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Poetry terms!! AP Literature - Bell
Poetry Term
Definition
Foot & meter
Measurement of rhythm in poetry using
weak and strong stresses to create a meter
that is made up of several feet.
anapest
A foot with two weak stresses followed by
one strong stress.
A two syllable foot with a strong syllable
followed by a weak one
Three syllable metrical foot consisting of a
strong stress followed by two weak stresses
Most common foot, with one weak stress
followed by one strong stress
Foot composed of two successive syllables
with equal weak stresses
A foot of two successive syllables with
equal strong stresses
The act of determining a poems rhythm
The rising and falling of the rhythm of
speech
A section of poetry set apart like a
paragraph
Trochee
dactyl
Iamb
pyrrhic
spondee
scansion
Cadence
Stanza
Ballad
Sonnet
Apostrophe
Villanelle
Aubade
Blank verse
Free Verse
Lyric
Extended metaphor
Poem/song that tells a story, narrative folk
song
14 line lyric poem of a single stanza of
iambic pentameter – Elizabethan
(Shakespearian) and Petrarchan
A direct and explicit address to an absent
person or non-human identity
19 line lyric poem that relies heavily on
repetition. The first and third lines alternate
which are structured in five tercets and one
quatrain
Love lyric poem complaining about the
arrival of the dawn when the speaker must
part from the lover
Unrhymed iambic pentameter
Poetry not written in a regular rhythm or
meter
Song-like poem that expresses the
observations and subjective feelings of a
single speaker
A metaphor that is developed (can be a few
sentences to much, much longer)
Example
Dimeter – two feet
Trimeter – three
Tetrameter - four
Pentameter – five
Disembark
Never
Mightiest
Afraid
My way is to begin with the
beginning.
Good, strong
Tercet – three line stanza
Quatrain – four line stanza
Sestet – six line stanza
Octet – eight line stanza
Shakespearian – abab, cdcd, efef, gg
Petrarchan – abba, abba, cde, cde
Or abba, abba, cd, cd, cd
Donne “The Sun Rising”
One equal temper of heroic hearts/
Made weak by time and fate but
strong in will…
Poetry terms!! AP Literature - Bell
conceit
Figure of speech which establishes a
striking parallel, usually elaborate or farfetched, between dissimilar things
Caesura
A pause in the middle of a line of poetry
dictated by sense of natural rhythm and
emphasis
Concrete
Able to perceive with the five senses – also
another term for a shape poem
Masculine rhyme
Only the last, accented syllable of the
rhyming words correspond exactly in
sound (most common in end rhyme)
Feminine rhyme
Two consecutive syllables of the rhyme
words correspond – double rhyme
slant rhyme
A rhyme that is close but not quite 100%
(half rhyme or
rhyming – can also be a visual rhyme like
approximate rhyme) slaughter and laughter
Internal rhyme
Rhymes contained within a line of verse
elegy
Formal, sustained poetic lament for the
death of a particular person
enjambment
Run-on lines, the continuation of a
sentence from one verse line to the next
without end-stop punctuation
epic
Book-length narrative poem
limerick
Humorous light verse in five anapestic
lines rhyming aabba with a beat of 8
syllables in the first two and last line and
five syllables in lines 3 &4
haiku
Japanese verse in three line of 5-7-5
syllables often depicting nature imagery
Epigram
Short, pointed poem which often ends with
a surprising or witty turn of thought
Heroic couplet
Iambic pentameter which rhyme in pairs
(aa, bb, cc)
inversion
Reversing the natural grammatical word
order for a poet to achieve a rhyme and
rhythm
Long lyric poem that is usually serious and
elevated in style dedicated to an object or
person
Poem expressing the nostalgic image of the
peace and simplicity of the life of
shepherds and other rural folk in an idyllic
setting
A phrase, verse, or stanza repeated
throughout a poem, especially at the end of
a stanza
Ode
Pastoral
Refrain
Metaphysical poets like John Donne
about the flea and sex
Flood-tide below me! I see you face
to face.
Herbert’s poem (Easter Wings)
She walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
Flying and dying
Sun and scud
The splendor falls on castle walls
He will not see
me stopping here.
The Odyssey
There was an old man at the Cape
Who made himself garments of crape
When asked “will they tear?”
He replied “here and there.”
But they keep such a beautiful shape!
The lightening flashes
And slashing through the darkness
A night-heron’s screech.
Swans sing before they die, ‘twere no
bad thing/ should certain people die
before they sing!
You knock your pate and fancy wit
will come/ knock as you please,
there’s nobody at home.
Whose woods these are I think I
know.
“Ode to the West Wind”
Poetry terms!! AP Literature - Bell
Rhyme scheme
Pattern of a poem’s rhyme usually
indicated by assigning a letter of the
alphabet to each rhyme
Closed form
Characterized by regularity and
consistency in such elements as rhyme, line
length, metrical pattern (open form is like
free verse)
Mixed metaphor
the mingling of one metaphor with another “I smell a rat. I see it floating in the
immediately following with which the first air. I shall nip it in the bud.”
is incongruous.
parallelism
a similar grammatical structure within a
Till the bridge you will need be
line or lines of poetry
form’d, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling
catch somewhere, O my soul.
euphony
Fill in the definitions and examples for
these last ones – you should already know
them!
cacophony
assonance
consonance
alliteration
connotation
AP plus poetry terms – as a bonus on the test
amphibrach
A foot with unstredded, stressed,
unstressed syllables
anacrusis
An extra unaccented syllable at the
beginning of a line before the regular meter
begins
amphimacer
A foot with stressed, unstressed, stressed
syllables
catalexis
An extra unaccented syllable at the end of
a line after the regular meter ends
Terza Rima
a three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb,
cdc,etc. Dante’s Divine Comedy is written
in terza rima.
chicago
Mine by the right of the white
election.
attitude
I’ll tell you how the sun rose.