Eng 250 Poetry Terms

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Accent

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Occurs when a greater amount of force is given to one syllable over another

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Alliteration

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A pattern technique used in poetry by using a succession of similar sounds… A succession of similar sounds. Occurs in the repetition of the same consonant sound at the beginning of successive words

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Ballad

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Any narrative song can be referred to as a ballad. Folk ballads are loosely defined as a story song transmitted orally

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Blank Verse

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A well-known one line pattern used in poetry, a blank verse is an unrhymed iambic pentameter

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Cacophony

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A harsh, discordant effect

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Caesura

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A pause within a line within a verse

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Closed Form/Fixed Form

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A poet follows or finds some sort of pattern, such as that of a sonnet with its rhyme scheme and its fourteen line of iambic pentameter.

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Conceit

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A poetic device using elaborate comparisons, such as equating a loved one with the graces and beauties of the world.

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Concrete Poetry

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Refer to what we can immediately perceive with our senses; dog, actor, chemical, or particular individuals who belong to those general classes

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Connotation

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Overtones or suggestions of additional meaning that it gains from all the contexts in which we have met it in the past

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Consonance

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Occurs when the rhymed words or phrases have the same beginning and ending consonant sounds but a different vowel, as in chitter and chatter

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Couplet

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In a sonnet, two lines that rhyme back to back.

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Denotation

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A meaning as defined in a dictionary.

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Doggerel

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Verse full of irregularities often due to the poet's incompetence. Doggerel is crude verse that brims with cliché, obvious rhyme, and inept rhythm.

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Elegy

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A lament or a sadly meditative poem, often written on the occasion of a death or other solemn theme. An elegy is usually a sustained poem in a formal style.

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End-Stopped Line

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When the reader makes a brief pause after a line of poetry. An end-stopped line is marked with a  form of punctuation

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Epic

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The long narratives tracing the adventures of popular heroes

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Epigram

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A very short poem, often comic, usually ending with some sharp turn of wit or meaning.

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Euphony

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When the sound of words working together with meaning pleases the mind and ear

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Eye Rhyme

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Rhyme in which the spelling of the words appear alike, but the pronunciations differ, as in laughter and daughter. Idea and flea.

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Feminine Rhyme

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Rhyming of any other syllable other than the last one

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Figure of Speech

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Occurs whenever a speaker or writer, for the sake of freshness or emphasis, departs from the usual denotations of words.

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Foot

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A unit of two or three syllables that contains one strong stress

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Free Verse

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This is used to refer to poetry written in open form. It suggested that the poet was free from rhyme schemes or following any sort of meter

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Hyperbole

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A deliberate over exaggeration. used to express an intense feeling by the author

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Image/Imagery

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A word or sequence of words that refers to any sensory experience

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Implied Metaphor

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A metaphor that does not use a connective or the verb "to be". "He crows with pride" He is being compared to a rooster but not directly. The comparison is implied.

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Lyric

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A lyric is usually written in the first person but can also be used to describe an object or to recall an experience without the writer even bringing himself into the passage… A short poem expressing thoughts and feelings of a single speaker. Often written in the first person, lyric poetry traditionally has a songlike immediacy and emotional force.

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Masculine Rhyme

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Rhyming one syllable words or in words with more than one syllable, rhyming the last syllable.

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Metaphor

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A statement that says one thing is something else, which, in a literal sense, it is not.

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Meter

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A reoccurring rhythmic pattern.

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Mixed Metaphor

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Takes its metaphorical comparisons from two dissimilar contexts

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Narrative Poem

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This type of poem tells a story. Ballads and epics are two common examples of poems written in this mode.

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Octave

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A verse form consisting of 8 lines of iambic pentameter. The most common scheme this follows is A-B-B-A A-B-B-A.

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Onomatpoeia

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An attempt to represent a thing or action by a word that imitates the sound or sounds associated with it.

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Open Form

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Written by a poet who views the writing of a poem as a process rather than a quest for an absolute. Free to use white space for emphasis, able to shorten and lengthen lines as the sense seems to require

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Paradox

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A statement or group of statements that contradicts itself. When thought of deeper, it still makes sense

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Personification

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A figure of speech where the writer gives a thing or an animal human like features in order to make the connection between the two

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Poetic Diction

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Choice of words. Loftier than ordinary language that you would use when talking to someone; above the common

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Prose Poem

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Without caring that some of the rhythm of line structure may be lost, the poet writes the words in block like a prose paragraph

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Prosody

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The study of material structures in poetry

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Pun

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Reminds us of other words of similar or identical sound but of a very different denotation.

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Rhyme

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Occurs when two or more words or phrases contain more words or phrases contain an identical or similar vowel-sound, usually accented, and the consonant-sounds, if any, that follows the vowel sond are identical: hay and sleigh

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Rhythm

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The recurrence of stresses and pauses in a poem

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Run-on Line

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No punctuation at the end of the line. The reader just keeps reading onto the next line without a pause.

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Scansion

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The art of analyzing the stresses in a poem. This allows us to make sense of the meter in the poem by finding stressed and unstressed syllables

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Sestet

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The name given to the second division of a sonnet, which must consist of an octave, eight lines and a sestet, the last six lines. There is usually a change in the rhyme scheme in these two parts

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Simile

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A comparison of two things by using some sort of connective such as like, as, than, or a verb such as resembles

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Sonnet

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The fixed form that has attracted for the longest time the largest number of noteworthy practitioners.

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Stanza

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A fixed number of lines of verse forming a unit of a poem.

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Symbol

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A visual object or action that suggests some further meaning in addition to itself.

Conventional - "The crucifix" A symbol that is used within a society or culture and because it is used in that society it means something


Literary/Original - original to the writer. Something that strikes you as symbolic. "Spiral Staircase"

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Tone

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In literature this conveys an attitude toward a person addressed. No single stylistic device creates tone; it is the net result of various elements an author brings to creating the works, feeling and manner.

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Verse

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Any composition in lines of more or less regular rhythm, usually ending in rimes, is a verse. It also refers to any single line of poetry.