Poetry Terminology

Allegory: A narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one

Alliteration: Repetition at close intervals of initial consonant sounds

Allusion: A reference, explicit or implicit to a literary, historical, mythological or Biblical person or event that adds more depth to the poet/author’s meaning

Apostrophe: A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead, or something non-human, is addressed as if it were alive or present

Assonance: Repetition at close intervals of the vowel sounds in important words

Ballad: A fairly short narrative poem written in songlike stanza form

Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Consonance: The repetition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds in important words

Couplet: Two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme

Diction: The poet’s choice of words – types include denotation, connotation, abstract, concrete, formal, informal, colloquial

Elegy: A poem of serious reflection, typically a lament for the dead

End Rhyme: When a poem has lines ending with words that sound the same

Enjambment: A thought or sense, phrase or clause, in a line of poetry that does not come to an end at the line break, but moves over to the next line

Extended Metaphor: A comparison between two unlike things that continues throughout a series of lines in a poem. It is often comprised of more than one line, and sometimes consists of a full stanza

Free Verse: Non-metrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, in which pauses, line breaks and formal patterns develop organically from the individual poem and don’t follow established forms

Hyperbole: An exaggeration used in speaking or writing to create an effect, and not necessarily meant to be taken literally; an exaggeration for effect

Imagery: The representation through language of a sense experience (Olfactory, tactile, auditory, gustatory, kinesthetic, synesthesia); words and phrases used specifically to help the reader to imagine each of the senses

Internal rhyme: A rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme words occur within a line

Irony: A situation, use of language, involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy

Lyric Poem: A verse or poem that is, or supposedly is, susceptible of being sung to the accompaniment of a musical instrument (in ancient times, usually a lyre) or that expresses intense personal emotion in a manner suggestive of a song

Metaphor: A figure of speech in which an implicit connection is made between two things that are essentially unlike

Metaphysical Poetry:  Highly intellectualized poetry marked by bold and ingenious conceits, incongruous imagery, complexity and subtlety of thought, frequent use of paradox, and often by deliberate harshness or rigidity of expression

Meter: The regular pattern of accent that underlie metrical verse; the measurable repetition of accented and unaccented syllables in poetry

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

Mood: A poetic element that evokes certain feelings or vibes in readers through diction and imagery. Usually, mood is referred to as the atmosphere of a poetic piece, as it creates an emotional setting that surrounds the readers

Narrative Poem: A form of poetry that tells a story, often making the voices of a narrator and characters as well; the entire story is usually written in metered verse. Narrative poems do not have to follow rhythmic patterns

Ode: A lyric poem in the form of an address to a particular subject, often elevated in style or manner and written in varied or irregular meter

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

Oxymoron: A compact paradox in which two successive words seemingly contradict each other

Paradox: A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements

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

Rhyme: The repetition of accented vowel sounds and all succeeding sounds in important or importantly positioned words

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

Rhythm: Any wavelike reoccurrence of motion or sound; the repetition of stress within a poem

Sestina: A poem off six six-line stanzas and a three-line envoy, originally without rhyme, in which each stanza repeats the end words of the lines of the first stanza, but in different order, the envoy using the six words again, three in the middle of the lines and three at the end

Simile: A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two essentially unlike things. The comparison is made using words such as “like,” “as,” or “seems”

Sonnet: A fixed form of fourteen lines, normally iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme conforming to either the Italian or English form.

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

Synecdoche: A form of a metaphor in which the part stands for the whole

Syntax: The organization of words, phrases, and clauses (the word order)

Tone: The writer’s or speaker’s attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself/himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of the work

Understatement: A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants