Literary Terms – Poetry

 

Alliteration – the repetition of the same sounds, usually initial consonants, in neighboring words.

 

Assonance – the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighboring words.

 

Ballad – a form of narrative poetry that presents a single dramatic episode, which is often tragic or violent.

 

Blank verse – poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter--not to be confused with free verse (see below).

 

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.

 

Cadence – the rising and falling rhythm of speech, especially that of the balanced phrases in free verse or in

                prose.  Also the fall or rise in pitch at the end of a phrase or sentence.

 

Caesura – a pause in a line of verse, often coinciding with a break between clauses or sentences.

 

Conceit – an unusually far-fetched or elaborate metaphor presenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two

                apparently dissimilar things or feelings.

 

Connotation – an association or additional meaning that a word, image, or phrase may carry apart from its literal definition.

 

Consonance – the repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighboring words whose vowel sounds are

                different (e.g. coming home, hot foot).

 

Couplet – two consecutive lines of poetry that rhyme and that are written to the same meter, or pattern of

                stressed and unstressed syllables. For example:

                                                                Three be the things I shall have till I die:

                                                                Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.

                                                                                                                -Dorothy Parker

 

Dactyl – metrical foot of three syllables, one accented followed by two unaccented.

 

Didactic Poem – a poem that is intended to teach the reader a moral lesson or impart a body of knowledge.

 

Dirge – a funeral song of lamentation; a short lyric of mourning.

 

Dissonance – harshness of sound and/or rhyme, either inadvertent or deliberate.

 

Dramatic monologue – a kind of poem in which a single fictional or historical character other than the poet speaks

to a silent audience of one or more persons.  Such poems do not reveal the poet’s own thoughts, but the mind of the impersonated character.

 

Elegy – an elaborately formal lyric poem lamenting the death of a friend or public figure, or serious reflection on

a serious subject.

 

End-stopped line – a line brought to a pause at which the end of a verse line coincides with the completion of a

                sentence, clause, or other independent unit of syntax.  It is the opposite of enjambment.

 

Enjambment – the running over of the sense and grammatical structure from one verse line or couplet to the next

                without a punctuated pause.

 

Epic – a long narrative poem celebrating the great deeds of one or more legendary heroes in a grand style.

 

Euphony – a pleasing smoothness of sound, perceived by the ease with which the words can be spoken in

                combination.  Adjective:  euphonious.

 

Extended Metaphor – a metaphor that is sustained for several lines or becomes the controlling image of a poem.

 

Foot – the basic unit of rhythmic measurement in a line of poetry.

 

Free Verse – poetry that is not rhymed (usually) and free of meter to resemble natural speech.

 

Heroic Couplet – two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc, with the thought usually completed

                in the two-line unit. 

 

Hexameter – a line containing six metrical feet.

 

Iamb – a metrical foot consisting of two syllables, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented, as in the word

invade.

 

Image – language referring to something that can be perceived through one or more of the senses.

 

Imagery – the making of pictures in words.

 

In medias res – Latin for “the middle of things.”  The term describes the narrative practice of beginning a

                story in the middle of the action to involve the reader, and then using one or more flashbacks to fill in

                what led up to that point.

 

Lyric Poem – a usually short, personal poem expressing the poet’s emotions and thoughts.

 

Measure – an older word for meter.  The term is also used to refer to any metrical unit such as a foot.

 

Meter – the pattern of measured sound-units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse.

 

Narrative Poem – a poem that tells a story. Ballads and epics are forms of narrative poetry.

 

Octave – a group of eight verse lines forming the first part of a sonnet; or a stanza of eight lines.

 

Ode – an elaborately formal lyric poem, often in the form of a lengthy address to a person or abstract entity, always

                serious and elevated in tone.

 

Pastoral – a poem dealing with shepherds and rural life.

 

Pentameter – a line of five feet.  Iambic pentameter, normally 10 syllables, has had special status as the standard

                line in many poetry forms.

 

Persona – the assumed identity or fictional “I” assumed by a writer in a literary work.

 

Prosody – the study of sound and rhythm in poetry.

 

Quatrain – a verse stanza of four lines, rhymed or unrhymed.

 

Refrain – a line, group of lines, or part of a line repeated at regular or irregular intervals in a poem.

 

 

 

 

Rhyme – the similarity of sound between two words.

Ψ       End rhyme – rhyme that comes at the end of a line of poetry.

Ψ       Internal rhyme – rhyme that comes within the line.

Ψ       Feminine rhyme – two-syllable rhyme.

Ψ       Forced rhyme – meaning in the poem suffers because of the stilted nature of the rhyme

Ψ       Masculine rhyme – one-syllable rhyme.

Ψ       Exact rhyme – identical rhyme between two words (feature/creature)

Ψ       Slant rhyme (proximate, near) – inexact rhyme between two words

Ψ       Eye rhyme – rhyme based on spelling rather than sound (bough/though)

 

Rhythm – the patterned flow of sound in poetry and prose.  Sound devices create rhythm. 

Ψ       Sprung rhythm – measured by counting only the accented syllables and by varying the number of unaccented syllables

 

Scansion – analyzing the meter in lines of poetry by counting and marking the accented and unaccented syllables,

                and dividing the lines into metrical feet.

 

Sestet – a six-line poem or stanza.

 

Sonnet – a fourteen-line lyric poem often written in iambic pentameter.

Ψ       English sonnet – (a.k.a. Shakespearean sonnet) rhyme scheme of abab, cdcd, efef, gg: 3 quatrains + a couplet

Ψ       Italian sonnet – (a.k.a. Petrarchan sonnet) rhyme scheme of abba, abba, cde, cde: an octave + a sestet

 

Stanza – a section or division of a poem, resembling paragraphs in prose.

 

Stress – the emphasis placed on a word or syllable.

 

Trochee – a metrical foot consisting of two syllables, an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable, as in

       the word fortune.

 

Verse – poetry as distinct from prose.  The term is usually more neutral than poetry, indicating that the technical

       requirements of rhythm and meter are present, while poetic merit may or may not be present.

 

Villanelle – a lyric poem made up of five stanzas of three lines, plus a final stanza of four lines.