Poetry Terms

Question 1

Alliteration

Answer 1

Alliteration: The repetition of the same or similar sounds at the beginning of words: “What would the world be, once bereft/Of wet and wildness?” (Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Inversnaid”)

Question 2

Antithesis

Answer 2

Antithesis: A figure of speech in which words and phrases with opposite meanings are balanced against each other. An example of antithesis is “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” (Alexander Pope)

Question 3

Ballad

Answer 3

Ballad: A poem that tells a story similar to a folk tale or legend and often has a repeated refrain. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge is an example of a ballad.

Question 4

Blank verse

Answer 4

Blank verse: Poetry that is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in blank verse.

Question 5

Caesura

Answer 5

Caesura: A natural pause or break in a line of poetry, usually near the middle of the line. There is a caesura right after the question mark in the first line of this sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”

Question 6

Couplet

Answer 6

Couplet: In a poem, a pair of lines that are the same length and usually rhyme and form a complete thought. Shakespearean sonnets usually end in a couplet.

Question 7

Elegy

Answer 7

Elegy: A poem that laments the death of a person, or one that is simply sad and thoughtful. An example of this type of poem is Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.”

Question 8

Epic

Answer 8

Epic: A long, serious poem that tells the story of a heroic figure. Two of the most famous epic poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, which tell about the Trojan War and the adventures of Odysseus on his voyage home after the war.

Question 9

Free verse

Answer 9

Free verse: Poetry composed of either rhymed or unrhymed lines that have no set meter.

Question 10

Haiku

Answer 10

Haiku: A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku often reflect on some aspect of nature.

Question 11

Hyperbole

Answer 11

Hyperbole: A figure of speech in which deliberate exaggeration is used for emphasis. Many everyday expressions are examples of hyperbole: tons of money, waiting for ages, a flood of tears, etc.

Question 12

Iambic pentameter

Answer 12

Iambic pentameter: A type of meter in poetry, in which there are five iambs to a line. (The prefix penta- means “five,” as in pentagon, a geometrical figure with five sides. Meter refers to rhythmic units. In a line of iambic pentameter, there are five rhythmic units that are iambs.) Shakespeare’s plays were written mostly in iambic pentameter, which is the most common type of meter in English poetry. An example of an iambic pentameter line from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is “But soft!/ What light/ through yon/der win/dow breaks?” Another, from Richard III, is “A horse!/ A horse!/ My king/dom for/ a horse!” (The stressed syllables are in bold.)

Question 13

Limerick

Answer 13

Limerick: A light, humorous poem of five usually anapestic lines with the rhyme scheme of aabba.

Question 14

Lyric

Answer 14

Lyric: A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet. A lyric poem may resemble a song in form or style.

Question 15

Metaphor

Answer 15

Metaphor: A figure of speech in which two things are compared, usually by saying one thing is another, or by substituting a more descriptive word for the more common or usual word that would be expected. Some examples of metaphors: the world’s a stage, he was a lion in battle, drowning in debt, and a sea of troubles.

Question 16

Narrative

Answer 16

Narrative: Telling a story. Ballads, epics, and lays are different kinds of narrative poems.

Question 17

Ode

Answer 17

Ode: A lyric poem that is serious and thoughtful in tone and has a very precise, formal structure. John Keats’s “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is a famous example of this type of poem.

Question 18

Onomatopoeia

Answer 18

Onomatopoeia: A figure of speech in which words are used to imitate sounds. Examples of onomatopoeic words are buzz, hiss, zing, clippety-clop, and tick-tock. Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale” not only uses onomatopoeia, but calls our attention to it: “Forlorn! The very word is like a bell/To toll me back from thee to my sole self!” Another example of onomatopoeia is found in this line from Tennyson’s Come Down, O Maid: “The moan of doves in immemorial elms,/And murmuring of innumerable bees.” The repeated “m/n” sounds reinforce the idea of “murmuring” by imitating the hum of insects on a warm summer day.

Question 19

Personification

Answer 19

Personification: A figure of speech in which things or abstract ideas are given human attributes: dead leaves dance in the wind, blind justice.

Question 20

Rhyme

Answer 20

Rhyme: The occurrence of the same or similar sounds at the end of two or more words. When the rhyme occurs in a final stressed syllable, it is said to be masculine: cat/hat, desire/fire, observe/deserve. When the rhyme occurs in a final unstressed syllable, it is said to be feminine: longing/yearning. The pattern of rhyme in a stanza or poem is shown usually by using a different letter for each final sound. In a poem with an aabba rhyme scheme, the first, second, and fifth lines end in one sound, and the third and fourth lines end in another.

Question 21

Romanticism

Answer 21

Romanticism: The principles and ideals of the Romantic movement in literature and the arts during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Romanticism, which was a reaction to the classicism of the early 18th century, favored feeling over reason and placed great emphasis on the subjective, or personal, experience of the individual. Nature was also a major theme. The great English Romantic poets include Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.

Question 22

Simile

Answer 22

Simile: A figure of speech in which two things are compared using the word “like” or “as.” An example of a simile using like occurs in Langston Hughes’s poem “Harlem”: “What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ like a raisin in the sun?”

Question 23

Sonnet

Answer 23

Sonnet: A lyric poem that is 14 lines long. Italian (or Petrarchan) sonnets are divided into two quatrains and a six-line “sestet,” with the rhyme scheme abba abba cdecde (or cdcdcd). English (or Shakespearean) sonnets are composed of three quatrains and a final couplet, with a rhyme scheme of abab cdcd efef gg. English and Italian sonnets are generally written in iambic pentameter.

Question 24

Stanza

Answer 24

Stanza: Two or more lines of poetry that together form one of the divisions of a poem. The stanzas of a poem are usually of the same length and follow the same pattern of meter and rhyme.