Poetry Terms

Front 1

repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds in neighboring words

Back 1

assonance

Front 2

harsh, clashing, or dissonant sounds, often produced by combinations of words that require a clipped, explosive delivery or words that contain a number of plosive consonants

Back 2

cacophony

Front 3

rising and falling rhythm of speech, especially that of the balanced phrases in free verse or in a prose, also in pitch at the end of a phrase or sentence

Back 3

cadence

Front 4

pause in a line of verse, often coinciding with a break between clauses or sentences

Back 4

caesura

Front 5

unusually far fetched or elaborate metaphor presenting a surprisingly apt parallel between two apparently dissimilar things or feelings

Back 5

conceit

Front 6

repetition of identical or similar consonants in neighboring words whose vowel sounds are different (coming home)

Back 6

consonance

Front 7

harshness of sound and/or rhyme, either inadvertent or deliberate

Back 7

dissonance

Front 8

a line brought to a pause at which the end of a verse line coincides with the completion of a sentence, clause or other independent unit of syntax

Back 8

end-stopped line

Front 9

running over of the sense and grammatical structure from one verse line or couplet to the next without a punctuated pause

Back 9

enjambment

Front 10

a pleasing smoothness of sound, perceived by the ease with which the words can be spoken in combination

Back 10

euphony

Front 11

basic unit of rhythmic measurement in a line of poetry

Back 11

foot

Front 12

a metrical foot consisting of two syllables, an unaccented syllable followed by an accented as in the word invade

Back 12

iamb

Front 13

pattern of measured sound-units recurring more or less regularly in lines of verse

Back 13

meter

Front 14

group of eight verse lines forming the first part of a sonnet; or a stanza of eight lines

Back 14

octave

Front 15

the assumed identity or fictional "I" assumed by a writer in a literary work

Back 15

persona

Front 16

study of sound and rhythm in poetry

Back 16

prosody

Front 17

a line, group of lines, or part of a line repeated at regular or irregular intervals in a poem

Back 17

refrain

Front 18

measured by counting only the accented syllables and by varying the number of unaccented syllables

Back 18

sprung rhythm

Front 19

analyzing the meter in lines of poetry by counting and marking the accented and unaccented syllables, and dividing the lines into metrical feet

Back 19

scansion

Front 20

section or division of a poem, resembling paragraphs in prose

Back 20

stanza