English Poetry Terms

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Dogerrel

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Verse or words that are badly written

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Paraphrase

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a rewording of something written or spoken by someone else.

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Foot

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a basic repeated sequence of meter composed of two or more accented or unaccented syllables.

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Line

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a unit of language into which a poem or play is divided, which operates on principles which are distinct from and not necessarily coincident with grammatical structures, such as the sentence or clauses in sentences.

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Anagrams

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word or phrase made from another word

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Narrative poems

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a form of poetry that tells a story, often making use of the voices of a narrator and characters as well; the entire story is usually written in metred verse.

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Diction

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the choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.

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Poetic Diction

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the term used to refer to the linguistic style, the vocabulary, and the metaphors used in the writing of poetry.

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Middle Diction

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maintains correct language usage, but is less elevated than formal diction; it reflects the way most educated people speak.

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Informal Diction

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represents the plain language of everyday use, and often includes idiomatic expressions, slang, contractions, and many simple, common words

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Dialect

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A type of informational diction. Dialects are spoken by definable groups of people from a particular geographic region, economic group, or social class. Writers use dialect to contrast and express differences in educational, class, social, and regional backgrounds of their characters.

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Jargon

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a form of diction belonging to a particular group or profession

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Blank Verse

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Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Blank verse is the English verse form closest to the natural rhythms of English speech and therefore is the most common pattern found in traditional English narrative and dramatic poetry from Shakespeare to the early twentieth century. Shakespeare's plays use blank verse extensively.

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End-Stopped Line

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A poetic line that has a pause at the end. End-stopped lines reflect normal speech patterns and are often marked by punctuation. The first line of Keats' "Endymion" is an example of an end-stopped line; the natural pause coincides with the end of the line, and is marked by a period

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Run-on Line

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In poetry, when one line ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its meaning. This is also called a run-on line.

The transition between the first two lines of Wordsworth's poem "My Heart Leaps Up" demonstrates enjambment:

My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky

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Enjambment

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In poetry, when one line ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its meaning. This is also called a run-on line. The transition between the first two lines of Wordsworth's poem "My Heart Leaps Up" demonstrates enjambment:My heart leaps up when I beholdA rainbow in the sky

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Meter

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When a rhythmic pattern of stresses recurs in a poem, it is called meter. Metrical patterns are determined by the type and number of feet in a line of verse; combining the name of a line length with the name of a foot concisely describes the meter of the line. Rising meter refers to metrical feet which move from unstressed to stressed sounds, such as the iambic foot and the anapestic foot. Falling meter refers to metrical feet which move from stressed to unstressed sounds, such as the trochaic foot and the dactylic foot. See also accent, foot, iambic pentameter, line.

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Persona

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Not a character;literally a mask

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Syntax

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The ordering of words into meaningful verbal patterns such as phrases, clauses, and sentences. Poets often manipulate syntax, changing conventional word order, to place certain emphasis on particular words. Emily Dickinson, for instance, writes about being surprised by a snake in her poem "A narrow Fellow in the Grass," and includes this line: "His notice sudden is." In addition to the alliterative hissing s-sounds here, Dickinson also effectively manipulates the line's syntax so that the verb is appears unexpectedly at the end, making the snake's hissing presence all the more sudden.

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Carpe Diem

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Sieze the day

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Figure of Speech

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Ways of using language that deviate from the literal, denotative meanings of words in order to suggest additional meanings or effects. Figures of speech say one thing in terms of something else, such as when an eager funeral director is described as a vulture.

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metaphor

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A metaphor is a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things, without using the word "like" or "as." Metaphors assert the identity of dissimilar things

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implied metaphor

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a more subtle comparison; the terms being compared are not so specifically explained. For example, to describe a stubborn man unwilling to leave, one could say that he was "a mule standing his ground."

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Extended Metaphor

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a sustained comparison in which part or all of a poem consists of a series of related metaphors.

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Controlling metaphor

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runs through an entire work and determines the form or nature of that work

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Pun

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A play on words that relies on a word's having more than one meaning or sounding like another word. Shakespeare and other writers use puns extensively, for serious and comic purposes; in Romeo and Juliet

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Synecdoche

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a metaphor part to signify the whole ten sails for ten ships

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Metonymy

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is a type of metaphor in which something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it. In this way, we speak of the "silver screen" to mean motion pictures, "the crown" to stand for the king, "the White House" to stand for the activities of the president.

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Personification

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A form of metaphor in which human characteristics are attributed to nonhuman things.

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Hyperbole

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A boldly exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without intending to be literally true, as in the statement "He ate everything in the house." Hyperbole (also called overstatement) may be used for serious, comic, or ironic effect.

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understatement

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The opposite of hyperbole, understatement (or litotes) refers to a figure of speech that says less than is intended. Understatement usually has an ironic effect, and sometimes may be used for comic purposes, as in Mark Twain's statement, "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."

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paradox

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statement that initially appears to be contradictory but then, on closer inspection, turns out to make sense.

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anaphora

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the use of a word referring to or replacing a word used earlier in a sentence, to avoid repetition, such as do in I like it and so do they.

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Allegory

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A narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning because its events, actions, characters, settings, and objects represent specific abstractions or ideas. Although the elements in an allegory may be interesting in themselves, the emphasis tends to be on what they ultimately mean. Characters may be given names such as Hope, Pride, Youth, and Charity;

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Alliteration

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Luscious lemons

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Assonance

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repetition of internal sounds in words that do not end the same

asleep under a tree," or "each evening.

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Euphony

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("good sound") refers to language that is smooth and musically pleasant to the ear.

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Cacophony

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Language that is discordant and difficult to pronounce, such as this line from John Updike's "Player Piano": "never my numb plunker fumbles." Cacophony ("bad sound") may be unintentional in the writer's sense of music, or it may be used consciously for deliberate dramatic effect.

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Eye rhyme

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words may look alike but not rhyme at all. This is called eye rhyme, as with bough and cough, or brow and blow.

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End stopped line

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whenn a line has a pause at the end; reflects notmal speech patterns and often maked by punctuation

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Enjambment

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also called a run-on line: one line ends without a pause and continues onto the next line for its meaning

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meter

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rythimic patten of stresses

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foot

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meterica unit by which a line of poetry is measured

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line

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measured by the number of feet it has

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iambic pentameter

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one foor is one unstessed syllables folled by one stressed syllable