Lit Terms

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allegory

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A narrative or description having a second meaning beneath the surface one

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Anapest

Back 2

A metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable (for example, un-der-stand)

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Anaphora

Back 3

Repetition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines

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Apostrophe

Back 4

A figure of speech in which someone absent or dead or something nonhuman is addressed as if it were alive and present and could reply

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Aubade

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A poem about dawn; a morning love song; or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn

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Caesura

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A speech pause occurring within a line

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Connotation

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What a word suggests beyond its basic definition; a word's overtones of meaning

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Continuous form

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That form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning

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Dactyl

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A metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables
ex: sym met try

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Denotation

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The basic definition or dictionary meaning of a word.

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Dramatic framework

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The situation, whether actual or fictional, realistic or fanciful, in which an author places his or her characters in order to express the theme

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Duple meter

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A meter in which a majority of the feet contain two syllables. Iambic and trochaic are both duple meters

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English/Shakespearean Sonnet

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A sonnet rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. Its content or structure ideally parallels the rhyme scheme, falling into three coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet; but it is often structured, like the Italian sonnet, into octave and sestet, the principal break in thought coming at the end of the eighth line

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Extended/sustained figure

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A figure of speech (usually metaphor, simile, personification, or apostrophe) sustained or developed through a considerable number of lines or through a whole poem

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extra-metrical syllables

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In metrical verse, extra unaccented syllables added at the beginnings or endings of lines

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feminine rhyme

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A rhyme in which the repeated accented vowel is in either the second or third last syllable of the words involved

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fixed form

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Any form of poem in which the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage or tradition, such as sonnet, limerick, villanelle, and so on

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folk ballad

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A narrative poem designed to be sung, composed by an anonymous author, and transmitted orally for years or generations before being written down

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Blank verse

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Unrhymed iambic pentameter

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free verse

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Nonmetrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, and in which pauses, line breaks, and formal patterns develop organically from the requirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms

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heard rhythm

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The actual rhythm of a metrical poem as we hear it when it is read naturally. The heard rhythm mostly conforms to but sometimes departs from or modifies the expected rhythm

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iamb

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A metrical foot consisting of one unaccented syllable followed by one accented syllable (for example, re-hearse)

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internal rhyme

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A rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme words oc-cur(s) within the line

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irony

Back 24

A situation, or a use of language, involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy

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verbal irony

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A figure of speech in which what is meant is the opposite of what is said

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dramatic irony

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A device by which the author implies a different meaning from that intended by the speaker (or by a speaker) in a literary work

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irony of a situation

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A situation in which there is an incongruity between actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate or between what is anticipated and what actually comes to pass

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italian sonnet

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A sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abbaabba and of a sestet using any arrangement of two or three additional rhymes, such as cdcdcd or cdecde

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limerick

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A fixed form consisting of five lines of anapestic meter, the first two trimeter, the next two dimeter, the last line trimeter, rhyming aabba; used exclusively for humorous or nonsense verse

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masculine rhyme

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A rhyme in which the repeated accented vowel sound is in the final syllable of the words involved (for example, dance-pants, scald-recalled

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Metaphor

Back 31

A figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things essentially unlike. It may take one of four forms: (1) that in which the literal term and the figurative term are both named; (2) that in which the literal term is named and the figurative term implied; (3) that in which the literal term is implied and the figurative term named; (4) that in which both the literal and the figurative terms are implied

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Meter

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The regular patterns of accent that underlie metrical verse; the measurable repetition of accented and unaccented syllables in poetry

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metonymy

Back 33

A figure of speech in which some significant aspect or detail of an experience is used to represent the whole experience. In this book the single term metonymy is used for what are sometimes distinguished as two separate figures: synecdoche (the use of the part for the whole) and metonymy (the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant).

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metrical variations

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Departures from the basic metrical pattern

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oxymoron

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A compact paradox in which two successive words seemingly contradict each other

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paradox

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A statement or situation containing apparently contradictory or incompatible elements

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paradoxical situation

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A situation containing apparently but not actually incompatible elements. The celebration of a fifth birthday anniversary by a twenty-year-old man is paradoxical but explainable if the man was born on February 29. The Christian doctrines that Christ was born of a virgin and is both God and man are, for a Christian believer, paradoxes

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paradoxical statement

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A figure of speech in which an apparently self-contradictory statement is nevertheless found to be true

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pentameter

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A metrical line containing five feet

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phonetic intensive

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A word whose sound, by an obscure process, to some degree suggests its meaning. As differentiated from ono-matopoetic words, the meanings of phonetic intensives do not refer explicitly to sounds

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prose meaning

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That part of a poem's total meaning that can be separated out and expressed through paraphrase,

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prose poem

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Usually a short composition having the intentions of poetry but written in prose rather than verse

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quatrain

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1) A four-line stanza. (2) A four-line division of a sonnet marked off by its rhyme scheme

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rhetorical stress

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In natural speech, as in prose and poetic writing, the stressing of words or syllables so as to emphasize meaning and sentence structure

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run-on line

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A line which has no natural speech pause at its end, allowing the sense to flow uninterruptedly into the succeeding line

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sarcasm

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Bitter or cutting speech; speech intended by its speaker to
give pain to the person addressed

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satire

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A kind of literature that ridicules human folly or vice with the ostensible purpose of bringing about reform or of keeping others from falling into similar folly or vice

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scansion

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The process of measuring metrical verse, that is, of marking accented and unaccented syllables, dividing the lines into feet, identifying the metrical pattern, and noting significant variations from that pattern

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sentimental poetry

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Poetry that attempts to manipulate the reader's emotions in order to achieve a greater emotional response than the poem itself really warrants. (A sentimental novel or film is sometimes called, pejoratively, a "tear-jerker.")

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sestet

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(1) A six-line stanza. (2) The last six lines of a sonnet structured on the Italian model

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sonnet

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A fixed form of fourteen lines, normally iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme conforming to or approximating one of two main types—the Italian or the English

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spondee

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A metrical foot consisting of two syllables equally or almost equally accented (for example, true-blue

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stanzaic form

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The form taken by a poem when it is written in a series of units having the same number of lines and usually other characteristics in common, such as metrical pattern or rhyme scheme

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structure

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The internal organization of a poem's content

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substitution

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In metrical verse, the replacement of the expected metrical foot by a different one (for example, a trochee occurring in an iambic line),

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syllabic verse

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Verse measured by the number of syllables rather than the number of feet per line

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symbol

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A figure of speech in which something (object, person, situation, or action) means more than what it is. A symbol, in other words, may be read both literally and metaphorically

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synecdoche

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A figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole. In this book it is subsumed under the term Metonymy

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synesthesia

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Presentation of one sense experience in terms usually associated with another sensation

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tercet

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A three-line stanza exhibited in terza rima and villanelle as well as in other poetic forms

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terza rima

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An interlocking rhyme scheme with the pattern aba bob cdc

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tetrameter

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A metrical line containing four feet

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theme

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The central idea of a literary work

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tone

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The writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the audience, or herself or himself; the emotional coloring, or emotional meaning, of a work

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total meaning

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The total experience communicated by a poem. It includes all those dimensions of experience by which a poem communicates—sensuous, emotional, imaginative, and intellectual—
and it can be communicated in no other words than those of the poem itself

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triple meter

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A meter in which a majority of the feet contain three syllables

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trochaic meter

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A meter in which the majority of feet are trochees

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trochee

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A metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by one unaccented syllable

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truncation

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In metric verse, the omission of an unaccented syllable at either end of a line

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understatement

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A figure of speech that consists of saying less than one means, or of saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants

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verse metrical language

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the opposite of prose

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villanelle

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A nineteen-line fixed form consisting of five tercets rhymed aba and a concluding quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercet serving as refrains in an alternating pattern through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19