poetry terms
*alliteration. The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words or within words
*analogy. A comparison of similar things, often for the purpose of using something familiar to explain something unfamiliar.
*anastrophe. A rhetorical term for the inversion of the normal order of the parts of a sentence.
*apostrophe. The device, usually in poetry, of calling out to an imaginary, dead, or absent person, or to a place, thing, or personified abstraction either to begin a poem or to make a dramatic break in thought somewhere within the poem.
*assonance. The close repetition of middle vowel sounds between different consonant sounds: fade/pale. Assonance is usually used within a line of poetry for unity or rhythmic effect
*cacophony. Harsh, clashing, or dissonant sounds, often produced by combinations of words that require a clipped, explosive delivery, or words that contain a number of plosive consonants such as b, d, g, k, h and t; the opposite of euphony.
*caesura. A pause within a line of poetry, often resulting from the natural rhythm of language and not necessarily indicated by punctuation. Skillful poets use the caesura to ease the stiffness of a metrical line without changing the metrical count. A caesura usually occurs near the middle of a line. Sometimes there is more than one caesura in a line.
*conceit. An elaborate figure of speech comparing two very dissimilar things. The comparison may be startling, farfetched, fanciful, or highly intellectual and may develop an analogy or metaphor to its logical limits and beyond.
*connotation. The associations, images, or impressions carried by a word, as opposed to the word's literal meaning.
*consonance. The close repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after differing vowel sounds: leave/love, short/shirt. A number of familiar compound words are consonant: pingpong, fulfill, tiptop. Like alliteration, consonance is used in poetry to create emphasis and unity.
*denotation. The precise, literal meaning of a word, without emotional associations or overtones.
*enjambment. The carrying of sense and grammatical structure in a poem beyond the end of one line, couplet, or stanza and into the next. Enjambment occurs with the use of run-on lines.
*euphony. A succession of sweetly melodious sounds; the opposite of cacophony. The term is applied to smoothly flowing poetry or prose.
*Homeric epithet. A hyphenated adjective used repeatedly in conjunction with the same noun, so as to form a unit of expression
*hyperbole. Obvious, extravagant exaggeration or overstatement, not intended to be taken literally, but used figuratively to create humor or emphasis. The most extreme examples of hyperbole occur, not surprisingly, in love poetry, a context, moreover, in which hyperbole seems psychologically believable.
*kenning. A metaphoric compound word or phrase used as a synonym for a common noun. Kennings are characteristic of Old English poetry.
*metaphor. A figure of speech, an implied analogy in which one thing is imaginatively compared to or identified with another, dissimilar thing. In a metaphor, the qualities of something are ascribed to something else, qualities that it ordinarily does not possess.
*metonymy. A figure of speech that substitutes the name of a related object, person, or idea for the subject at hand. Metonymy should not be confused with synecdoche, a substitution of a part of something for the whole or the whole for a part.
*onomatopoeia. The use of words whose sound imitates the sound of the thing being named.
*parallelism. The technique of showing that words, phrases, clauses, or larger structures are comparable in content and importance by placing them side by side and making them similar in form. Parallelism is a common unifying device in poetry, especially in ancient poetry growing out of the oral tradition—for example, the Hebrew Psalms—and in modern free verse.
*personification. A figure of speech in which human characteristics and sensibilities are attributed to animals, plants, inanimate objects, natural forces, or abstract ideas.
*simile. A figure of speech that uses like, than, as, or as if to compare two essentially different objects, actions, or attributes that share some aspect of similarity.
*synechdoche. A figure of speech in which a part of something stands for the whole thing.
*scansion. Analyzing the meter in lines of poetry by counting and marking the accented and unaccented syllables, dividing the lines into metrical feet, and showing the major pauses, if any, within the line. The conventional system for scanning English poetry calls for marking accented syllables ( ‘) and unaccented syllables (-). Other symbols include a vertical line ( | ) to separate one foot from another, and a double line (||) to indicate a caesura, or major pause.
*foot. The basic unit of rhythmic measurement in a line of poetry. In traditional English verse, a foot consists most often of at least one accented (stressed) syllable and one or more unaccented (unstressed) syllables. The number and type of feet in a line of a poem determine its meter. The five most commonly used feet are illustrated below. Accented syllables are indicated by the mark, ‘; unaccented syllables by -:
The *iamb (iambic foot) consists of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented syllable:
The *trochee (trochaic foot) consists of one accented syllable followed by one unaccented syllable: ,
The *anapest (anapestic foot) consists of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable:
The *dactyl (dactylic foot) consists of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables: ,
The *spondee (spondaic foot) consists of two accented syllables:
*meter. The fixed (or nearly fixed) pattern of accented and unaccented syllables in the lines of a poem that produces its pervasive rhythm. The basic unit of rhythm is the foot consisting most often of an arrangement of at least one accented syllable (‘) and one or more unaccented syllables (-). Meter is determined by the type and the number of feet in a line.
*blank verse. Poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse should not be confused with free verse. It is "blank" only in the sense that its lines do not rhyme; it is not metrically blank.
*couplet. Two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme and that are written to the same meter, or pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables.
*elegy. A poem of sorrow or mourning for the dead; also a reflective poem in a solemn or sorrowful mood. The adjective elegaic is used to describe poetry that exhibits the characteristics of an elegy.
*free verse. A type of poetry that differs from traditional verse forms in that it is "free" of the regular beat of meter, depending instead on the individual poet's sensitivity to the music of natural speech rhythms. Also, free verse usually lacks rhyme and often has irregular line lengths and fragmentary syntax.
*idyll. A short descriptive and narrative piece, usually a poem, about picturesque country life, an idealized story of happy innocence.
*ode. A long and elaborate lyric poem, usually dignified or exalted in tone and often written to praise someone or something or to mark an important occasion.
*sonnet. A fourteen-line lyric poem in iambic pentameter.
terza rima. A form of verse composed of three-line stanzas, or tercets, linked by rhyme, as follows: abc, bcb, cdc, ded, and so on. The word at the end of the middle line of each stanza rhymes with the words at the ends of the first and third lines of each succeeding stanza. A poem in terza rima conculdes with a couplet rhyming with the middle line on the previous stanza. villanelle. A lyric poem made up of five stanzas of three lines (tercets), plus a final stanza of four lines (quatrain). In the tercets, the rhyme scheme is aba; in teh quatrain, it is abaa. The villanelle also includes a refrain, arepetition of the first and third lines of the first stanza.