphor

A metaphor that compares two unlike things in various ways throughout a paragraph, a stanza, or an entire selection.

Free verse

*Poetry that has no fixed pattern of meter, rhyme, length, or stanza arrangement.*

Heroic couplet

*Two* __*consecutive*__ *lines of rhyming iambic pentameter.*

Hyperbole

exaggerated statements

imagery

*Words or phrases that create pictures, or images, in the reader’s mind.*  

lyric poetry

Poetry that expresses a speaker's personal thoughts and feelings

metaphor

*An implied comparison*.

meter

*The repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry.*  Meter emphasizes the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. 

**Iamb**

unstressed, stressed

anapest

unstressed, unstressed, stressed.

trochee

stressed, unstressed

dactyl

stressed, unstressed, unstressed

mood

 *The emotional quality of a literary work.*

onomatopoeia

*Refers to the use of echoic words whose pronunciations suggest their specific meanings*. 

rhyme

sound of accented vowels and all succeeding sounds are identical

masculine rhyme

*Only final accented syllables rhyme*. (pursue/renew)

feminine/double rhyme

*Rhyme occurs in two or three consecutive syllables, the first of which is stressed*.  (remember/December; waken/shaken)

end rhyme

*Rhyme comes at end of line*.

internal rhyme

*Rhyme occurs within a line*.  ("The splendor falls on castle walls")

off/slant/near rhyme

*The sounds are closely related but not identical*. (fear/care)

simile

*A comparison between two unlike things using “like” or “as.”*

stanza

*A group of lines forming a unit in a poem.*

symbol

*Any person, animal, place, object, or event that exists on a literal level within a work but also represents something on a figurative level.*

synesthesia

*description of a sense impression in terms of another sense*

tone

*The attitude that a writer takes toward his or her subject.*

sonnet

*A* *verse form consisting of 14 lines in iambic pentameter with rhyme arranged according to a fixed scheme, usually divided either into an octave (eight lines) and a sestet (six lines) or into three quatrains and a couplet*