American Cultural Studies (E303)
Lieberman, Spring 2010
Literary Terms: The Poetry Edition
Poetry can be classified into three broad categories. Lyric poems are usually short and expressive
of a specific tone, emotion, image, or idea that the poet wants to represent—like most of the poems
we tend to read and write in an English class. Epic poems, like Homer’s Odyssey or Dante’s Divine
Comedy, are substantial book-length narratives, often with mythic dimensions. Dramatic poems are
monologues or conversations that tell a story from the viewpoint of one or more characters.
The line is the basic unit of a poem, much like the sentence is the basic unit of prose. Unlike
sentences, which are organized by punctuation, lines are often organized around patterns of sound,
such as a rhyme scheme (using a particular arrangement of ending sounds that we note in
shorthand with one letter per sound, like AABBA for a limerick) or a meter (using a certain number
and pattern of syllable beats per line, like iambic pentameter).
The end of a line is called a line break. An end-stopped line is one that breaks with a naturally
spoken or grammatically logical pause, also known as a caesura, often indicated by punctuation:
He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ringed with the azure world, he stands.
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from “The Eagle” (1851)
An enjambed line is one that breaks midway through a phrase or thought, at a point when you
would not naturally pause when reading aloud:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams….
- John Keats, from Endymion (1818)
Poems are often structured in one or more stanzas, or groups of lines, much like prose is divided
into paragraphs. Some common stanza types include couplets (a pair of lines), triplets (a set of
three lines), and quatrains (a set of four lines).
Most English-language poets before the 20th-century relied very strictly on rhyme and meter in
their work. They often used fixed forms of poetry, such as the sonnet and the villanelle, which
require specific rules to be followed for the rhyme scheme, stanza pattern, or overall structure.
Many modern and contemporary poets have preferred to use free verse, or poetry that might
contain rhyme, meter, and/or stanzas but not in any set pattern or traditional order.
USES OF SOUND
REPETITION: pairing of identical words
…for instance, “cat” is obviously a repetition of “cat”!
RHYME: pairing of two or more different words with identical ending-sounds
…for instance, “cat” rhymes with “hat,” “splat,” and “laundromat”.
ALLITERATION: repetition of a single sound (usually at the beginnings of words)
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free…
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1817)
ASSONANCE: repetition of similar vowel sounds (usually in the middles of words)
Green as a dream and deep as death.
- Rupert Brooke, from “The Old Vicarage, Grantchester” (1912)
CONSONANCE: repetition of similar consonant sounds (usually at the ends of words)
Their voices rise . . the pine trees are guitars…
- Jean Toomer, from “Georgia Dusk” (1923)
DISSONANCE: grouping of sounds to create a harsh, unpleasant, or chaotic effect
Where spouting pillars spoor the evening sky,
Under the looming stacks of the gigantic power house
Stars prick the eyes with sharp ammoniac proverbs…
- Hart Crane, from “Cape Hatteras” (1930)
ONOMATOPOEIA: use of words whose sounds suggest or imitate their meanings
I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
- Emily Dickinson, from #465 (1862)
The slap and plop were obscene threats.
- Seamus Heaney, from “Death of a Naturalist” (1987)
TYPES OF RHYME
END RHYME: rhyme which occurs at the end of a poetic line
True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learn’d to dance.
’T is not enough no harshness gives offence,—
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
- Alexander Pope, from Essay on Criticism (1711)
INTERNAL RHYME: rhyme which occurs within a poetic line
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley, from “The Cloud” (1820)
…We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
- Gwendolyn Brooks, “We Real Cool” (1960)
MASCULINE RHYME: rhyme which involves only the last syllable of each word
At midnight, at cockcrow, at morning, one certain day
Lo the bridegroom shall come and shall not delay:
Watch thou and pray.
- Christina Rossetti, from “Passing Away, Saith the World, Passing Away” (1860)
FEMININE RHYME: rhyme which involves at least the last two syllables of each word
Once upon a time there was an Italian,
And some people thought he was a rapscallion,
But he wasn’t offended,
Because other people thought he was splendid.
- Ogden Nash, from “Columbus” (1935)
SLANT RHYME: the pairing of words which almost rhyme (but not quite)
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
- Theodore Roethke, from “In a Dark Time” (1964)
EYE RHYME: the pairing of words which are spelled as if they rhyme (but actually don’t)
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove….
- Christopher Marlowe, from “The Passionate Shepherd to His Love” (1599)