Poetry
BLANK VERSE
Unrhymed iambic pentameter. Most of Shakespeare’s plays are written in blank verse.
COUPLET
Two successive rhyming lines. The couplet is one of the main verse units in Western literature.
Couplets can be combined to form more complex stanzas. Couplets are used as a conclusion to
the sonnet.
COUPLET RHYME
A rhyme scheme made up of closed couplets (e.g., aabbccdd).
CROSS RHYME
Also called “alternate rhyme.” A rhyme scheme in which lines “answer” one another in rhyme
across intervening lines (e.g., abab).
END-STOPPED LINE
A term applied to verse where the sense and meter coincide in a pause at the end of a line.
ENJAMBEMENT
Running on of the sense beyond the second line of one couplet into the first line of the next.
From Keats’ “Endymion”:
Who, of men, can tell
That flowers would bloom, or that green fruit would swell
To melting pulp, that fish would have bright mail
The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale […]
FOOT
The basic unit of measurement in a line of poetry. A foot represents a set of syllables (usually
two), with stressed and unstressed syllables. Here are some common types of metrical feet:
An iamb (the adjective is "iambic") is an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.
They ál/so sérve/ who ón/ly stánd /and wáit.
A trochee (the adjective is "trochaic") is a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed one:
Róund a/bóut the/ cáuldron/ gó,
Ín the /póisoned/ éntrails /thrów.
A dactyl is a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables:
"Ca/n/ada," "hol/i/day," "cam/ou/flage."
A spondee is a foot with two stressed syllables. Although it's rare for any two adjacent syllables to
receive exactly the same stress, in spondees there's no obvious stress on one syllable rather
than the other. Some examples:
"pen-knife," "ad hoc," "heartburn."
FREE VERSE
Unrhymed poetry with lines of varying lengths, and containing no specific metrical pattern. The
poetry of Walt Whitman provides us with many examples. Consider the following lines from "Song
of Myself":
I celebrate myself and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
HEROIC COUPLET
Rhymed iambic pentameter in pairs. Can be used in series to form a stanza.
IAMBIC PENTAMETER
A metrical line of five feet, each of which is made up of two syllables, the first unstressed and the
second stressed. This is the meter used in blank verse, heroic couplet, and the sonnet. Example
from Romeo and Juliet:
Let two more summers wither in their pride
Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride
METER
A regular pattern of unstressed and stressed syllables in a line or lines of poetry. Pentameter
indicates a pattern of five feet. The meter in a poem is classified according both to its pattern and
the number of feet to the line.
PENTAMETER
The five-foot line and the basic line in much English verse, especially in blank verse and the
heroic couplet.
POETIC LICENSE
The liberty poets and other literary artists have to depart from normal word order, distort
pronunciation, use archaic words, or invent new words in order to achieve certain effects.
RHYME
The similarity of sound between two words. In end rhyme, the rhyme is at the end of the line, as
in these lines from "Ars Poetica" by Archibald MacLeish:
A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit
Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb
When one of the rhyming words occurs in a place in the line other than at the end, it is called
Internal rhyme. Eye rhyme is a form of rhyme wherein the look rather than the sound is important.
"Cough" and "tough" do not sound enough alike to constitute a rhyme. However, if these two
words appeared at the ends of successive lines of poetry, they would be considered eye rhyme.
Half rhyme occurs when the final consonants rhyme, but the vowel sounds do not (chill-Tulle;
Day-Eternity).
RHYME SCHEME
The pattern of rhymes in a stanza or poem, usually indicated by letters of the alphabet. For
example, the following poem by Elinor Wylie follows an abab rhyme scheme:
I was, being human, born alone;
a
I am, being woman, hard beset;
b
I live by squeezing from a stone
a
The little nourishment I get.
b
RHYTHM
The patterned flow of sound in poetry and prose; the movement or sense of movement
communicated by the arrangement of stressed and unstressed syllables and by the duration of
the syllables. In verse the rhythm depends on the metrical pattern. Meter is only the basic pulse
of rhythm, however. Other sound devices, such as rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and
onomatopoeia, contribute greatly to rhythm. Whether words are made up of harsh sounds or soft
sounds also affects the rhythm of a line of poetry.
SPEAKER
In poetry the speaker in the poem is the voice that talks to the reader, similar to the narrator in
fiction. The speaker is not necessarily the poet himself.
STANZA
A stanza is a grouping of two or more lines in a pattern that is repeated throughout a poem. A
stanza is comparable to a paragraph in prose.
STRESS
In poetry, the emphasis placed on a word or syllable. Also called accent.