Poetry Terms Flashcards
Prosody
A way of organzing or arranging poetry into acceptable form and meter.
Meter
Most fundamental way of breaking down poetry. Gives poetry its rhythm.
4 Metrical Systems
Syllabic-counts only syllables
Accentual-counts only accents
Accentual Syllabic-Counts both accents and syllables
Quantitative-measures long and short sounds within a line.
Syncope
Removal of a supernumery syllable
Ex: ev’ry
int’rest
nat’ral
Why was poetry the orginal form of written language?
Oral tradition. The meter helped people to memorize lines.
Scansion
Elementary tool for criticism of poetry. A visual representation of meter
Ground foot
Established foot pattern
rhyme scheme
pattern of end rhymes. Most common is abab, or abba
Caesura
Metrical pause within lines of poetry
medial caesura-occurs midline
initial caesura-at the beginning of a line
terminal caesura-at the end of a line of poetry
synaresis
Poet joins two vowel sounds to create a single syllable
EX: y-glide in disobedyence
Free Verse
Abandons conventions like meter, and punctuation, but often uses other patters like anaphora and lists
Anaphora
repetitive use of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive lines of poetry
Enjambment
One line runs into another with no punctuation to deliniate. No caesura, or natural pause indicated.
Blank Verse
Unrhymed iambic pentameter.
Highly Structured
Stichic poetry
No line grouping, into quatrains or stanza.
High degree of line integrity.
Strophic poetry
Lines are organized into stanzas.
End-Rhyme
essential element of coherence in strophic poetry
Sonnet
14 line poem, in iambic pentameter
Types of sonnet
Petrarchan/italian or English/Shakespearean
Petrarchan sonnet
Octave–Sestet
Octave establishes then develops the problem, sestet solves the problem.
Volta (turn) usually at the start of line 9
Volta (turn)
represents a logical or emotional shift.
some kind of action happens here.
Shakespearian (English Sonnet)
3 quatrains and a couplet
turn happens around line 13 (but can happen earlier)
Only 2 lines to resolve the problem, therefore, often uses wit or humor to do so.
Spenserian sonnet
English with internal couplets
couplets fuse the quatrains and provide a tightness of reasoning.
Typical sonnet theme
Unrequited love of an unattainable woman. Adoration or admiration of a woman that he might never know, or might never know he exists.
Ode
Lyrical Stanzaic Poem
Very elaborately structured with vivid concrete images
exaggerated description of something
Ode to a Grecian Urn
