Terms, Definitions, and Examples:
1. alliteration - the repetition of consonant sounds in words close together
Five miles meandering with mazy motion
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Kubla Khan)
The turtle lives ‘twixt plated decks
Which partially conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.
In a somer seson whan soft was the sonne,
I shope me in shroudes as I a shepe were,
In habite as an hermite unholy of workes,
Went wyde in this world wondres to here.
- Ogden Nash
(“The Turtle”)
- William Langland
(Piers the Plowman)
2. allusion - a reference in a literary work an author expects the reader to understand
a.
[an ironic use of an allusion by Edward Arlington Robinson]
Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.
Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.
Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.
Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the medieval grace
Of iron clothing.
Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam’s neighbors.
Miniver scorned the gold he sought,
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.
Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.
Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.
b.
[a couple humorous uses of an allusion]
Two brothers devised what at sight
Seemed a bicycle crossed with a kite.
They predicted--rash pair!
It would fly through the air!
And what do you know? They were Wright!
- Laurence Perrine
A monkey sprang down from a tree
And angrily cursed Charles D.
“I hold with the Bible,”
He cried. “It’s a libel
That man is descended from me!”
- Laurence Perrine
c.
[a serious example of an allusion]
Robert Frost composed a poem about a boy with great potential who dies suddenly and
without warning called “Out, Out--”. This refers to a line in Macbeth by William
Shakespeare where Macbeth learns of his wife’s death and says “Out, out, brief candle!”
in a speech referring to the uncertainty of life.
3. assonance - the repetition of vowel sounds in words close together (not exact
rhymes)
Whinnying, neighed the maned blue wind
- Edith Sitwell (“The Drum”)
“mad as a hatter”
“free and easy”
“time out of mind”
“slapdash”
4. ballad - a narrative poem that presents a single dramatic episode that is often
tragic or violent
Ballad of Birmingham
“Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?”
“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren’t good for a little child.”
“But, mother, I won’t be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free.”
“No, baby, no, you may not go,
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children’s choir.”
She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.
The mother smiled to know her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.
For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.
She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
“O, here’s the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?”
- Dudley Randall
5. blank verse - poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
* iambic - two syllables of one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable
* pentameter - five sets of two syllables (for a total of ten syllables) in a line
1 2 3 4 5
6
7 8 9 10
Was this the face that launched a thousand ships
1
2
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
And burned the topless towers of Illium?
(from Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe)
6. consonance - the close repetition of identical consonant sounds before and after
differing vowel sounds
a.
The thicker book beside the plaque
* Notice how the ‘k’ sound is repeated three times with a different vowel
sound before each.
b.
The green frog groans to say the moon is mine
* Notice how the ‘gr’ sound begins green and groan while the ‘n’ sound
comes after the different vowel sounds. Also, notice how the ‘m’ sound
begins moon and mine while the ‘n’ sound comes after the different
vowel sounds.
7. couplet - two consecutive rhymed lines of poetry with the same meter
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8 9 10
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
- Dorothy Parker (“Inventory”)
8. elegy - a poem of sorrow or mourning for the dead
Elegy for Jane: My student, thrown from a horse
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.
Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.
If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.
- Theodore Roethke
9. end rhyme - rhymes found at the ends of lines
I dare not ask a kiss,
I dare not beg a smile,
Lest having that, or this,
I might grow proud the while.
No, no, the utmost share
Of my desire shall be
Only to kiss that air
That lately kissed thee.
- Robbery Herrick (“To Electra”)
10. haiku - a lyric poem, originating in Japan, that captures the essence of a moment
in a simple image (consists of 3 lines and 17 syllables)
The cold winter wind
writes it message in shivers
on the drifting snow.
The falling flower
I saw drift back to the branch
Was a butterfly.
- Georgian Tashjian
- Moritake
11. hyperbole - obvious exaggeration for effect
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow,
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze:
Two hundred to adore each breast;
But thirty thousand to the rest;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should slow your heart.
For, lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
- Andrew Marvell (“To His Coy Mistress”)
Alfred, Lord Tennyson says an eagle is “Close to the sun in lonely lands” in “The
Eagle.”
Robert Frost says “I shall be telling this with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence”
in “The Road Not Taken.”
A frustrated parent says, “I’ve told you a million times not to do that!”
A hungry teenager says, “I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse.”
12. initial rhyme - when the rhymes in a poem appear at the beginning of a line
I watch the racers struggle by,
while you breeze through that arduous mile.
May you feel the warmth of triumph upon this day,
and hear the cheers over the melody of the band.
- Cloke (“The Race”)
13. internal rhyme - when the rhymes in a poem appear in the middle of a line
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley (“The Cloud”)
14. meter - a pattern of accented and unaccented syllables in lines of poetry
foot - the basic unit of rhythm consisting of at least one accented syllable ( ) and
one or more unaccented syllables ( )
Feet
Meter
iambic
monometer (1 foot)
dimeter (2 feet)
trimeter (3 feet)
tetrameter (4 feet)
pentameter (5 feet)
hexameter (6 feet)
heptameter (7 feet)
trochaic
anapestic
dactylic
15. onomatopoeia - the use of words whose sound imitates the sound of the thing
being named
hum
clang
hiss
twitter
buzz
bark
Come unto these yellow sands,
And then take hands.
Curtsied when you have and kissed,
The wild waves whist.*
Foot it featly* here and there,
And, sweet sprites, the burden* bear.
Hark, hark!
Bow-wow.
The watch dogs bark!
Bow-wow.
Hark, hark! I hear
The strain of strutting chanticleer
Cry, “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”
crack
meow
*being hushed
* nimbly
*refrain
- William Shakespeare (“Song: Come unto these yellow sands”)
16. refrain - a phrase, line, or group of lines repeated at intervals in a poem
“O where hae ye been, Lord Randal” (a folk ballad)
“With a hey and a ho and a hey nonny no” (Shakespeare)
“Nevermore” (Poe)
“Disdain me not” (Wyatt)
17. rhythm - the patterned flow of sound in poetry and prose (also known as
cadence)
18. stanza - a section or division of a poem (like a paragraph in prose)
so much depends
upon
so much more depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
a grey remote
control
glazed with rain
water
sitting on a coffee
table
beside the white
chickens
beside the TV
Guide
- William Carlos Williams
- Chris Cloke
19. tone - the author’s attitude towards the reader; can be comparable to tone of
voice
20. verse - often used as a synonym for poetry but usually refers to poems of lesser
literary value (though they are still metrical and rhymed)