Poetry Literary Terms

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Form

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Lyric:

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

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Free Verse:

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verse without a set rhyme scheme or meter

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Blank Verse:

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verse written in unrhymed iambic pentameter

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Villanelle:

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a fixed nineteen-line form, using only two rhymes and repeating two of the lines according to a set pattern. Line 1 is repeated as lines 6,12, and 18 Line 3 is repeated as lines 9, 15, and 19. Line 1 and 3 return as a rhymed couplet at the end. The rhyme scheme is aba aba aba aba aba abaa

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Elegy:

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

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Ballad:

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a narrative poem with a song-like rhythm/meter

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Sonnet:

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fourteen line lyric poem; almost always written in iambic pentameter

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Shakespearean/English:

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sonnet consisting of three quatrains followed by a couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg.

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Italian/Petrarchan:

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a sonnet divided into an octave rhyming abbaabba and a sestet rhyming cdecde.

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Spenserian:

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a type of English sonnet in that it has three quatrains and a couplet; however, the rhyme scheme links the stanzas as follows: abab bcbc cdcd ee

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Format

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quatrain:

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four-line stanza

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couplets:

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two line stanza usually with end-rhyme the same

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sestet:

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six-line stanza

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tercet:

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three-line stanza with end-rhyme the same

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octet:

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eight-line stanza

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Syntax

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end-stopped:

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the grammatical structure and the sense reach completion at the end of the verse

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enjambment/run-on:

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the continuation of a line onto the next verse/line

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anaphora:

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a device of repetition in which the same word or words is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines, clauses, or sentences

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caesura:

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a pause or break in a line of verse

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anastrophe:

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inversion of the usual, normal, or logical order of the parts of a sentence

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Rhyme

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end rhyme:

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rhyme at the ends of lines in a poem.

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internal rhyme:

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rhyme that occurs at some place before the last syllables in a line i.e. in Eliot’s “Gerontion” “Here I am, an old man in a dry month”

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eye/sight rhyme:

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rhyme that appears correct from the spelling but is not so from the pronunciation, as “watch” and “match” or “love” and “move”

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slant/near rhyme:

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usually the substitution of assonance or consonance for true rhyme. i.e “enough” and “love” or “grope” and “cup”

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Meter

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foot/feet:

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the smallest unit of rhythm in verse

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iambic:

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a foot with two syllables, one that is not stressed and one that is, in that orderex. /today/

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trochee:

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a foot with two syllables, this time with one that is stressed and one that is notex. /daily/

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anapest:

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a foot with three syllables, two unstressed syllables followed by one stressed syllable ex. /intervene/

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dactyle:

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a foot with three syllables, one stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables ex. /multiple/

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spondee:

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a foot with two syllables, both of which are stressed/true blue/

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tetrameter:

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four feet per line

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pentameter:

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five feet per line

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hexameter:

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six feet per line