The poetry terms and their definitions included provide you with a resource of consideration–a toolbox of a variety of implements that will assist the poet who is anxious and skilled with applying these tools. As you compose your selected poetry forms use the glossary of terms in an attempt to enrich your composition. Hopefully many of these terms will be familiar to you, but do not feel overwhelm if you feel that you can manage only a few of the devices in creating verse. The terms in maroon will be emphasized on the exam; the other terms that appear here are to compliment your understanding of the featured terms.
ACCENT The rhythmically significant stress in the articulation of words, giving some syllables more relative prominence than others. In words of two or more syllables, one syllable is almost invariably stressed more strongly than the other syllables. In words of one syllable, the degree of stress normally depends on their grammatical function; nouns, verbs, and adjectives are usually given more stress than articles or prepositions. The words in a line of poetry are usually arranged so the accents occur at regular intervals, with the meter defined by the placement of the accents within the foot. Accent should not be construed as emphasis.
ALLEGORY A figurative illustration of truths or generalizations about human conduct or experience in a narrative or description by the use of symbolic fictional figures and actions which the reader can interpret as a resemblance to the subject’s properties and circumstances.
Though similar to both a series of symbols and an extended metaphor, the meaning of an allegory is more direct and less subject to ambiguity than a symbol; it is distinguishable from an extended metaphor in that the literal equivalent of an allegory’s figurative comparison is not usually expressed.
The term, allegoresis, means the interpretation of a work on the part of a reader; since, by definition, the interpretation of an allegory is an essential factor, the two terms function together in a complementary fashion. Probably the best-known allegory in English literature is Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene.
ALLITERATION Also called head rhyme or initial rhyme, the repetition of the initial sounds (usually consonants) of stressed syllables in neighboring words or at short intervals within a line or passage, usually at word beginnings, as in “wild and woolly,” or the line from Shelley’s “The Cloud“:
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
Sidelight: Alliteration has a gratifying effect on the sound, gives a reinforcement to stresses, and can also serve as a subtle connection or emphasis of key words in the line, but alliterated words should not “call attention” to themselves by strained usage.
(See also Euphony, Modulation, Resonance)
(Compare Assonance, Consonance, Rhyme, Sigmatism)
ALLITERATIVE VERSE Poetry in which alliteration is a formal structural element in place of rhyme; it was prevalent in a number of old literatures prior to the 14th century, including Anglo-Saxon. In alliterative verse, the first half-line (hemistich) is united with the second half by alliterating stressed syllables; in the first half-line generally two (but sometimes three) syllables alliterate, while in the second half usually only one. Sometimes one alliterating sound is carried through successive lines:
In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne,
I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were,
In habite as an heremite unholy of werkes,
Wente wide in this world wondres to here.
—The Vision of Piers Plowman, by William Langland, 1330?-1400?
To facilitate maintaining the alliterative pattern, poets made frequent use of a specialized vocabulary, consisting of many synonymous words seldom encountered outside of alliterative verse.
By the 14th century, rhyme and meter displaced alliteration as a formal element, although alliterative verse continued to be written into the 16th century and alliteration retains an important function as one of a poet’s sound devices.
ALLUSION An implied or indirect reference to something assumed to be known, such as a historical event or personage, a well-known quotation from literature, or a famous work of art, such as Keats’ allusion to Titian’s painting of Bacchus in “Ode to a Nightingale.”
An allusion can be used by the poet as a means of imagery, since, like a symbol, it can suggest ideas by connotation. Like allegories and parodies, its effectiveness depends upon the reader’s acquaintance with the reference alluded to.
ANALOGY An agreement or similarity in some particulars between things otherwise different; sleep and death, for example, are analogous in that they both share a lack of animation and a recumbent posture.
ANAPHORA (uh-NAF-or-uh) Also called epanaphora, the repetition of the same word or expression at the beginning of successive phrases, clauses, sentences, or lines for rhetorical or poetic effect, as in Lincoln’s “we cannot dedicate- we cannot consecrate-we cannot hallow this ground”
APOLOGUE An allegorical narrative such as a fable, usually intended to convey a moral or a useful truth.
ASSONANCE The relatively close juxtaposition of the same or similar vowel sounds, but with different end consonants in a line or passage, thus a vowel rhyme, as in the words, date and fade.
BALLAD A short narrative poem with stanzas of two or four lines and usually a refrain. The story of a ballad can originate from a wide range of subject matter but frequently deals with folk-lore or popular legends. The plot is the dominant element, dealing with a single crucial episode, narrated impersonally, with frequent use of repetition. They are written in straight-forward verse, seldom with detail, but always with graphic simplicity and force. Most ballads are suitable for singing and, while sometimes varied in practice, are generally written in ballad meter, i.e., alternating lines of iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter, with the last words of the second and fourth lines rhyming, an xbyb rhyme scheme.
BLANK VERSE Poetry written without rhymes, but which retains a set metrical pattern, usually iambic pentameter (five iambic feet per line) in English verse. Since it is a very flexible form, the writer not being hampered in the expression of thought or syntactic structure by the need to rhyme, it is used extensively in narrative and dramatic poetry. In lyric poetry, blank verse is adaptable to lengthy descriptive and meditative poems. An example of blank verse is found in the well-known lines from Act 4, Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice:
The qua | lity | of mer | cy is | not strain’d,
It drop | peth as | the gen | tle rain | from heaven
Upon | the place | beneath; | it is | twice blest:
It bles | seth him | that gives | and him | that takes;
CONSONANCE The close repetition of the same end consonants of stressed syllables with differing vowel sounds, such as boat and night, or the words drunk and milk in the final line of Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan.”
COUPLET Two successive lines of poetry, usually of equal length and rhythmic correspondence, with end-words that rhyme. The couplet, for practical purposes, is the shortest stanza form, but is frequently joined with other couplets to form a poem with no stanzaic divisions, as in Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess.”
DIRGE A poem of grief or lamentation, especially one intended to accompany funeral or memorial rites.
DITTY A simple little poem meant to be sung.
DRAMATIC POEM A composition in verse portraying a story of life or character, usually involving conflict and emotions, in a plot evolving through action and dialogue.
ELEGY A poem of lament, praise, and consolation, usually formal and sustained, over the death of a particular person; also, a meditative poem in plaintive or sorrowful mood, such as, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” by Thomas Gray.
END RHYME A rhyme occurring in the terminating word or syllable of one line of poetry with that of another line, as opposed to internal rhyme.
EPIC An extended narrative poem, usually simple in construction, but grand in scope, exalted in style, and heroic in theme, often giving expression to the ideals of a nation or race.
EUPHEMISM (YOO-fuh-mizm) The substitution of an agreeable or inoffensive expression to replace one that might offend or suggest something unpleasant, for example, “he is at rest” is a euphemism for “he is dead.”
EUPHONY (YOO-fuh-nee) Harmony or beauty of sound which provides a pleasing effect to the ear, usually sought-for in poetry for effect. It is achieved not only by the selection of individual word-sounds, but also by their arrangement in the repetition, proximity, and flow of sound patterns.
EXTENDED METAPHOR A metaphor which is drawn-out beyond the usual word or phrase to extend throughout a stanza or an entire poem, usually by using multiple comparisons between the unlike objects or ideas.
FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE The use of words, phrases, symbols, and ideas in such as way as to evoke mental images and sense impressions. Figurative language is often characterized by the use of figures of speech, elaborate expressions, sound devices, and syntactic departures from the usual order of literal language.
FOOT A unit of rhythm or meter; the division in verse of a group of syllables, one of which is long or accented. For example, the line, “The boy | stood on | the burn | ing deck,” has four iambic metrical feet. The fundamental components of the foot are the arsis and the thesis. The most common poetic feet used in English verse are the iamb, anapest, trochee, dactyl, and spondee, while in classical verse there are twenty-eight different feet.
FORM The arrangement or method used to convey the content, such as free verse, ballad, haiku, etc. In other words, the “way-it-is-said.” A variably interpreted term, however, it sometimes applies to details within the composition of a text, but is probably used most often in reference to the structural characteristics of a work as it compares to (or differs from) established modes of conventionalized arrangements.
FREE VERSE A fluid form which conforms to no set rules of traditional versification. The free in free verse refers to the freedom from fixed patterns of meter and rhyme, but writers of free verse employ familiar poetic devices such as assonance, alliteration, imagery, caesura, figures of speech etc., and their rhythmic effects are dependent on the syllabic cadences emerging from the context. The term is often used in its French language form, vers libre. Walt Whitman’s “By the Bivouac’s Fitful Flame,” is an example of a poem written in free verse.
HAIKU (HIGH-koo) A Japanese form of poetry consisting of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. The elusive flavor of the form, however, lies more in its touch and tone than in its syllabic structure. Deeply imbedded in Japanese culture and strongly influenced by Zen Buddhism, haiku are very brief descriptions of nature that convey some implicit insight or essence of a moment. Traditionally, they contain either a direct or oblique reference to a season:
A field of tulips–
convulsions of vivid hues
bouncing on the breeze
— rgs
HALF RHYME A near rhyme; also, an apocopated rhyme in which the rhyme occurs only on the first syllable of the rhyming word, as in blue and truly or sum and trumpet.
HOMONYM One of two or more words which are identical in pronunciation and spelling, but different in meaning, as the noun bear and the verb bear.
HYPERBOLE (hi-PER-buh-lee) A bold, deliberate overstatement, e.g., “I’d give my right arm for a piece of pizza.” Not intended to be taken literally, it is used as a means of emphasizing the truth of a statement.
IMAGERY, IMAGE The elements in a literary work used to evoke mental images, not only of the visual sense, but of sensation and emotion as well. While most commonly used in reference to figurative language, imagery is a variable term which can apply to any and all components of a poem that evoke sensory experience and emotional response, whether figurative or literal, and also applies to the concrete things so imaged.
INTERNAL RHYME Also called middle rhyme, a rhyme occurring within the line. The rhyme may be with words within the line but not at the line end, or with a word within the line and a word at the end of the line, as in Shelley’s “The Cloud”
LAMPOON A bitter, abusive satire in prose or verse attacking an individual. Motivated by malice, it is intended solely to reproach and distress.
LIGHT VERSE A loose, catch-all term describing poetry written with a relaxed attitude and ordinary tone on trivial, mundane, or frivolous themes. It is intended to amuse and entertain and is frequently distinguished by sophistication, wit, word-play, elegance, and technical competence. Among the numerous forms of light verse are clerihews, double dactyls, epigrams, limericks, nonsense poetry, occasional poetry, parodies, society verse, and verse with puns or riddles.
LIMERICK A light or humorous verse form of five chiefly anapestic verses of which lines one, two and five are of three feet and lines three and four are of two feet, with a rhyme scheme of aabba. The limerick, named for a town in Ireland of that name, was popularized by Edward Lear in his Book of Nonsense published in 1846.
LYRIC VERSE One of the three main groups of poetry, the others being narrative and dramatic. By far the most frequently used form in modern poetic literature, the term lyric includes all poems in which the speaker’s ardent expression of a (usually single) emotional element predominates. Ranging from complex thoughts to the simplicity of playful wit, the power and personality of lyric verse is of far greater importance than the subject treated. Often brief, but sometimes extended in a long elegy or a meditative ode, the melodic imagery of skillfully written lyric poetry evokes in the reader’s mind the recall of similar emotional experiences.
MASCULINE RHYME A rhyme occurring in words of one syllable or in an accented final syllable, such as light and sight or arise and surprise.
METAPHOR A figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one object or idea is applied to another, thereby suggesting a likeness or analogy between them, as:
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.
METER or METRE A measure of rhythmic quantity; the organized succession of groups of syllables at basically regular intervals in a line of poetry, according to definite metrical patterns. In classic Greek and Latin versification, meter depended on the way long and short syllables were arranged to succeed one another, but in English the distinction is between accented and unaccented syllables. The unit of measure is the foot. Metrical lines are named for the type of constituent foot and for the number of feet in the line: monometer (1), dimeter (2), trimeter (3), tetrameter (4), pentameter (5), hexameter (6), heptameter (7), and octameter (8); thus, a line containing five iambic feet, for example, would be called iambic pentameter. Rarely does a metrical line exceed six feet.
MODULATION In poetry, the harmonious use of language relative to the variations of stress and pitch.
MOTIF (moh-TEEF) A thematic element recurring frequently in literature, such as the dawn song of an aubade or the carpe diem motif.
NEAR RHYME Also called approximate rhyme, slant rhyme, off rhyme, imperfect rhyme, or half rhyme, a rhyme in which the sounds are similar, but not exact, as in home and come or close and lose. Most near rhymes are types of consonance.
OCTAVE A stanza of eight lines, especially the first eight lines of an Italian or Petrarchan sonnet.
ODE A type of lyric or melic verse, usually irregular rather than uniform, generally of considerable length and sometimes continuous, sometimes divided in accordance with transitions of thought and mood in a complexity of stanzaic forms; it often has varying iambic line lengths with no fixed system of rhyme schemes and is always marked by the rich, intense expression of an elevated thought, often addressed to a praised person or object.
ONOMATOPOEIA (ahn-uh-mah-tuh-PEE-uh) Strictly speaking, the formation or use of words which imitate sounds, like whispering, clang, and sizzle, but the term is generally expanded to refer to any word whose sound is suggestive of its meaning, whether by imitation or through cultural inference.
OXYMORON (ahk-see-MOR-ahn) The conjunction of words which, at first view, seem to be contradictory or incongruous, but whose surprising juxtaposition expresses a truth or dramatic effect, such as, cool fire, deafening silence, wise folly, etc.
PERSONIFICATION A type of metaphor in which distinctive human characteristics, e.g., honesty, emotion, volition, etc., are attributed to an animal, object, or idea, as “the haughty lion surveyed his realm” or “my car was happy to be washed” or “‘Fate frowned on his endeavors.” Personification is commonly used in allegory.
QUATRAIN A poem, unit, or stanza of four lines of verse, usually with a rhyme scheme of abab or its variant, xbyb. It is the most common stanzaic form.
REFRAIN A stanza, line, part of a line, or phrase, generally pertinent to the central topic, which is repeated verbatim, usually at regular intervals throughout a poem, most often at the end of a stanza, as in Spenser’s Prothalamion, or Villon’s “Des Dames du Temps Jadis.” Occasionally a single word is used as a refrain, as nevermore in Poe’s “The Raven.” Sometimes a refrain is written with progressive variations, in which case it may be termed incremental repetition.
RHYME SCHEME The pattern established by the arrangement of rhymes in a stanza or poem, generally described by using letters of the alphabet to denote the recurrence of rhyming lines, such as the ababbcc of the Rhyme Royal stanza form.
RHYTHM An essential of all poetry, the regular or progressive pattern of recurrent accents in the flow of a poem as determined by the arses and theses of the metrical feet, i.e., the rise and fall of stress. The measure of rhythmic quantity is the meter.
ESTINA A fixed form consisting of six 6-line (usually unrhymed) stanzas in which the end words of the first stanza recur as end words of the following five stanzas in a successively rotating order and as the middle and end words of each of the lines of a concluding envoi in the form of a tercet. The usual ending word order for a sestina is as follows:
First stanza, 1- 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6
Second stanza, 6 – 1 – 5 – 2 – 4 – 3
Third stanza, 3 – 6 – 4 – 1 – 2 – 5
Fourth stanza, 5 – 3 – 2 – 6 – 1 – 4
Fifth stanza, 4 – 5 – 1 – 3 – 6 – 2
Sixth stanza, 2 – 4 – 6 – 5 – 3 – 1
Concluding tercet:
middle of first line – 2, end of first line – 5
middle of second line – 4, end of second line – 3
middle if third line – 6, end of third line – 1
The poem, “Will’s Place,” is an example of a sestina.
SEXAIN A stanza of six lines, as in some fixed forms such as a sestina, or in Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”.
SIMILE A figure of speech in which an explicit comparison is made between two essentially unlike things, usually using like, as or than, as in Burns’ “O, my luve’s like A Red, Red Rose,” or Shelley’s “as still as a brooding dove,” in “The Cloud.”
SONNET A fixed form consisting of fourteen lines of 5-foot iambic verse. In the English or Shakespearean sonnet, the lines are grouped in three quatrains (with six alternating rhymes) followed by a detached rhymed couplet which is usually epigrammatic. In the original Italian form, such as Longfellow’s “Divina Commedia,” the fourteen lines are divided into an octave of two rhyme-sounds arranged abba abba and a sestet of two additional rhyme sounds which may be variously arranged. This latter form tends to divide the thought into two opposing or complementary phases of the same idea.
SOUND DEVICES Resources used by writers of verse to convey and reinforce the meaning or experience of poetry through the skillful use of sound.
STANZA, STANZAIC A division of a poem made by arranging the lines into units separated by a space, usually of a corresponding number of lines and a recurrent pattern of meter and rhyme. A poem with such divisions is described as having a stanzaic form, but not all verse is divided in stanzas.
STICH (stik) A line or verse of poetry.