Poetry Terms

Front 1

Accent

Back 1

` The emphasis given to a syllable. A heavy or primary stress is marked with a prime mark or acute accent ('), and a lightly accented syllable is marked with a short accent ().

Front 2

Alliteration

Back 2

The repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the beginning or words. "Gnus never know pneumonia" is an example of alliteration, because despite the spellings, all four words begin with the "n" sound.

Front 3

Assonance

Back 3

The repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds. "A land laid waste with all its young men slain" repeats the same "A" sound in "laid," "waste," and "slain."

Front 4

Ballad Meter

Back 4

A four-lined stanza rhymed abcb with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four.
O mother, mother make my bed.
O make it soft and narrow.
Since my love died for me today,
I'll die for him tomorrow.

Front 5

Blank verse

Back 5

Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Most of Shakespeare's plays are in blank verse.
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve. work.

Front 6

Dactyl

Back 6

A metrical foot of three syllables, an accented syllable followed by two unaccented syllables. Like marginal, portable.

Front 7

End-stopped

Back 7

A line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, comma, colon, semicolon, exclamation point, or question mark are end-stopped lines.

Front 8

Enjambement or Run-in Line

Back 8

A line having no end punctuation but running over to the next line.

Front 9

Eye Rhyme

Back 9

In a position in a poem where rhyme is expected, eye-rhyming words look as though they should rhyme exactly but do not, as in love and prove.

Front 10

Falling or Feminine Rhyme

Back 10

Rhyming using words of two or more syllables in which the accent falls on any syllable other than the last, such as dying and crying. The rhyme in which stressed syllables are followed by identical unstressed syllables.

Front 11

Foot

Back 11

A rhythmic unit into which a line of metrical verse is divided.

Front 12

Free verse

Back 12

Poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. The poetry of Walt Whitman is perhaps the best know example of free verse.

Front 13

Heroic Couplet

Back 13

Two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit.When those fair suns shall set, as set they must,
And all those tresses shall be laid in dust,
This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame,
And 'midst the stars inscribe Belinda's name.

Front 14

Hexameter

Back 14

A line containing six feet.

Front 15

Iamb

Back 15

A two-syllable foot with an unaccented syllable followed by an accented syllable. The iamb is the most common foot in English poetry. In love.

Front 16

Internal Rhyme

Back 16

Rhyme that occurs within a line, rather th "God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the friends, that plague thee thus! -Why look'st thou so?" - With my crossbow I shot the Albatross. Line three contains the internal rhyme of "so" and "bow"

Front 17

Masculine or Rising Rhyme

Back 17

Rhymes produced with one syllable words, like sky and fly, or with multi-syllabic words in which the accent falls on the last syllable, such as decline and confine.

Front 18

Onomatopoeia

Back 18

The use of words whose sound suggests their meaning. Examples are "buzz," "hiss," or "honk."

Front 19

Pentameter

Back 19

A line containing five feet The iambic pentameter is the most common line in English verse written before 1950.

Front 20

Rhyme royal

Back 20

A 7 line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc, used by Chaucer and other medieval poets.

Front 21

Slant Rhyme

Back 21

Words that almost rhyme, usually with different vowel sounds and similar consonant sounds, as in could and solitude.

Front 22

Sonnet

Back 22

Normally a 14 line iambic pentameter poem. The conventional Italian, or Petrachan, sonnet is rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde; the English, or Shakespearean, sonnet is rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

Front 23

Spondee

Back 23

Two successive, equally heavy accents, as in men's eyes

Front 24

Stanza

Back 24

usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme.

Front 25

Terza rima

Back 25

A three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cde. Dante's Divine Comedy is written in terza rima.

Front 26

Tetrameter

Back 26

A line of four feet.an at the end.