Poetry, Rhyme, and Narrative Elements — Quick Reference

Poem: a composition in verse; verse = metrical writing (concerned with the number and variety of accented and unaccented syllables)
Elements of Poetry: Lines and Stanzas, Meter, Rhythm, Rhyme, Figurative Language, Poetic Forms

Line: a unit of poetry, begins on the left, ends where the poet chooses to break
Stanza: a grouping of lines
Common stanza forms:
- Monostich – $1$ line
- Couplet – $2$ lines
- Tercet – $3$ lines
- Quatrain – $4$ lines
- Quintet/Quintain – $5$ lines
- Sestet/Sexain – $6$ lines
- Septet – $7$ lines
- Octet/Octave – $8$ lines
- Nonet – $9$ lines

Rhyme: the similarity of sound, typically the last stressed vowel and following sounds in two or more words
End rhyme: rhyming words at the ends of verse-lines
- Keats, To Autumn
Internal rhyme: rhyme within a single verse-line
- Shelley, The Cloud
Rhyme types by phonological make-up:
- Masculine rhyme: single stressed syllable (e.g., ‘hat’/‘cat’)
- Feminine (double) rhyme: two syllables, first stressed (e.g., ‘stranger’/‘danger’)
- Triple rhyme: three rhyming syllables (e.g., ‘mystery’/‘history’)
- Pararhyme / half rhyme: final consonant sound same (e.g., ‘ill’/‘shell’) or initial+final consonants same with different intervening vowel (e.g., ‘hall’/‘hell’)
- Imperfect rhyme: rhyme that is forced or distorted (used for variation or comic effect)
Eye rhyme: rhyme by spelling rather than sound
Rhyme scheme: assigning letters to end rhymes
- abab: alternating/cross rhyme
- abba: enclosed rhyme
- aa and bb: couplets
- Petrarchan (Italian): abba abba cdecde
- Shakespearean (English): abab cdcd efef gg
Other sound devices:
- Alliteration: repetition of initial consonant sounds
- Consonance: repetition of middle/final consonant sounds
- Assonance: repetition of vowel sounds

Sonnet: $14$ lines of rhymed iambic pentameter
Villanelle: $5$ tercets and a final quatrain; first and third lines of the first stanza repeat as the third line in subsequent tercets
Rondeau: French form with $15$ lines in three stanzas (quintet, quatrain, sestet); two rhymes repeat; opening line reappears as a refrain at ends of stanzas 2 and 3
Rondelet: French form, $7$ lines; first line (4 syllables) serves as a refrain in lines 3 and 7; remaining lines rhyme with each other
Triolet: eight-line poem in iambic tetrameter; two refrains (A and B); rhyme scheme: ABaAabAB
Sestina: Italian form with $6$ sestets followed by a tercet (envoi); final words repeat in a fixed pattern; envoi uses all six words
Cinquain: five-line stanza; traditionally five-line form with a specific syllable count per line
Haiku: very short, imagistic; evokes nature and season
Pantoum: any number of quatrains, rhyming abab; lines 2 and 4 repeat as lines 1 and 3 of the next quatrain
Cento: literary collage made entirely from quotations
Ghazal: Persian/Urdu origins; typically $5$ – $12$ loosely related couplets; melancholy theme; final word(s) of second line repeated at end of all second lines

Conflict types:
- Man vs. Himself
- Man vs. Man
- Man vs. Society
- Man vs. Nature
Theme: central idea or hidden meaning
Point of View (narrative perspective):
- First-person: narrator participates in action
- Second-person: reader becomes a character
- Third-person limited: focuses on one character's perspective
- Third-person omniscient: all-knowing narrator

Mode: emotive atmosphere conveyed through language, setting, location, character feelings, or music
Tone: author’s attitude toward the subject; conveyed via words and syntax
Style: author’s selection and arrangement of words, sentences, and paragraphs