REVISED: MARCH, 2008

POETRY TERMSto learn and apply to poems

POETRY. Poetry is imaginative language carefully chosen and arranged to
communicate experiences, thoughts, or emotions. It differs from prose in that it
compresses meaning into fewer words, and often uses meter, rhyme, and techniques
such as metaphor and simile. Poetry is usually arranged in lines and stanzas as
opposed to sentences and paragraphs, and it can be more free in the ordering of words
and the use of punctuation. Types of poetry include narrative, dramatic, and lyric. See
meter and rhyme.
ACROSTIC. An acrostic is a poem organized so that the first or last letters of each line form a word, a phrase, or a
regular sequence of letters of the alphabet.
ALEXANDRINE. An Alexandrine, or iambic hexameter, is a verse with six iambic feet.
ALLITERATION. Alliteration is the repetition of initial consonant sounds. Some writers also use the term to describe
repeated initial vowel sounds. The following line from Henry Wadsworth Longfellows The Village Blacksmith, in Unit
4, contains the following example of alliteration: They love to see the flaming forge
ANAPEST. An anapest is a poetic foot containing two weakly stressed syllables followed by one strongly stressed
syllable, as in the words unimpressed and correlate. A line of poetry made up of anapests is said to be anapestic.
ASSONANCE. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds in stressed syllables that end with different consonant
sounds. An example is the repetition in Emily Dickinsons Because I could not stop for Death (Unit 4) of the long a
sound: We passed the fields of Gazing Grain
BALLAD. A ballad is a simple narrative poem in four-line stanzas, usually meant to be sung and usually rhyming
abcb. Folk ballads, composed orally and passed by word-of-mouth from generation to generation, have enjoyed
enormous popularity from the Middle Ages to the present. Examples of popular American ballads include The Ballad
of Casey Jones and Bonny Barbara Allan. Literary ballads, written in imitation of folk ballads, have also been very
popular. The folk ballad stanza usually alternates between lines of four and three feet. Common techniques used in
ballads include repeated lines, or refrains, and incremental repetition, the repetition of lines with slight, often
cumulative, changes throughout the poem. See refrain.
BLANK VERSE. Blank verse is unrhymed poetry written in iambic pentameter. An iambic pentameter line consists
of five feet, each containing two syllables, the first weakly stressed and the second strongly stressed. William Cullen
Bryants poem Thanatopsis (Unit 4) is written in blank verse.
CSURA. A csura is a major pause in a line of poetry, as in the following line from T. S. Eliots The Love Song of
J. Alfred Prufrock (Unit 7): Let us go then, || you and I,
CANTO. A canto is a section or part of a long poem. The word comes from the Latin cantus, meaning song. Ezra
Pounds masterwork was a collection of poems called The Cantos.
CATALOG. A catalog is a list of people or things. In his poem Song of Myself (excerpted in Unit 5), Walt Whitman
catalog plants, animals, people, and general elements of nature.
CLOSED COUPLET. See couplet.
CONCRETE POEM. A concrete poem, or shape poem, is one printed or written in a shape that suggests its subject
matter.
CONFESSIONAL POETRY. Confessional poetry is verse that describes, sometimes with painful explicitness, the
private or personal affairs of the writer. Contemporary confessional poets include Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, and
Robert Lowell.
CONSONANCE. Consonance is a kind of slant rhyme in which the ending consonant sounds of two words match,
but the preceding vowel sound does not, as in the words wind and sound. The following line from Robert Haydens
poem Those Winter Sundays (Unit 11) provides an example: then with cracked hands that ached

CONVENTION. A convention is an unrealistic element in a literary work that is accepted by readers or viewers
because the element is traditional. One of the conventions of fiction, for example, is that it uses the past tense to
describe current or present action. Rhyme schemes and organization into stanzas are among the many commonly
employed conventions of poetry. Violation of accepted conventions is one of the hallmarks of avant garde or
Modernist literature. See dramatic convention.
COUPLET. A couplet is two lines of verse that usually rhyme. These lines from Anne Bradstreets poem To My
Dear and Loving Husband (Unit 2) provide an example: If ever two were one, then surely we. If ever man were loved
by wife, then thee; A closed couplet is a pair of rhyming lines that present a complete statement. These lines from
Phillis Wheatleys To S. M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works (Unit 3) are an example: Cease, gentle
muse! the solemn gloom of night Now seals the fair creation from my sight. A pair of rhyming iambic pentameter
lines, like these, is also known as a heroic couplet.
DACTYL. A dactyl is a poetic foot made up of a strongly stressed syllable followed by two weakly stressed syllables,
as in the word feverish. A line of poetry made up of dactyls is said to be dactylic. DIMETER. See meter.
DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE. A dramatic monologue is a poem that presents the speech of a single character in a
dramatic situation. The speech is one side of an imagined conversation. A modern example of a dramatic monologue
is Lucinda Matlock by Edgar Lee Masters, in Unit 7. See soliloquy.
DRAMATIC POEM. A dramatic poem is a verse that relies heavily on dramatic elements such as monologue
(speech by a single character) or dialogue (conversation involving two or more characters). Often dramatic poems
are narratives as well. In other words, they often tell stories. Types of dramatic poetry include the dramatic
monologue and the soliloquy. See poetry, lyric poem, and narrative poem.
END RHYME. End rhyme is rhyme that occurs at the ends of lines of verse. See rhyme.
END-STOPPED LINE. An end-stopped line is a line of verse in which both the sense and the grammar are
complete at the end of the line. The opposite of an end-stopped line is a run-on line. The following lines are endstopped: Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word! Give back my book and take my kiss instead. Edna St. Vincent
Millay Excessive use of end-stopped lines gives verse an unnatural, halting quality. See run-on line.
ENGLISH SONNET. See sonnet.
ENJAMBMENT. See run-on line.
EPIC. An epic is a long story, often told in verse, involving heroes and gods. Grand in length and scope, an epic
provides a portrait of an entire culture, of the legends, beliefs, values, laws, arts, and ways of life of a people. Famous
epic poems include Homers Iliad and Odyssey, Virgils Aeneid, Dantes The Divine Comedy, the anonymous Old
English Beowulf, and Miltons Paradise Lost.
EPIC HERO. See hero.
EYE RHYME. See sight rhyme.
FOLK BALLAD. See ballad.
FOLK SONG. A folk song is a traditional or composed song typically made up of stanzas, a refrain, and a simple
melody. A form of folk literature, folk songs are expressions of commonly shared ideas or feelings and may be
narrative or lyric in style. Traditional folk songs are anonymous songs that have been transmitted orally. Examples
include the ballad Bonny Barbara Allan, the sea chantey Blow the Man Down, the childrens song Row, Row, Row
Your Boat, the spiritual, Go Down, Moses, the railroad song Casey Jones, and the cowboy song The Streets of
Laredo. Contemporary composers of songs in the folk tradition include Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and
Joni Mitchell. See ballad.
FOOT. In a poem, a foot is a unit of rhythm consisting of strongly and weakly stressed syllables. See meter and
scansion. Also see the specific types of feet: anapest, dactyl, iamb, spondee, and trochee.
FOURTEENER. See meter.
FREE VERSE. Free verse is poetry that avoids use of regular rhyme, meter, or division into stanzas. Walt Whitmans
Song of Myself (excerpted in Unit 5) and Denise Levertovs The Secret (Unit 11) are examples of free verse. Much
of the poetry written in the twentieth century is in free verse. Free verse is also referred to as open verse.
HAIKU. A haiku is a traditional Japanese three line poem containing five syllables in the first line, seven in the
second, and five again in the third. A haiku presents a picture, or image, in order to arouse in the reader a specific
emotional and/or spiritual state.
HALF RHYME. See slant rhyme.

HEPTAMETER. See meter.

HERO. A hero is a character whose actions are inspiring and courageous. An epic hero represents the ideals of the
culture that creates it. In early literature, a hero is often part divine and has remarkable abilities, such as magical
power, superhuman strength, or great courage. A tragic hero is a character of high status who possesses noble
qualities but who also has a tragic flaw, or personal weakness. In much contemporary literature, the term hero often
refers to any main character. See antihero and tragic flaw.
HEROIC COUPLET. See couplet.
HEROIC EPIC. A heroic epic is an epic that has a main purpose of telling the life story of a great hero. See epic.
HEXAMETER. See meter.
HYMN. A hymn is a song or verse of praise, often religious. The Battle Hymn of the Republic by Julia Ward Howe
(Unit 5) is an example.
HYPERBOLE. A hyperbole (h_ p_r b le) is an exaggeration made for rhetorical effect. Anne Bradstreet uses
hyperbole when she writes, My love is such that rivers cannot quench, Nor ought but love from thee, give
recompense.
IAMB. An iamb is a poetic foot containing one weakly stressed syllable followed by one strongly stressed syllable, as
in the words afraid and release. A line of poetry made up of iambs is said to be iambic.
IAMBIC. See iamb.
IMAGE. An image is language that creates a concrete representation of an object or an experience. An image is also
the vivid mental picture created in the readers mind by that language. The images in a literary work are referred to,
collectively, as the works imagery.
IMAGERY. See image.
IMAGIST POEM. An imagist poem is a lyric poem that presents a single vivid picture in words. The Red
Wheelbarrow (Unit 7) by William Carlos Williams is an imagist poem. See poetry and lyric poem.
INCREMENTAL REPETITION. See ballad.
INVERSION. An inversion is a poetic technique in which the normal order of words in an utterance is altered. Robert
Frosts famous line Whose woods these are, I think I know is an inversion of the usual order of expression: I think I
know whose these woods are.
IRONY. Irony is a difference between appearance and reality. Types of irony include the following: dramatic irony, in
which something is known by the reader or audience but unknown to the characters; verbal irony, in which a
statement is made that implies its opposite; and irony of situation, in which an event occurs that violates the
expectations of the characters, the reader, or the audience.
LITERARY BALLAD. See ballad.
LYRIC POEM. A lyric poem is a highly musical verse that expresses the emotions of a speaker. Edna St. Vincent
Millays Sonnet XXX (Unit 1) and Amy Lowells Patterns (Unit 7) are examples. Lyric poems are often contrasted
with narrative poems, which have storytelling as their main purpose. See poetry.
METAPHOR. A metaphor is a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken or written about as if it were another.
This figure of speech invites the reader to make a comparison between the two things. The two things involved are
the writers actual subject, the tenor of the metaphor, and another thing to which the subject is likened, the vehicle of
the metaphor. In his essay Self-Reliance (Unit 4), Ralph Waldo Emerson uses this metaphor: Society is a joint stock
company. The tenor of the metaphor is society and the vehicle of the metaphor is joint-stock company.
Personification and similes are types of metaphor. See dead metaphor, mixed metaphor, personification, and simile.

METER. The meter of a poem is its rhythmical pattern. English verse is generally described as being made up of
rhythmical units called feet, as follows:
TYPE OF FOOT STRESS PATTERN EXAMPLE
iamb, or iambic / insist
foot
trochee, or / freedom
trochaic foot
anapest, or / unimpressed
anapestic foot
dactyl, or / feverish
dactylic foot
spondee, or / / baseball
spondaic foot
Some scholars also use the term pyorrhea, or pyrrhic foot, to describe a foot with two weak stresses. Using this term,
the word unbelievable might be described as consisting of two feet, an anapest followed by a pyrrhic:
/|
un be liev | a ble
Terms used to describe the number of feet in a line include the following:
monometer for a one-foot line
dimeter for a two-foot line
trimeter for a three-foot line
tetrameter for a four-foot line
pentameter for a five-foot line
hexameter, or Alexandrine, for a six-foot line
heptameter for a seven-foot line
octameter for an eight-foot line
A seven-foot line of iambic feet is called a fourteener. A complete description of the meter of a line includes both the
term for the type of foot that predominates in the line and the term for the number of feet in the line. The most
common English meters are iambic tetrameter and iambic pentameter. The following are examples of each:
IAMBIC TETRAMETER
/ / / /
O slow | ly, slow | ly rose | she up
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
/ / / /
The cur | few tolls | the knell | of part |
/
ing day,

MONOMETER. See meter.

NEAR RHYME. See slant rhyme.

NONSENSE VERSE. A nonsense verse is a kind of light verse that contains elements that are silly, absurd, or
meaningless. Sometimes, as is the case with Lewis Carrolls Jabberwocky, the apparent nonsense of the verse
gives way to sense upon closer analysis. Carrolls poem turns out not to be nonsense at all, but rather an ingenious
retelling, in a mock heroic ballad, of a stock folk tale storythat of a young person who sets off on a quest, slays a
terrible beast, and returns home victorious.
NURSERY RHYME. A nursery rhyme is a childrens verse.
OCCASIONAL VERSE. An occasional verse is one written to celebrate or commemorate some particular event.
Phyllis Wheatley To S. M., a Young African Painter, wrote on Seeing His Works (Unit 3) for example, to celebrate
the artistic gift of Scipio Morehead.
OCTAMETER. See meter.
OCTAVE. An octave is an eight-line stanza. A Petrarchan sonnet begins with an octave. See meter and sonnet.
ODE. An ode is a lofty lyric poem on a serious theme. It may employ alternating stanza patterns, developed from the
choral ode of Greek dramatic poetry. These stanza patterns are called the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode.
However, not all odes follow this pattern. William Cullen Bryants Thanatopsis (Unit 4) is an example of an ode.
OFF RHYME. See slant rhyme.
ONOMATOPOEIA. Onomatopoeia is the use of words or phrases that sound like the things to which they refer.
Examples of onomatopoeia include words such as buzz, click, and pop. Poets and other writers often make use of
onomatopoeia.
OCTAMETER. See free verse.
OTTAVA RIMA. Ottava rima is a stanza form made up of eight iambic pentameter lines rhyming abababcc. See
rhyme scheme.
PENTAMETER. See meter.
PETRARCHAN SONNET. See sonnet.
POETIC LICENSE. Poetic license is the right, claimed by writers, to change elements of reality to suit the purposes
of particular works that they create. Edgar Lee Masterss use in his Spoon River Anthology (excerpted in Unit 7) of
characters who rise from their graves and talk is an example of poetic license. Such things do not happen in reality,
but they are accepted by readers willing to suspend disbelief in order to have imaginary experiences. See suspension
of disbelief.
PROSE POEM. A prose poem is a work of prose, usually a short work, that makes such extensive use of poetic
language, such as figures of speech and words that echo their sense, that the line between prose and poetry
becomes blurred. Many passages from the work of William Faulkner have the quality of prose poetry.
PROSODY. Prosody, or versification, is the study of the structure of poetry. In particular, prosodists study meter,
rhyme, rhythm, and stanza form. See meter, rhyme, rhythm, and stanza.
PYRRHIC. See meter.
QUATRAIN. A quatrain is a stanza containing four lines.
QUINTAIN. A quintain, or quintet, is a stanza containing five lines.
QUINTET. See quintain.
RAP. Rap is improvised, rhymed verse that is chanted or sung, often to a musical accompaniment.
REFRAIN. A refrain is a line or group of lines repeated in a poem or song. Many ballads contain
refrains.
REPETITION. Repetition is the writers conscious reuse of a sound, word, phrase, sentence, or other element.
RHYME. Rhyme is the repetition of sounds at the ends of words. Types of rhyme include end rhyme (the use of
rhyming words at the ends of lines), internal rhyme (the use of rhyming words within lines), exact rhyme (in which the
rhyming words end with the same sound or sounds), and slant rhyme (in which the rhyming sounds are similar but
not identical). An example of exact rhyme is the word pair moon/June. Examples of slant rhyme are the word pairs
rave/ rove and rot/rock. See poetry, slant rhyme, and rhyme scheme.
RHYME SCHEME. A rhyme scheme is a pattern of end rhymes, or rhymes at the ends of lines of verse. The rhyme
scheme of a poem is designated by letters, with matching letters signifying matching sounds.

RHYTHM. Rhythm is the pattern of beats or stresses in a line of verse or prose. See meter.
RUN-ON LINE. A run-on line is a line of verse in which the sense or the grammatical structure does not end with the
end of the line but rather is continued on one or more subsequent lines. The following lines from Dickinsons This is
my letter to the World form a single sentence:
This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me
The simple News that Nature told
With tender Majesty.
The act of continuing a statement beyond the end of a line is called enjambment. See endstopped line.

SCANSION. Scansion is the art of analyzing poetry to determine its meter. See meter.
SENSORY DETAIL. See description.
SEPTET. A septet is a stanza with seven lines.
SESTET. A sestet is a stanza with six lines, such as the second part of a Petrarchan sonnet. See meter and sonnet.
SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET. See sonnet. SHAPE POEM. See concrete poem.
SIGHT RHYME. A sight rhyme, or eye rhyme, is a pair of words, generally at the ends of lines ofverse, that are
spelled similarly but pronounced differently. The words lost and ghost and give and thrive are examples. These lines
from Claude McKays poem The Tropics in New York (Unit 8) provide an example. Set in the window, bringing
memories. . . And dewy dawns, and mystical blue skies
SIMILE. A simile is a comparison using like or as. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow uses a simile when he describes a
blacksmith in The Village Blacksmith (Unit 4), saying, And the muscles of his brawny arms / Are strong as iron
bands. A simile is a type of metaphor, and like any other metaphor, can be divided into two parts, the tenor (or
subject being described), and the vehicle (or object being used in the description). In the simile your locks are like
the snow, the tenor is locks of hair and the vehicle is snow. They can be compared because they share some
quality, in this case, whiteness. See metaphor.
SLANT RHYME. A slant rhyme, half rhyme, near rhyme, or off rhyme is the substitution of assonance or
consonance for true rhyme. The pairs world/boiled and bear/bore are examples. See assonance, consonance, and
rhyme.
SOLILOQUY. A soliloquy is a speech delivered by a lone character that reveals the speakers thoughts and feelings.
SONNET. A sonnet is a fourteen-line poem, usually in iambic pentameter, that follows one of a number of different
rhyme schemes. The English, Elizabethan, or Shakespearean sonnet is divided into four parts: three quatrains and a
final couplet. The rhyme scheme of such a sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg. The sonnets by Shakespeare in this book are
examples. The Italian or Petrarchan sonnet is divided into two parts: an octave and a sestet. The rhyme scheme of
the octave is abbaabba. The rhyme scheme of the sestet can be cdecde, cdcdcd, or cdedce. Sonnet XXX by Edna
St. Vincent Millay (Unit 1) is an example of an English sonnet. Her sonnet Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare
(Unit 7) is an Italian sonnet.
SONNET CYCLE. See sonnet sequence.
SONNET SEQUENCE. A sonnet sequence is a group of related sonnets. Famous sonnet sequences include those
of William Shakespeare. See sonnet.
SPEAKER. The speaker is the character who speaks in, or narrates, a poemthe voice assumed by the writer. The
speaker and the writer of a poem are not necessarily the same person. T. S. Eliot takes on the voice of J. Alfred
Prufrock in The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (Unit 7). In Carl Sandburgs Grass (Unit 7), the grass is the
speaker.
SPONDEE. A spondee is a poetic foot containing two strongly stressed syllables, as in the words compound and
roughhouse. Such a foot is said to be spondaic.

STANZA. A stanza is a group of lines in a poem. The following are some types of stanza:
two-line stanza couplet three-line stanza triplet or tercet
four-line stanza quatrain
five-line stanza quintain
six-line stanza sestet
seven-line stanza heptastich
eight-line stanza octave
STRESS. Stress, or accent, is the level of emphasis given to a syllable. In English metrics, the art of rhythm in
written and spoken expression, syllables are generally described as being strongly or weakly stressed, in other
words, accented or unaccented. A strongly stressed or accented syllable receives a strong emphasis. A weakly
stressed or unaccented syllable receives a weak one. In the following line from Walt Whitmans When Lilacs Last in
the Dooryard Bloomd (Unit 5), the strongly stressed or accented syllables are marked with a slash mark (/)
SYMBOL. A symbol is a thing that stands for or represents both itself and something else. Writers use two types of
symbolsconventional, and personal or idiosyncratic. A conventional symbol is one with traditional, widely
recognized associations. Such symbols include doves for peace; laurel wreaths for heroism or poetic excellence; the
color green for jealousy; the color purple for royalty; the color red for anger; morning or spring for youth; winter,
evening, or night for old age; wind for change or inspiration; rainbows for hope; roses for beauty; the moon for
fickleness or inconstancy; roads or paths for the journey through life; woods or darkness for moral or spiritual
confusion; thorns for troubles or pain; stars for unchangeableness or constancy; mirrors for vanity or introspection;
snakes for evil or duplicity; and owls for wisdom. A personal or idiosyncratic symbol is one that assumes its
secondary meaning because of the special use to which it is put by a writer. In Song of Myself (excerpted in Unit 5),
Walt Whitman uses grass as a personal symbol for the beauty and value of simple, lowly things.
SYNAESTHESIA. Synaesthesia is a figure of speech that combines in a single expression images related to two or
more different senses. In Emily Dickinsons I heard a Fly buzzwhen I died (Unit 4), the line With Blue
uncertain stumbling Buzz contains an example of synaesthesia because stumbling Buzz is an image that
appeals to both the senses of sight and of sound.
TENOR. See metaphor.
TERCET. See triplet.
TERZA RIMA. Terza rima is a three-line stanza of the kind used in Dantes Divine Comedy, rhyming aba, bcb, cdc,
ded, and so on.
TETRAMETER. See meter.
TONE. Tone is the emotional attitude toward the reader or toward the subject implied by a literary work. Examples of
the different tones that a work may have include familiar, ironic, playful, sarcastic, serious, and sincere.
TRIMETER. See meter.
TRIPLET. A triplet, or tercet, is a stanza of three lines.
TROCHEE. A trochee is a poetic foot consisting of a strongly stressed syllable followed by a weakly stressed
syllable, as in the word winter. A line of poetry made up of trochees is said to be trochaic.
UNDERSTATEMENT. An understatement is an ironic expression in which something of importance is emphasized
by being spoken of as though it were not important, as in Hes sort of dead, I think.
VEHICLE. See metaphor.
VERBAL IRONY. See irony.
VERSIFICATION. See prosody. VERS LIBRE. See free verse.
VOICE. Voice is the way a writer uses language to reflect his or her unique personality and attitude toward topic,
form, and audience. A writer expresses voice through tone, word choice, and sentence structure.