Poetry

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simile

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two dissimilar things that are compared using words such as “like,” “than,” “as,” or “resembles.”

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metaphor:

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makes a comparison between two unlike things

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direct metaphor

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direct metaphor: the literal term and the figurative term are both named
 “Life, the hound, comes at a bound either to rend me or to befriend me”

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implied metaphor

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the literal term is named and the figurative term is implied
 “My love blossoms over time”

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extended metaphor

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a metaphor – direct or implied – that is developed over more than one line of poetry

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personification

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giving human or animate qualities to an animal, an object or a concept

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apostrophe

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addressing someone absent or dead or something nonhuman as if it were alive and present and could reply
 “Death, be not proud.”

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literary allusion

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a reference to a person, place or thing from previous literature

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hyperbole

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using exaggeration for emphasis; overstatement
 “the eagle flies close to the sun in lonely lands”

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irony

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meaning the opposite of what is said (verbal irony)

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antithesis

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a strong contrast of words, clauses, sentences or ideas that shows opposing ideas through opposing grammatical structures
 “Man proposes, God disposes”
 “Fair is foul and foul is fair”

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synecdoche

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using a part of something to represent the whole thing
 “The cuckoo’s song is unpleasing to the married ear”

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metonymy

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the substitution of one word for another closely associated word
 “The crown sat, looking upon her subjects”

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paradox

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a statement that although seemingly contradictory or absurd may actually be well-founded or true (similar to an oxymoron)
 “Much madness is divinest sense”

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symbol

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something (object, person, situation or action) that means more than what it is

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alliteration

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the repetition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of certain words
 “Mark my melodious midnight moans”

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consonance]

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the repetition at close intervals of middle or end consonant sounds of certain words
 “Even heaven has given the wind one tone”

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assonance

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the similarity and repetition of vowel sounds of certain words at close intervals
 “She lives free and easy”

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onomatopoeia

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the use of words that mimic their meaning in their sound
 boom, buzz, pop, click

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repetition

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repeating a word or a phrase within a poem in order to…

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refrain

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the repetition of a word or phrase or line(s) at definite intervals in a poem

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STANZA

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a group of consecutive lines in a poem that form a single unit, often referred to as a “paragraph of poetry”

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SEVEN BASIC STANZA FORMS

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1. couplet: 2 line stanza
2. triplet: 3 line stanza
3. quatrain: 4 line stanza
4. quintet: 5 line stanza
5. sestet: 6 line stanza
6. septet: 7 line stanza
7. octave: 8 line stanza

(OTHER STANZAS ARE REFERRED TO BY THEIR LINE LENGTHS: ex. “nine line stanza”)

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RHYME

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the similarity or likeness of sound in two or more words

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5 DIFFERENT TYPES OF RHYME:

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1. perfect rhyme: the repetition of accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds in important words
 ex. old-cold, vane-reign, order-recorder, court-report

2. imperfect rhyme: words that have any kind of sound similarity, usually the substitution of assonance or consonance for true rhyme; sometimes called slant rhyme or approximate rhyme
 ex. crooned-groaned, sun-gone, word-lord

3. eye rhyme: rhyme that appears correct from spelling but does not rhyme because of pronunciation
 ex. watch-match, love-move, daughter-laughter

4. end rhyme: rhyme that occurs between words found at the end s of two or more lines in a poem
 ex. “From my boyhood I remember
A crystal moment of September”

5. internal rhyme: rhyme between words that occurs within a single line of poetry
 “O fleet, sweet sorrow”

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RHYME SCHEME

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the pattern of end rhyme throughout a poem

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RHYTHM

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the pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in words in a line of poetry

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meter

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a regularized pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry; the intentional arrangement of language in which the accented syllables occur at equal intervals of time

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scansion

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the process of marking lines of poetry to determine the meter; that is, marking the accented and unaccented syllables, dividing the lines into feet, identifying the most common type of foot, and noting significant variations from that pattern

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foot

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the basic unit of meter used in the scansion or measurement of verse, either consisting of 2 or 3 syllables

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SIX DIFFERENT TYPES OF FEET

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1. iambic foot: u / (the most common foot in the English language)
2. trochaic foot: / u
3. spondaic foot: / /
4. pyrrhic foot: u u
5. anapestic foot: u u /
6. dactylic foot: / u u

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EIGHT TYPES OF METRICAL LINES

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1. monometer: one foot per line
2. dimeter: two feet per line
3. trimeter: three feet per line
4. tetrameter: four feet per line
5. pentameter: five feet per line
6. hexameter: six feet per line
7. heptameter: seven feet per line
8. octameter: eight feet per line