The Language of Poetry
Lyric, Narrative, and Dramatic Forms
1. Genre: category or a distinct style
2. Lyric Poetry: contain little narrative content; usually about a poet’s emotions or
an abstract idea, a satirical insight, or a description of a person or a place
3. Elegy: a lyric on the occasion of a death
4. Ode: a longer lyric poem about a serious theme
5. Epic: poetry that tells a story (usually action and adventure like The Odyssey of
Homer or The Inferno by Dante)
6. Dramatic Monologue: a speech by a single character usually delivered to a silent
auditor (in a play this would be called a soliloquy)
7. Dialogue Poetry: two personae speak alternatively
The Language of Poetry
8. Idiom: personal use of words that make the poetry idiosyncratic
9. Diction: individual words used in a poem
10. Poetic Diction: a level of speech somehow refined above ordinary usage
11. Archaisms: words that are no longer in common use
12. Syncope: dropping of a letter – never becomes ne’er
13. Denotation: the literal meaning of a word
14. Connotation: the implied meaning or feel that some words have acquired
15. Coinage or Neologism: a word made up by a poet
16. Paraphrase: putting a poem into our own words
17. Syntax: the order of words in a sentence
18. Inversion: words that fall out of their expected order ~ this usually done to
maintain a rhyme scheme
19. Imagery: sensory details; visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory
20. Imagism: movement pioneered by Ezra Pound in the early 20th C in which
concrete details or visual imagery dominate short poems
21. Onomatopoeia: words that are closely related to their sounds like “splash” or
“thud”
22. Pun: a sound device where one word implies the additional meaning of a similarsounding word – “Where hill-hid tides throb, throe on throe” ~ the repetition of
sounds captures the sound of the ocean.
Figurative Language
23. Metaphor: A direct comparison between two unlike things
His words were sharp knives.
24. Simile: a comparison using like or as, or than as a connecting device
“My love is like a red, red rose…” Robert Burns
25. Conceit: an extended far-fetched metaphor, in most cases comparing things that
apparently have nothing in common
“Make me, O Lord, thy spinning wheel complete…” Edward Taylor
(“Huswifery” draws an analogy between the process of salvation and the
manufacture of clothing ~ the loom becomes a cross)
26. Hyperbole: overstatement, a comparison using conscious exaggeration
He threw the ball so fast it caught the catcher’s mitt on fire.
27. Understatement: the opposite of hyperbole
“I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto.” (Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz)
28. Allusion: metaphor making a direct comparison to a historical or literary event or
character, a myth, biblical reference, etc.
He is a Samson of strength but a Judas of duplicity.
29. Personification: giving human characteristics to nonhuman things or abstractions
The ocean cursed and spat at us.
30. Apostrophe: variety of personification in which a nonhuman thing, abstraction,
or person not physically present is directly addressed as it if could respond
“Milton! Thou should be living at this hour.” William Wordsworth
31. Paradox: an apparent contradiction or illogical statement
I’ll never forget old what’s-his-name.
32. Oxymoron: a short paradox, usually consisting of an adjective and noun with
conflicting meanings
The touch of her lips was sweet agony.
33. Synesthesia: a conscious mixing of two different types of sensory experience
A raw, red wind rushed from the north.
Allegory and Symbol
34. Allegory: usually a narrative that exists simultaneously on at least two levels, a
literal level and a second level of abstract meaning; prose examples of an allegory
are the fable (a short, nonrealistic narrative told to illustrate a universal moral
concept) and the parable (similar to a fable, but it contains realistic elements to
convey a universal moral concept)
35. Symbol: any concrete thing or action in a poem that implies a meaning beyond its
literal sense
36. Traditional Symbols: examples are colors, flowers, natural objects or religious
symbols
37. Private Symbol: something that acquires a meaning from a single poet’s repeated
use
38. Incidental Symbol: things that are not usually considered symbolic, but may be
in a particular poem
Tone of Voice
39. Tone: the speaker’s implied attitude toward the words he or she says, depends
primarily on vocal inflection
40. Irony: a poet may imply an attitude that is contrary to what his words appear to
say
41. Sarcasm: the wounding tone of voice we use to imply the exact opposite of what
we say
42. Verbal Irony: the conscious manipulation of tone by the poet that reveals an
attitude opposite to what he or she says
43. Epigram: a short satirical piece
44. Situational Irony: the setting of the poem presents a built-in incongruity
45. Dramatic Irony: the persona of the poem is less aware than the reader of the full
import of his or her words
Repetition: Sounds and Schemes
46. Euphony: a series of pleasant sounds
47. Cacophany: sounds that are deliberately unpleasant
48. Alliteration: repetition of the initial consonant sounds
49. Assonance: repetition of similar vowel sounds
50. Consonance: the repetition of similar consonant sounds
51. Rhyme: device that matches similar sounding words
52. Masculine Rhyme: single stressed syllables (fleece & release)
53. Feminine Rhyme or Double Rhyme: matches two syllables, one stressed and
usually one unstressed (stinging & bringing)
54. Triple Rhyme: (slithering & withering)
55. Slant Rhyme: also called near rhyme and off rhyme contains hints of sound
repetition (chill & dull & sale)
56. End Rhymes: when rhymes fall in a pattern occurring at the end of a line, then it
is convenient to assign letters to the matching rhymes & then we speak in terms of
a rhyme scheme.
57. Internal Rhyme: rhymes found in the interior of a line
58. Parallel Structure: the repetition of grammatically similar phrases or clauses
59. Anaphora: repeated words or phrases at the beginning of lines of poetry
60. Epistrophe: repeated words or phrases at the end of a lines of poetry
61. Antithesis: the matching of parallel units which contain contrasting meanings
Meter and Rhyme
62. Poetry: a whole genre of literature, standing with fiction and drama as one of the
three major types of writing
63. Verse: a mode of writing in lines of a certain length
64. Mnemonic Verse: information is cast into a form that is easily remembered (“I
before E / Except after C…”)
65. Light Verse or Occasional Verse: lines written for a specific event like a
birthday or an anniversary
66. Prose: writing that is not concerned with meter or line length
67. Prose Poetry: writing that uses language in a poetic manner but avoids any type
of meter
68. Meter: method by which a poet determines line length
69. Prosody: a consistent system of measurements
70. Syllabic Verse: the length of line is determined by counting the total number of
syllables (example an Alexandrine is 12 syllables long)
71. Metrical Feet: common patterns, subdividing the rhythm that makes up the line
72. Iamb or Iambic Foot: one unstressed and one stressed syllable
73. Trochee or Trochaic Foot: one stressed and one unstressed syllable
74. Anapest or Anapestic: two unstressed syllables and one stressed
75. Dactyl or Dactyl: one stressed and two unstressed syllables
76. Breve (U): denotes unstressed syllable
77. Ictus (/): denotes stressed syllable
78. Caesura: a pause within a line, usually indicated by a mark of punctuation
79. End-stopped lines: lines that clearly pause at their conclusion due to punctuation
80. Enjambed Lines: a line of poetry that runs on into the next without a pause
Free Verse, Open Form, and Closed Form
81. Free Verse: verse that has no consistent metrical pattern; line length is a
subjective decision made by the poet, and length may be determined by
grammatical phrases, the poet’s sense of individual “breath units”, or even by the
arrangement of lines on the page; free verse is a fairly recent phenomenon in the
history of poetry, beginning in 1855 with the publication of Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass
82. Stanzas: the arrangement of lines of poetry into blocks of verse
83. Refrain: a repeated line or groups of lines
84. Open Form: a large number of poems composed in the last 100 years do not
contain a strict pattern of regularity
85. Uniform Stanzas: each stanza is of the same form, based upon line length and
syllabic measure
86. Closed Form: there is a pattern of regular meter, stanza, rhyme, or repetition
87. Stanza Forms: consistent patterns in the individual units of the poem (stanza
means room in Italian)
Stanza Forms
88. Blank Verse: not strictly a stanza form because it contains lines of iambic
pentameter that do not rhyme
89. Verse Paragraphs: long poems written in blank verse with stanzas of varying
lines
90. Couplets: paired rhyming lines
91. Tercet: three line stanza (if it rhymes AAA or BBB it is a triplet)
92. Quatrain: four line stanza
93. Quintet: five line stanza
94. Sestet: six line stanza
95. Septet: seven line stanza
96. Octet: eight line stanza
Fixed Forms
97. Sonnet: fourteen lines of rhymed iambic pentameter (the Italian or Petrarchan
Sonnet is usually cast into two stanzas, an octave rhyming aabbaaabbaa and a
sestet with a variable rhyme scheme; cdecde, cdecde, cddcee)
98. Volta: a “turn,” usually a conjunctive adverb like “but” or “then” may appear at
the beginning of a sonnet’s sestet, signifying a slight change in the direction of
thought