English Poetry Terms

Alliteration

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