Poetry Terms Flashcards
Allegory
a story, poem, or picture that can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning, typically a moral or political one.
Alexandrine
A line or verse with 6 iambic feet
Alliteration
the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words.
Allusion
an expression designed to call something to mind without mentioning it explicitly; an indirect or passing reference.
Analogy
a comparison between two things, typically on the basis of their structure and for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
Apostrophe
an exclamatory passage in a speech or poem addressed to a person (typically one who is dead or absent) or thing (typically one that is personified).
Assonance
in poetry, the repetition of the sound of a vowel or diphthong in nonrhyming stressed syllables near enough to each other for the echo to be discernible (e.g., penitence, reticence ).
Ballad
a poem or song narrating a story in short stanzas. Traditional ballads are typically of unknown authorship, having been passed on orally from one generation to the next as part of the folk culture.
Blank verse
verse without rhyme, esp. that which uses iambic pentameter.
Cacophony
a harsh, discordant mixture of sounds.
Conceit
a fanciful expression in writing or speech; an elaborate metaphor.
“the idea of the wind’s singing is a prime romantic conceit”
Concrete poetry
poetry in which the meaning or effect is conveyed partly or wholly by visual means, using patterns of words or letters and other typographical devices.
Consonance
the recurrence of similar sounds, esp. consonants, in close proximity (chiefly as used in prosody).
Couplet
Two lines of verse, usually in the same meter and joined by rhyme, that form a unit.
Dialect
a particular form of a language that is peculiar to a specific region or social group.
“this novel is written in the dialect of Trinidad”
Diction
the choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing.
“Wordsworth campaigned against exaggerated poetic diction”
Dramatic poetry
Written as it is to be spoken
Elision
the process of joining together or merging things, esp. abstract ideas.
“unease at the elision of so many vital questions”
Euphony
the quality of being pleasing to the ear, esp. through a harmonious combination of words.
Figurative language
expressing ideas indirectly; language used in a special way to create a special effect made up of words and phrases which don’t mean what they first appear to mean
Figure of speech
a word or phrase used in a nonliteral sense to add rhetorical force to a spoken or written passage.
“calling her a crab is just a figure of speech”
Folk ballad
folk song: a song that is traditionally sung by the common people of a region and forms part of their culture
Foot
a group of syllables constituting a metrical unit. In English poetry it consists of stressed and unstressed syllables, while in ancient classical poetry it consists of long and short syllables.
Free verse
poetry that does not rhyme or have a regular meter.
Hyperbole
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Iambic pentameter
a commonly used metrical line in traditional verse and verse drama. The term describes the particular rhythm that the words establish in that line.
Imagery
visually descriptive or figurative language, esp. in a literary work
Inversion
reversal of the normal order of words, typically for rhetorical effect but also found in the regular formation of questions in English.
Irony
the expression of one’s meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect.
Lyrical poetry
typically express personal or emotional feelings and are traditionally the home of the present tense. They have specific rhyming schemes and are often, but not always, set to music or a beat.
Metaphor
a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.
Meter
the rhythm of a piece of poetry, determined by the number and length of feet in a line or the basic pulse and rhythm of a piece of music.
Metonymy
the substitution of the name of an attribute or adjunct for that of the thing meant, for example suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing.
Narrative
a spoken or written account of connected events; a story.
Octave
a poem or stanza of eight lines; an octet.
Onomatopoeia
the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named (e.g., cuckoo, sizzle ).
Parallelism
the state of being parallel or of corresponding in some way.
Personification
the attribution of a personal nature or human characteristics to something nonhuman, or the representation of an abstract quality in human form.
Quatrain
a stanza of four lines, esp. one having alternate rhymes.
Refrain
a repeated line or number of lines in a poem or song, typically at the end of each verse.
Repetition
the action of repeating something that has already been said or written.
Rhyme(end, approximate, internal)
correspondence of sound between words or the endings of words, esp. when these are used at the ends of lines of poetry.
End: at the end of the line
Internal: within the line
Approximate: almost rhyming
Rhyme scheme
the ordered pattern of rhymes at the ends of the lines of a poem or verse.
Rhythm
a strong, regular, repeated pattern of movement or sound.
Sestet
The last six lines of a sonnet
Simile
a figure of speech involving the comparison of one thing with another thing of a different kind, used to make a description more emphatic or vivid (e.g., as brave as a lion, crazy like a fox ).
Sonnet
a poem of fourteen lines using any of a number of formal rhyme schemes, in English typically having ten syllables per line.
Stanza
a group of lines forming the basic recurring metrical unit in a poem; a verse.
Symbol
a thing that represents or stands for something else, esp. a material object representing something abstract.
Trochee
a foot consisting of one long or stressed syllable followed by one short or unstressed syllable.
