Poetry Terms Flashcards
stanza
A grouping of lines separated from others in a poem. In modern free verse, the stanza, like a prose paragraph, can be used to mark a shift in mood, time, or thought.
enjambment
The running-over of a sentence or phrase from one poetic line to the next, without terminal punctuation.
The opposite of end-stopped.
end stopped line
A metrical line ending at a grammatical boundary or break—such as a dash or closing parenthesis—or with punctuation such as a colon, a semicolon, or a period. A line is considered end-stopped, too, if it contains a complete phrase.
The opposite of enjambment.
rhyme scheme
The pattern of rhyme, usually indicated by assigning a letter of the alphabet to each rhyme at the end of a line of poetry.
free verse
Nonmetrical, nonrhyming lines that closely follow the natural rhythms of speech. A regular pattern of sound or rhythm may emerge in free-verse lines, but the poet does not adhere to a metrical plan in their composition.
blank verse
Unrhyming iambic pentameter, also called heroic verse. This 10-syllable line is the predominant rhythm of traditional English dramatic and epic poetry, as it is considered the closest to English speech patterns.
foot
The basic unit of measurement of accentual-syllabic meter. A foot usually contains one stressed syllable and at least one unstressed syllable. The standard types of feet in English poetry are the iamb, trochee, dactyl, anapest, spondee, and pyrrhic.
rhyme
The repetition of syllables, typically at the end of a verse line. Rhymed words conventionally share all sounds following the word’s last stressed syllable.
end rhyme
The most common type. The rhyming of the final syllables of a line.
internal rhyme
Rhyme within a single line of verse. When a word from the middle of a line is rhymed with a word at the end of the line.
slant rhyme
A near rhyme in which the concluding consonant sounds are identical but not the vowels. Example: sun/noon, should/food, slim/ham.
onomatopoetia
The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as buzz and crack are onomatopoetic.
alliteration
The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words.
consonance
A resemblance in sound between two words, or an initial rhyme (see also Alliteration). Consonance can also refer to shared consonants, whether in sequence (“bed” and “bad”) or reversed (“bud” and “dab”).
assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds without repeating consonants; sometimes called vowel rhyme.
