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Poetry Terms—American Literature
September 2013
Name____________
Stanzas
Couplet—2 lines
Tercet/Triplet—3 lines
Quatrain—4 lines
Quintet—5 lines
Sestet—6 lines
Octet—8 lines
Stanza—a cluster of lines in a poem
Meter/Rhythm
Foot:
iamb—a two-syllable foot with the pattern short/long (unaccented/accented)
trochee—a two-syllable foot with the pattern long/short (accented/unaccented); a reverse
iamb
Regular Meter (generally, same foot throughout, regular number of syllables)
Example--Iambic Pentameter
 Foot: iamb
 Number of feet: 5
 Number of syllables: 10
Example—Iambic tetrameter
 Foot: iamb
 Number of feet: 4
 Number of syllables: 8
Example—Iambic trimeter
 Foot: iamb
 Number of feet: 3
 Number of syllables: 6
Isochronic meter—lines contain UNEQUAL numbers of syllables/EQUAL number of
strong beats
Hark, hark, the dogs do bark
The beggars are come to town [BEAT]
Some in rags and some in tags
And some in velvet gowns. [BEAT]
Sound Elements
 Alliteration—the use of words that begin with the same consonant sound
 Assonance—repetition of a vowel sound
 Consonance—repetition of a consonant sound
 End-stopped line—the grammar of a line stops at a logical place at the line’s end
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o Run-on line (enjambment)—the line ends in the middle of a grammatical
phrase
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End rhyme—rhyming words at the end of lines of poetry
o Internal rhyme—rhyming words at the end of the line and within the line
Free Verse—poetry that has no regular meter and no regular rhyme scheme
Sight rhyme (e.g., tough/bough)—words that look like they should rhyme but
which are pronounced differently from one another
Slant rhyme/half rhyme (e.g., road/blood)—words that “rhyme” in non-standard
ways, e.g., through assonance, consonance, alliteration; the vowel sounds may be
similar but not be exact matches
Literary/Stylistic Elements
 Allusion—a reference to an idea outside the main text; common allusions
include references to ancient Greek and Roman texts or figures, and references to
biblical stories and figures
 Anaphora—the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of poetic lines
 Antithesis—the pairing of opposite objects, ideas, or themes to make a larger
point
 Apostrophe—the speaker addresses an absent or dead person, an abstract concept,
or an inanimate object
 Connotation—the emotional meaning of a word, e.g., a Lamborghini is a car
(denotation), but it is a car that suggests power and wealth (connotation)
 Denotation—the factual meaning of a word, e.g., a car is a car: it gets the
student to school
 Diction—word choice
Figurative Language/Figures of Speech/Imagery
 Controlling metaphor—a metaphor that covers an entire poem, e.g., in “I taste a
liquor never brewed,” delight in summer is described as paralleling the effect of
alcohol
 Extended metaphor—a metaphor that covers part, but not all, of a poem, e.g., “I
felt a Funeral in my Brain,” depicts the experience of being dead by using the idea
of a ringing bell in lines 12 and 13.
 Irony—the opposite of what you expect; three types: verbal, situational, dramatic
 Metaphor—a figure of speech that makes a point by comparing two unlike objects
 Mood—the emotion the poem draws from the reader
 Onomatopoeia—a word that sounds like what it is, e.g., “creak”
 Oxymoron—a phrase that contains an internal contradiction but which points to a
larger truth, e.g., “civil blood” in the Prologue of Romeo and Juliet
 Paradox—a sentence that contains an internal contradiction but which points to a
larger truth
 Personification—a figure of speech that gives human characteristics to a nonhuman object
 Pun—making a joke by using a word that has two meanings; word play
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Sensory Imagery—detail in a poem that evokes one of the senses: sight, sound,
touch, taste, smell
Refrain—repeated lines in a poem
Satire—making fun of a person, idea, situation, etc., usually to call for change
Simile—a figure of speech that compares two things using “like” or “as”
Style—a poet’s choices for the poem: diction, syntax, imagery, figurative
language, etc.
Tone—the author’s attitude toward his/her subject
Symbolism—using an object to represent an idea, e.g., in Lord of the Flies, the
conch stands for democracy
Theme—a large idea in a poem
Turnaround line—a long line that has to double back on itself to fit on the page;
Walt Whitman uses many such lines
Word play--pun
Poetic Genres
Dramatic verse—a play written in poetry, e.g., Romeo and Juliet
Epic—a long narrative poem, e.g., the Odyssey
Light verse—poetry that is amusing or funny
Lyric—a poem written in first person about a personal experience or topic; Emily
Dickinson’s poems are often lyrics
Narrative—a poem that tells a story
Sonnet—a fourteen-line poem; the Prologue to Romeo and Juliet is a sonnet