English Poetry Terms

In PROSODY, the EMPHASIS given to a SYLLABLE in articulation.

A verse with six IAMBIC feet (iambic HEXAMETER).

Repetition of initial identical CONSONANT sounds or any vowel sounds in successive or closely associated syllables, especially stressed syllables. “The furrow followed free.”

Consisting of three syllables, with two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one. (Unstressed, unstressed, stressed)

A term used to distinguish the literary BALLAD of known authorship from the early BALLADS of unknown authorship. (Example: Rime of the Ancient Mariner and La Belle Dame sans Merci)

Generally, patterning of vowel sounds without regard to consonants. (Knee-deep in the salt marsh)

A LYRIC about dawn or a morning SERENADE, a song of lovers parting at dawn.

A form of VERSE to be sung or recited and characterized by its presentation of dramatic or exciting EPISODE in simple NARRATIVE form.

Unrhymed but otherwise regular verse, usually iambic pentameter.

A stanza of four lines, the first and third being iambic tetrameter (eight syllables) and the second and fourth iambic trimeter (six syllables), rhymed abab or abcb.

The relation between words in which the final consonants in the stressed syllables agree but the vowels that precede them differ. (mill-ball, torn-burn)

Two consecutive lines of VERSE with END RHYMES.

A FOOT consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented, as in manikin

A figure of speech used so long that it is taken in its denotative sense only, without the conscious comparison to a physical object it once conveyed.

A line composed of ten syllables.

Harsh and inharmonious sounds, a marked breaking of the music of poetry, which may be intentional, as it often is in Robert Browning and Hardy

A poem that reveals “a soul in action” through the speech of one character in a dramatic situation. The character is speaking to an identifiable but silent listener at a dramatic moment in the speaker’s life.

A formal pastoral poem following the traditional technique derived from the idylls of Theocritus.

A sustained and formal poem setting forth meditations on death or another solemn theme.

Lines in which both the grammatical structure and the sense reach completion at the end.

A SONNET consisting of three quatrains followed by a coupled, rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. Also known as the Shakespearean Sonnet.

The continuation of the sense and grammatical construction of a line on to the next verse or couplet.

A long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race

A pithy saying.

RHYME that appears correct from the spelling but is not so from the pronunciation, as “watch” and “match” for example.

The various uses of language that depart from customary construction, order, or significance

The unit of rhythm in verse, whether quantitative or accentual-syllabic

A form of Japanese poetry that gives—usually in three lines of five, seven, and five syllables—a clear picture designed to arouse a distinct emotion and suggest a specific spiritual insight.

A line consisting of seven feet

Iambic pentameter lines rhymed in pairs.

A line of six feet

exaggeration

A FOOT consisting of an unaccented syllable and an accented.

collection of images in a literary work

Rhyme that occurs at some place before the last syllables in a line.

The PETRARCHAN SONNET. An ABBAABBA octave and a CDECDE sestet.

A brief subjective poem strongly marked by imagination, melody, and emotion, and creating a single unified impression.

An ANALOGY identifying one object with another and ascribing to the first object one or more of the qualities of the second.

The recurrence in poetry of a rhythmic pattern, or the Rhythm established by the regular occurrence of similar unites of sound.

A line of verse consisting of one foot.

Poetry written for some particular occasion.

A line of eight feet.

An eight-line STANZA.

Words that by their sound suggest their meaning: “hiss”, "buzz", "whirr", "sizzle"

A self-contradictory combination of words or smaller verbal unit: “jumbo shrimp”

A poem treating of shepherds and rustic life.

A poem employing conventional PASTORAL imagery written in dignified, serious language.

A line of verse of five FEET

An indirect, abstract, roundabout method of stating ideas; the application of the old conviction that “the longest way ‘round is the shortest way home.”

figure that endows animals, ideas, abstractions, and inanimate objects with human traits.

literary compositions typically characterized by imagination, emotion, significant meaning, sense impressions and concrete language

Anyone who writes poetry.

Language chosen for a supposedly inherent poetic quality.

A term applied to the many forms in which human beings have given rhythmic expression to their most intense perceptions of the world.

The principles of VERSIFICATION, particularly as they refer to RHYME, METER, RHYTHM, and STANZA.

Another name for PERSONIFICATION; the personified abstraction is capable of speech and often does speak

A stanza of four lines.

Identity of terminal sound between accented syllables, usually occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse.

A seven-lined IAMBIC PENTAMETER STANZA rhyming ABABBCC, sometimes with an ALEXANDRINE seventh line

The pattern in which RHYME sounds occur in a stanza.

The passage of regular or approximately equivalent time intervals between definite events or the recurrence of specific sounds or kinds of sound.

The carrying over of grammatical structure from one line to the next. The opposite of END-STOPPED LINES.

A system for describing conventional rhythms by dividing lines into FEET, indicating the locations of binomial ACCENTS, and counting the syllables.

The second, six-line division of an ITALIAN SONNET.

A figure in which a similarity between two objects is directly expressed.

NEAR RHYME; usually the substitution of ASSONANCE or CONSONANCE for true rhyme.

Fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, intricate rhyme scheme.

A SONNET of the ENGLISH type in that it has three quatrains and a couplet but features quatrains by the use of linking rhymes: ABAB BCBC EDED EE.

A stanza of nine iambic lines, the first eight in pentameter and the ninth in hexameter. Rhyme scheme is ABABBCBCC

A FOOT composed of two stressed syllables

A recurrent grouping of two or more verse lines in terms of length, metrical form, and, often, rhyme scheme.

The concurrent response of two or more of the senses to the stimulation of one.

A TROPE in which a part signifies the whole or the whole signifies the part; like "threads" and "wheels" for "clothes" and "cars"

The substitution of the name of an object closely associated with a word for the word itself. “The monarch as ‘the crown.’”

A type of Japanese poetry similar to the HAIKU. It consists of thirty-one syllables, arranged in five lines, each of seven syllables, except the first and third, which are each of five.

The two elements of a METAPHOR. The TENOR is the subject that the VEHICLE illustrates; the VEHICLE is the FIGURE that carries the weight of the comparison.

A STANZA of three lines, a triplet, in which each line ends with the same rhyme.

A three-line STANZA, supposedly devised by Dante with a rhyme scheme of ABA BCB CDC DED, etc.

A line consisting of four feet.

The attitudes toward the subject and toward the audience implied in a literary work.

A line of three feet.

A FOOT consisting of an accented and an unaccented syllable.

In RHETORIC, a TROPE is a FIGURE OF SPEECH involving a “turn” or change of sense—the use of the word in a sense other than the literal.

(1) The immediate subject, as opposed to the ultimate or ulterior intentional subject, of a METAPHOR. (2) A work, especially one that serves to display the talents of a performer.

Used in two senses: (1) as a unit of poetry; (2) A name given generally to metrical composition.

A nonstanzaic, continuous verse form, in which the lines are grouped in unequal blocks according to content.

A syllable at the end of a line, with METRICAL ACCENT somewhat in excess of normal or rhetorical ACCENT.

A term used in several ways, all involving a sort of “yoking”: (1) as a synonym of SYLLEPSIS: when an object-taking word has two or more objects on different levels. (2) When two different words that sound exactly alike are yoked together. (3) A grammatical irregularity that arises when a conjunction yokes together forms that cannot all be reconciled with other material in the sentence.