Poetry Terminology

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Poetry

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Characterized by controlled patterns of rhythm and syntax(often using meter and rhyme)

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Speaker

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The person, not necessarily the author, who is the voice of a poem

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Denotation

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A words direct and literal meaning

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Connotation

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What is suggested by a word, apart from what it literally means it how it is defined in the dictionary

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Alliteration

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The repetition of usually initial consonant sounds through a sequence of words

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Assonance

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The repetition of vowel sounds in a sequence of words with different endings

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Onomatopoeia

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A word capturing or approximating the sound of what it describes

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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

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Cacophony

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Greek for "bad sound," this term refers to the use of words that combine sharp harsh, hissing or unmelodious sounds

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Euphony

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Greek for "good sound"; this term refers to a group words that work together harmoniously so that the consonants permit an easy and pleasing flow of sound when spoken, as opposed to cacophony

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Imagery

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Broadly defined, is any sensory detail or evocation in a work; more narrowly, this is the use of figurative language to evoke a feeling, to call to mind an idea, or to describe an object

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Stanza

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A section of a poem, frequently marked by extra line spacing before and after, that often has a single pattern of meter and/or rhyme

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Couplet

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A two line stanza

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Tercet

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A three line stanza

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Allusion

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A brief, often implicit and indirect reference within a literary text to something outside the text, whether another text or any imaginary or historical person, place, or thing

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Simile

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A figure of speech involving a direct, explicit comparison of one thing to another, usually using the words: like, as, so, or than to draw the connection

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Metaphor

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A particular figure of speech in which two unlike things are compared implicitly- that is, without the use of a signal

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Personification

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A figure of speech that involves treating something nonhuman, such as an abstraction, as if it were a person by endowing it with humanlike qualities

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Hyperbole

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A body exaggerated statement that adds emphasis without intending to be literally true(alot of hype)

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Understatement

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Language that makes its point by self-consciously downplaying the real emphasis

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Paradox

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A statement that initially appears to be contrary but then, upon closer inspection, turns out to make sense

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Rhyme

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Repetition or correspondence of the terminal sounds of words

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Rhyme Scheme

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The pattern of end rhymes in a poem, often noted by small letter, such as a abab or abba

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End Rhyme

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Occurs when the last words in two or more lines of a poem rhyme with each other

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Exact Rhyme

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The rhymes share the same stressed vowel sounds as well as the same sounds that follow the vowel

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Slant Rhyme

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Rhyme that is slightly "off" or only approximate, usually because the final consonant sounds correspond but not the vowels that precede them

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Eye Rhyme

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Words that don't actually rhyme but look like they do because the final consonant sounds correspond but not the vowels that precede them

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Meter

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The more or less regular pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line of poetry

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Foot

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The basic unit of poetic meter, consisting of any of various fixed patterns of one to three stressed and unstressed syllables. May contain more than one word or just one syllable of a multisyllabic word

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Iambic Pentameter

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A metrical pattern in poetry which consists of five iambic feet per line. An iambic foot consists of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable.

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Scansion

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The process of analysis (and sometimes also marking) verse to determine it's meter, line by line

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Caesura

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A short pause within a line of poetry, often but not always sign sled by punctuation

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Quatrian

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A four line stanza

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Sonnet

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A fixed verse form consisting of fourteen lines, usually in iambic pentameter.(usually about love)

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English Sonnet

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Consists of three quatrains and a couplet I'm iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme of ABAB CDCD EFEF GG-4 4 4 2- 2 is the idea