English I - Poetry Terms
Alliteration
The repetition of consonant sounds in a series of words
Example: note the repetition of the letters b, y, and s in this excerpt from Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Counting-Out Rhyme":
Silver bark of beech, and sallow
Bark of yellow birch and yellow
Analogy
A comparison that stresses theinference that two or more things that are similar to each other in some respects are also similar in other respects.
Assonance
The repetition of vowel sounds in a series of words
Example: note the long “e” sound in the following excerpt from Gerald Manley Hopkins’ “God’s Grandeur.”
All is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
Couplet
In poetry, term applied to two successive lines of verse that rhyme; the term also is often used for lines that express a complete thought or form a separate stanza.
Dramatic Irony
Dramatic irony is when the words and actions of the characters of a work of literature have a different meaning for the reader than they do for the characters. This is the result of the reader having a greater knowledge than the characters themselves.
End Rhyme
The rhyming of words at the ends of lines
Exact Rhyme
The repetition of words that end with the same vowel and consonant sounds, as in love and dove
Figurative Language
A figure of speech that usually describes one thing in terms of another
(foreshadowing, hyperbole, imagery, irony, metaphor, personification, simile, symbolism)
Free Verse
Nonmetrical verse - poetry written in free verse is arranged in lines, may be more or less rhythmical, but has no fixed pattern of rhyme or meter.
Haiku
Japanese poem in three lines, of 5, 7, and 5 syllables, which represents a clear picture so as to at once to arouse emotion and suggest spiritual insight - note the following example:
The falling flower
I saw drift back to the branch
Was a butterfly
- Moritake
Iambic Pentameter
The most common meter in English verse. It consists of a line ten syllables long that is accented on every second beat. These lines in iambic pentameter are from The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare:
Ĭn sóoth,/Ĭ knów/nŏt whý/Ĭ ám/sŏ sád.
Ĭt wéa/riĕs mé;/yŏu sáy/ĭt wéa/riĕs yóu..
Imagery
It is descriptive language that poets use to create words, pictures, or images. Images are enhanced by sensory language, which provides details related to the senses.
Internal Rhyme
Rhyme that occurs between two or more words in the same line
Example: note the rhyming of the words “remember” and “December” from this excerpt of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “The Raven”
Ah distinctly I remember. It was in the bleak December
Meter
It is a regular pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables, each repeated unit of which is called a foot. (– ‘ –‘ –‘ –‘ –‘)
Metaphor
It is a comparison that doesn’t use like or as. Robert Frost’s poem “The Road not Taken,” which compares a road in the woods to pathways in life, would be an example of a metaphor.
Monologue
If a speech is addressed to another person or group of people, it is called a monologue.
Mood
The mood is the feeling or atmosphere of a piece of literature.
Narrative Poem
It is a poem that tells a story. Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” would be an example of a narrative poem.
Onomatopoeia
A word whose sound resembles what it describes (snap, crackle, pop).
Personification
attributing human qualities to things that are not human
Note the following example from Sylvia Plath’s poem which gives human qualities to a mirror.
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Rhyme Scheme
pattern or sequence in which rhyme occurs (abab, cdcd, efef, gg)
Simile
It is a comparison of two seemingly unlike things using the words like or as.
Note the following example from Langston Hughes’ “Dream Deferred.”
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Slant Rhyme
the repetition of words that end with similar sounds but do not rhyme perfectly, as in “prove” and “glove” or “star” and “were”
Soliloquy
If a speech is addressed to the speaker himself or to the audience, it is called a soliloquy. Playwrights such as Shakespeare used the soliloquy in order to reveal their characters' personal thoughts, emotions and motives without resorting to third-person narration. There is a dramatic convention that soliloquies, like "asides" to the audience, are not necessarily heard or noticed by the other characters, even if they are clearly delivered within earshot.
Sonnet
a fourteen line poem following a strict rhyming scheme.
Stanza
A group of lines in a poem that form a metrical or thematic unit
(similar to a paragraph in a story)
Symbolism
An object representing another concept, idea or emotion