Poetry Terms

Front 1

alliteration

Back 1

repetition of the same consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words
ex: "descending dewdrops"

Front 2

allusion

Back 2

brief cultural reference to a person, a place, a thing, an event, or an idea in history or literature

Front 3

ambiguity

Back 3

allows for 2 or more simultaneous interpretations of a word that can be supported by the context of a work

Front 4

apostrophe

Back 4

an address to someone who is absent and therefore cannot hear the speaker

Front 5

approximate rhyme

Back 5

the sounds are almost but not exactly alike

Front 6

assonance

Back 6

repetition of the same vowel sound in nearby words
ex: "asleep under a tree"

Front 7

ballad

Back 7

tells a story that is sung

Front 8

blank verse

Back 8

unrhymed iambic pentameter

Front 9

ballad stanza

Back 9

alternating 8 and 6 syllable linesc

Front 10

cacophony

Back 10

lines that are discordant and difficult to pronounce

Front 11

caesura

Back 11

a pause within a line

Front 12

carpe diem

Back 12

"sieze the day"

Front 13

cliches

Back 13

ideas or expressions that have become overused

Front 14

connotation

Back 14

associations and implications that go beyond a word's literal meaning

Front 15

consonance

Back 15

identical consonant sound preceded by a different vowel sound
ex: "home, same" "worth, breath"

Front 16

controlling metaphor

Back 16

comparisons throughout the entire poem

Front 17

couplet

Back 17

consists of 2 lines that usually rhyme and have the same meter

Front 18

colloquial

Back 18

conversation that includes slang expressions not used by the culture at large

Front 19

denotation

Back 19

literal, dictionary meanings

Front 20

dialect

Back 20

form of informal diction

Front 21

didactic poetry

Back 21

designed to teach an ethical, moral, or religious lesson

Front 22

doggerel

Back 22

lines whose subject matter is trite and whose rhythm and sounds are monotonously heavy-handed

Front 23

dramatic monologue

Back 23

character (the speaker) addressed a silent audience in such a way as to reveal unintentionally some aspect of his or her personality

Front 24

sestina

Back 24

usually does not rhyme, fixed form

Front 25

elegy

Back 25

used to describe a lyric poem written to commemorate someone who is dead

Front 26

villanelle

Back 26

fixed form consisting of 19 lines of any lengths divided into 6 stanzas

Front 27

end rhyme

Back 27

most common form, comes at the end of lines

Front 28

internal rhyme

Back 28

places at least one of the rhymed words within the line
ex: "dividing and gliding and sliding"

Front 29

feminine rhyme

Back 29

consists of a rhymed stressed syllable followed by one or more rhymed unstressed syllables
ex: "butter, clutter"

Front 30

eye rhyme

Back 30

spellings are similar, but the pronunciations are not
ex: "bough, cough"

Front 31

exact rhymes

Back 31

share the same stressed vowel sounds as well as any sounds that follow the vowel

Front 32

masculine rhyme

Back 32

rhyming of single-syllable words
ex: "glade, shade"

Front 33

near rhyme/off rhyme/approximate rhyme

Back 33

sounds are almost but not exactly the same

Front 34

ode

Back 34

serious topic and formal tone

Front 35

end-stopped line

Back 35

when a line has a pause at its end

Front 36

enjambment

Back 36

running over from one line to another

Front 37

run-on line

Back 37

line that ends without a pause and continues into the next line for its meaning

Front 38

feminine ending

Back 38

line that ends with an extra unstressed syllable

Front 39

masculine ending

Back 39

line that ends with a stressed syllable

Front 40

scansion

Back 40

consists of measuring the stresses in a line to determine its metrical pattern

Front 41

literary ballad

Back 41

narrative form

Front 42

onomatopoeia

Back 42

use of a word that resembles the sound it denotes

Front 43

euphony

Back 43

lines that are musically pleasant to the ear and smooth

Front 44

fixed form

Back 44

poem that can be categorized by the patterns of its lines, meter, rhymes, and stanzas

Front 45

free verse

Back 45

poems that do not conform to establish patterns of meter, rhyme, and stanza

Front 46

terza rima

Back 46

consists of an interlocking 3-line rhyme scheme

Front 47

quatrain

Back 47

a 4-line stanza

Front 48

sonnet

Back 48

"little song", consists of 14 lines written in iambic pentameter

Front 49

english sonnet

Back 49

"shakespearean sonnet", organized into 3 quatrains and a couplet

Front 50

metonymy

Back 50

something closely associated with a subject is substituted for it

Front 51

jargon

Back 51

job or trade