Poetry Terms:
Alliteration: (n) the commencement of two or more words of a word group with the
same consonants, as in Peter Piper picked…
Allusion: (n) a passing or casual reference; an incidental mention of something, either
directly or by implication.
Assonance: (n) resemblance of sounds; vowel rhyme; rhyme in which the same vowel
sounds are used with different consonants in the stressed syllables of the rhyming words,
as in penitent and reticence, or seat and weak.
Ballad: (n) a simple narrative poem of folk origin composed in short stanzas and adapted
for singing. Tells a simple, dramatic story. Typically handed down person to person by
memory.
Blank Verse: (n) simple poetry whose lines are composed of unrhymed iambic
pentameter.
Connotation: (n) emotional meaning
Consonance: (n) occurs when the consonants agree but the vowels do not, as in luck and
lock.
Couplets: (n) two line stanza; a pair of successive lines of verse, especially a pair that
rhyme and are of the same length.
Denotation: (n) direct or dictionary meaning of a word
Enjambment: (n) also called a run-on line. The running on of a thought from one line,
couplet, or stanza to the next without a syntactical break.
Exact Rhyme: (n) occurs when the initial consonants change, but succeeding vowels and
consonants are the same, as in span and van or ends and friends.
Free Verse: (n) a form of poetry that breaks away from strictness and formality; verse
that does not follow a fixed metrical pattern.
Hyperbole: (n) purposeful exaggeration to create a specific effect
Iambic Pentameter: (n) the most common line in English poetry; a common meter in
poetry consisting of an unrhymed line with five feet or accents (ten syllables), each foot
containing an unaccented syllable and an accented syllable. Ex: My soul/ is full/ of
dis/cord and/ dismay.
Irony: (n) when the opposite of what is expected happens
Metaphor: (n) implies a relationship, a similarity, between two different objects. Once
established, this relationship changes our perception of both objects.
Monologue: (n) 1. A prolonged talk or discourse by a single speaker, esp. one
dominating or monopolizing a conversation. 2. Any composition, as a poem, in which a
single person speaks alone. 3. A part of a drama in which a single actor speaks alone;
soliloquy.
Onomatopoeia: (n) refers to the repetition of a sound meant to resemble what it is
describing, as in cuckoo or boom.
Personification: (n) gives the attributes of human beings to ideas and objects, as in John
Donne’s Death, be not proud.
Poetry: (n) concentrated prose.
Rhyme: (n) the repetition of the same or similar sounds, often occurring at set intervals
and most obviously appearing at the end of a line (where it is called end rhyme).
Rhythm / Meter: (n) the pattern of recurrent strong and weak accents
Simile: (n) a direct comparison using like or as, as in Robert Burns’ “my love is like a
red, red rose.”
Soliloquy: (n) the act of talking while or as if alone.
Sonnet: (n) a poem, expressive of a single, complete thought, idea, or sentiment, of 14
lines, usually in iambic pentameter, with rhymes arranged according to one of certain
definite schemes: The strict or Italian form is divided into an octave and a sestet; the
more common English form consists of three quatrains followed by a couplet.
Stanza: (n) a group of lines in poetry. The most popular are as follows:
couplet: two lines
quatrain: four lines
sestet: six lines
octet: eight lines