Poetry Terms Flashcards
Modern 5 line poetry form developed by American poet Adelaide Crapsey with increasing syllabies in the first four lines before returning for 2 syllables in the last (2, 4, 6, 8, 2)
cinquain
poetry written in paired, often rhyming lines with the same meter
couplet
The Maigue poets are thought to have developed the form, and Edward Lear is probably the best known practitioner. Irish five line form often on a humorous subject. Rhyme scheme is AABBA
limerick
Originally developed by Boccaccio, 8 line form. Byron and Yeats are the best known English language proponents. Rhyme scheme is ABABABCC
Ottava Rima
Introduced to English poetry by Chaucer, this is a 7 line form. He also used it in four of the Cantebury Tales. It can either by tera rima followed by two couplets (ABA BB CC) or a quatrain followed by a tercet (ABAB BCC)
rhyme royal
Basho is considered the master, and the form was repopularized in the 19th century by Shiki. Traditionally contain both a kigo (word denoting a season) and a kireji (word that provides a grammatical break between lines). It is a traditional Japanese poetric form consisting of 17 ons (roughly translated as syllables) and 3 lines (5,7,5 ons, respectivelyl)
haiku
Best known example is John McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields”. 15 line French Form
rondeau
39 line poetry form consisting of six-line stanzas followed by a tercet (3 line stanza). The same 6 words end each line of the 6-line stanzas
sestina
Invented by Spenser for his “The Faerie Queen, it is a 9 line form. Consists of 8 lines of iambic pentameter followed by one Alexandrine (12 line syllable) line of iambic hexameter.
Spenserian stanza
Dante invented the form for his Divine Comedy. Form that uses three lines interlocking stanzas of the form “ABA BCB CDC DED” etc. There is no limit to the number of stanzas
terza rima
Invented by French poet Jean Passerat, it is a 19 line French form. Dyan Thomas used the form for his “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night.” It consist of 5 tercets and a concluding quatrain
villanelle
a foot with a stressed syllable, one unstressed syllable, and another stressed syllable as in “give and take”
amphimacer
a literary movement among novelists at the end of the nineteenth century and the early decades on the twentieth century. they tended to view people as hapless victims of immutable natural law
naturalism
a long, formal lyric poem with a serious theme that may have a traditional stanza structure
ode
use of words that imitate sounds
onomatopoeia
a figure of speech that combines two opposing or contradictory ideas
oxymoron
a brief story, usually with human characters, that teaches a moral lesson
parable
a statement that seems to be contradictory, but that actually presents the truth
paradox
a humorous interpretation of a literary work it exaggerates or distorts the characteristic features of the original
parody
a figure of speech in which a nonhuman subject is given human characteristics
personification
the presentation in it are of the detail of actual life. It was also a literary movement that began during the 19th century and that stressed the actual as opposed to the imagined or the fanciful
realism
a repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song
refrain
the tendency among certain authors to write about specific geographical areas
regionalism
literary and artistic movement of the 19th century, on that arose in reaction against 18th century neoclassicism and that placed a premium on fancy, imagination, individuality, and exotica
romanticism
writing that ridicules or ciriticizes other individuals, ideas, institutions, social conventions, or other works of literature
satire
a figure of speech that makes a direct comparison between two subjects using like or as
simile
in a play or prose work is a long speech made by a character who is alone and who reveals his or her private thoughts and feelings to the audience
soliloquy
a 14 line lyric poem focused on a single theme
sonnet
a group of lines in a poem, considered as a unit
stanza
a narrative technique that presents thoughts as if they were coming directly from a character’s mind
stream of consciousness
a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to stand for the whole thing
synecdoche
an American literary and philosophical movement of the 19th century. The followers, who were based in New England, believed that intuition and the individual conscience “transcend” the experience and thus are better guides to truth than are the senses and logical reason
transcendentalism
the ordinary language of people in a particular region
vernacular
a 19 line poem with only two rhymes that follows a strict pattern popular in traditional French poetry
villanelle
