Poetry Terms

Front 1

Envoy

Back 1

A 3 line concluding stanza

Front 2

Sestina

Back 2

Consists of 39 lines of any length divided into 6 line stanzas and a 3 line concluding stanza

Front 3

Villanelle

Back 3

A fixed form consisting of 19 lines of any length divided into 6 stanzas

Front 4

English Sonnet

Back 4

Organized into 3 quatrains and a couplet which typically rhyme, example: a b a b c d c d e f e f g g

Front 5

Sonnet

Back 5

Consists of 14 lines usually written in iambic pentameter

Front 6

Limerick

Back 6

Is always light and humerous, it's usual form consists of 5 predominantly anapestic lines rhyming: a a b b a

Front 7

Haiku

Back 7

Consists of 17 syllables organized into 3 unrhymed lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllables

Front 8

Elegy

Back 8

Is used to describe a lyric poem written to commemorate someone who's dead

Front 9

Ode

Back 9

Characterized by a serious topic and formal tone

Front 10

Picture Poems

Back 10

The arranging of lines into particular shapes in a poem

Front 11

Parody

Back 11

A humerous imitation of another usually serious work

Front 12

Free Verse

Back 12

Repetition of words, phrases, or grammatical structures. The arrangements of words on a printed page, or some other means

Front 13

Prose Poem

Back 13

Is printed as prose and represents, perhaps, the most clear opposite of fixed forms

Front 14

Iambic Pentameter

Back 14

A metric foot of 2 syllables, one stressed, and one unstressed

Front 15

Stanza

Back 15

Consists of a grouping of lines set off by a space that usually has a set pattern of meter and rhyme

Front 16

Rhyme Scheme

Back 16

The pattern of end rhymes

Front 17

Couplet

Back 17

2 lines that usually rhyme and have the same meter

Front 18

Heroic Couplet

Back 18

Consists of rhymed iambic pentameter

Front 19

Terza Rima

Back 19

Consists of an interlocking 3 line rhyme scheme, ex: a b a b c b c d c d e d

Front 20

Quatrain

Back 20

A 4 line stanza, is the most common stanzaic form in the english language and can have various meters and rhyme schemes

Front 21

Ballad Stanza

Back 21

Consists of alternating 8 and 6 syllable lines

Front 22

Caesura

Back 22

A pause within a line

Front 23

End Stopped Line

Back 23

When a line has a pause as its end

Front 24

Run On Line

Back 24

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

Front 25

Enjambment

Back 25

Running over from one line to another

Front 26

Form

Back 26

Poem's overall structure or shape that follows an already established design

Front 27

Fixed Form

Back 27

A poem that can be categerized by the patterns of it's lines, meter, rhymes, and stanzas

Front 28

Open Form or Free Verse

Back 28

Poems that do no conform to the established patterns, meter, rhymes, or stanzas

Front 29

Stress or Accent

Back 29

Places more emphasis on syllable or another

Front 30

Rising Meter

Back 30

These meters have different rhythms and can create different effects, iambic and anapestic

Front 31

Falling Meters

Back 31

They move from unstressed to stressed sounds while trochaic and dactylic

Front 32

Blank Verse

Back 32

Unrhymed iambic pentameter

Front 33

Spondee

Back 33

A 2 syllable foot in which both syllables are stressed

Front 34

Masculine Ending

Back 34

A line that ends with a stressed syllable

Front 35

Femenine Ending

Back 35

A line that ends with an extra stressed syllable

Front 36

Cosmic Irony

Back 36

When a writer uses god, destiny, or fate to dash the hopes and expectations of a character, or human kind in general

Front 37

Rhythm

Back 37

Recurrence of stressed and unstressed sounds

Front 38

Meter

Back 38

When a rhythmic pattern of stresses occurs in a poem

Front 39

Prosody

Back 39

All the metrical elements in a poem

Front 40

Scansion

Back 40

Consists of measuring the stresses in a line to determine it's metrical pattern

Front 41

Foot

Back 41

Metrical unit by which a line of poetry is measured

Front 42

Epic

Back 42

Long narrative poem on a serious topic chronicling heroic deeds or events

Front 43

Dramatic Monologue

Back 43

A poem in which a character, the speaker, addresses a silent audience to reveal his or her temperment or personality

Front 44

Image

Back 44

Language that addresses the senses

Front 45

Allegory

Back 45

A narration or description usually restricted to a single meaning

Front 46

Didactic Poetry

Back 46

Is designed an ethical, moral, or religous lesson

Front 47

Satire

Back 47

Literary art of ridiculing a folly or vice in an effort to expose it or correct it

Front 48

Formula Diction

Back 48

Consists of a dignified, impersonal and elevated use of language

Front 49

Poetic Diction

Back 49

The use of elevated language, instead of ordinary language

Front 50

Middle Diction

Back 50

Less formal level of diction

Front 51

Informal Diction

Back 51

Everyday language, includes slang

Front 52

Denotations

Back 52

Literal dictionary meanings of a word

Front 53

Connotations

Back 53

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

Front 54

Dialect

Back 54

Informal diction spoken by definable groups of people from a particular geographic region, economic group, or social class

Front 55

Jargon

Back 55

A category of language defined by a trade or profession

Front 56

Persona

Back 56

A speaker created by the poet

Front 57

Ambiguity

Back 57

Allows for 2 or more simultaneous interpretations of a word, phrase, action, or situation, all of which can be supported by the context of a work

Front 58

Carpe Diem

Back 58

Sieze the day, poetic theme, do not delay love, time is short

Front 59

Allusion

Back 59

A brief reference to a person, place, thing, event or idea

Front 60

Figures of speech

Back 60

Saying one thing in terms of something else

Front 61

Simile

Back 61

Makes an explicit comparison between 2 things by using words such as "like", "as", "appears", or "seems"

Front 62

Metaphor

Back 62

Makes a comparison between 2 unlike things, but it does it implicitly without words such as "like", or "as"

Front 63

Implied Metaphor

Back 63

Hints or alludes to one of the things compared

Front 64

Extended Metaphor

Back 64

The entire poem is arranged around a comparison

Front 65

Controlling Metaphor

Back 65

Extended comparisons that can serve as a poem's organizing principles

Front 66

Pun

Back 66

Is a play on words that relies on word having more than 1 meaning or sounding like another word

Front 67

Synecdoche

Back 67

A figure of speech in which a part of something is used to signify the whole

Front 68

Metonymy

Back 68

Something closely associated with a subject substituted for it

Front 69

Personification

Back 69

Attribution of human characters to non-human things

Front 70

Apostrophe

Back 70

Addresses to someone absent or non-human

Front 71

Understatement

Back 71

Says less than is intended

Front 72

Overstatement, or hyperbole

Back 72

Figure of speech, exaggeration for emphasis, though not true

Front 73

Paradox

Back 73

A statement that initially appears to be self-contradictory, but on a closer look, turns out to make sense

Front 74

Oxymoron

Back 74

Condensed paradox in which 2 contradictory words are used together

Front 75

Ballad

Back 75

Oral tradition poems

Front 76

Literary Ballad

Back 76

Sophisticated 19th century reflection on the original ballad traditions that developed in the 15th century and earlier

Front 77

Onomatopoeia

Back 77

The use of words that resembles the sound it denotes

Front 78

Alliteration

Back 78

Repetitions of the same consonant sounds at the beginnings of nearby words, example: descending dew drops

Front 79

Assonance

Back 79

Repetition of the same vowell sound in nearby words. Example: Asleep under a tree

Front 80

Euphony

Back 80

Lines that are musically pleasant to the ear and smooth, example: a bird came down the walk

Front 81

Cacophony

Back 81

Lines that are discordant and difficult to pronounce, example: never my numb plunker fumbles

Front 82

Rhyme

Back 82

A way of creating sound patterns

Front 83

Eye Rhyme

Back 83

The spelling are similar but the pronounciations are not as with bough and cough

Front 84

End Rhyme

Back 84

Comes at the end of lines

Front 85

Internal Rhyme

Back 85

Places at least one of the rhymed words within the line as in: dividing and gliding and sliding

Front 86

Masculine Rhyme

Back 86

Rhyming of single syllables, words, or rhyming

Front 87

Feminine Rhyme

Back 87

Rhyming stressed syllables, followed by one or more rhymed unstressed syllables

Front 88

Exact Rhyme

Back 88

Rhymes sharing stressed and unstressed syllables

Front 89

Near Rhyme

Back 89

Sounds are almost but not exactly alike

Front 90

Consonants

Back 90

An identical consonants sound preceded by a different vowell sound

Front 91

Doggerel

Back 91

A term used for lines whose subject matter is trite and whose rhythm and sounds are monotonously heavy handed

Front 92

Paraphrase

Back 92

A prose restatement of the central ideas of a poem in your own words, own language

Front 93

Verse

Back 93

Lines composed in a measured rhythmical pattern which are often but not necessarily rhymed

Front 94

Anagrams

Back 94

Words made from letters of other words such as "read" and "dare" to evoke feelings about death

Front 95

Lyric

Back 95

A brief poem that expresses the personal emotions and thoughts of a single speaker

Front 96

Narrative Poetry

Back 96

A poem that tells a story