Poetry Terms 1

Question 1

Accentual Meter

Answer 1

Four stresses in a line, without attention to the unstressed syllables:

BAA, baa, BLACK sheep, HAVE you any WOOL?
YES sir, YES sir, THREE bags FULL.

Question 2

Anapest

Answer 2

A beat with three syllables (two unstressed, one stressed):

‘Twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas,
when ALL through the HOUSE
Not a CREAture was STIRring,
not Even a Mouse.

Question 3

Apostrophe

Answer 3

A poem that speaks to someone or something that can’t hear or can’t answer (a dead person or someone not within hearing distance, or something inanimate like a tree or Love).

Question 4

Aubade

Answer 4

A song or poem about morning or the breaking of the dawn.

Question 5

Ballad

Answer 5

A short song/poem, often sentimental or romantic, and sometimes set to music, that celebrates a hero or event.

Question 6

Ballad Stanza

Answer 6

• Four lines
• ABCB rhyme scheme
• Lines 1 and 3 = 8 syllables
• Lines 2 and 4 = 6 syllables

All in a hot and copper sky!
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Question 7

Blank Verse

Answer 7

Poetry that does NOT rhyme, but has a specific meter (“beat”):

Made WEAK by TIME and FATE, but STRONG in WILL
To STRIVE, to SEEK, to FIND, and NOT to YIELD.

Question 8

Caesura/cesura

Answer 8

A pause in a poem, sometimes in the middle of a line, where there is punctuation (indicated by this symbol: II):

I’m nobody! (II) Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us— (II) don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

Question 9

Chick-fil-A

Answer 9

The greatest fast food restaurant in the history of the world, which should have thousands of poems written about it if there was any JUSTICE in this world

Question 10

Closed Form

Answer 10

Poetry that sticks to usual patterns and rhythms (the opposite of “open form”).

Question 11

Consonance

Answer 11

The repetition of consonant sounds. Alliteration is one type of consonance, but here’s another (note the “N” and “L” sounds):

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee.

Question 12

Assonance

Answer 12

The repetition of vowel sounds. For example, “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” and “The early bird gets the worm.”

Question 13

Couplet

Answer 13

Two rhyming lines:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Question 14

Dactyl

Answer 14

One stressed syllable, then two unstressed syllables:

Over the RIVer and THROUGH the woods…

HALF a league, HALF a league, HALF a league ONward,

Question 15

Dimeter

Answer 15

Two “beats” per line:

TAKE her up TENderly,
LIFT her with CARE,
FASHioned so SLENderly,
YOUNG and so FAIR.

Question 16

Doggerel

Answer 16

Poetry badly written, awkward, or with weird rhymes (often done on purpose to be funny).

Question 17

Dramatic Monologue

Answer 17

A poem in the form of a speech by a single person.

Question 18

Elegy

Answer 18

A sad poem of mourning, often lamenting someone’s death.

Question 19

Enjambment

Answer 19

A technique in poetry where a sentence carries over to the next line without pause:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
That alters when it alteration finds
Or bends with the remover to remove…

Question 20

Epic

Answer 20

A long poem that relates stories of a heroic figure (like “The Odyssey” or “The Iliad”).