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Poetry Terms
Poetry terms for Intro to Literature
42
Literature
Undergraduate 1
12/13/2009

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Term

Alliteration -

Definition

The repetition of consonant sounds, especially at the beginning of words. 

Example: Fetched fresh, as I suppose, off some sweet wood”. “In the Valley of the Elwy”.


Term

 

Anapest- 

 

Definition

 

Two unaccented syllables followed by an accented one, as in comprehend or intervene. An anapestic meter rises to the accented beat as in Byron’s lines from “The Destruction of Sennacherib”: and the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, / When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee”. 


 

Term
Assonance
Definition

 The repetition of similar vowel sounds in a sentence or a line of poetry or prose, as in “I rose and told him of my woe”. Witman’s “When I heard the learn’d Astronomer”. Contains assonantal “I’s” in the following lines: “How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself”.


Term
Blank Verse
Definition

 

A line of poetry or prose in unrhymed iambic pentameter. 


 

Term
Connotation
Definition

The associations called up by a word that go beyond its dictionary meaning. Poets, especially, tend to use words rich in connotation. Dylan Thomas’s 

“Do not go gentle into that good night”, includes intensely connotative language, as in these lines “Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright/ Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay/ Rage, rage, against the dying of the light.”

 

Term
Convention
Definition

A customary feature of a literary work, such as the use of a chorus in Greek tragedy, the inclusion of an explicit moral in a fable, or the use of a particular rhyme scheme in a villenelle. Literary conventions are defining feature of particular literary genres, such as novel, short story, ballad, sonnet, and play.


Term
Couplet
Definition

A pair of rhymed lines that may or many not constitute a separate stanza in a poem. Shakespeare’s sonnets end in rhymed couplets, as in “For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings / That then I scorn to change my state with kings”.


Term
Dactyl
Definition

 

A stressed Syllable followed by two unstressed ones, as in flut-ter-ing or blue-ber-r-y. 

Higgledy Piggledy / Gibbering Jabbering

 

 

Term
Denotation
Definition

The dictionary meaning of a word. Writers tyipcally play off a word’s denotative meaning against its connotations, or suggested and implied associational implications. In the following lines from Peter Meinke’s “Advice to my son” the references to flowers and fruit, bread and wine denote specific things, but also suggest something beyond the literal, dictionary meanings of the words

 

To be specific, between the peony and rose

Plan squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;

Beauty is nectar and nectar, in a desert, saves -- 

...

and always serve bread with your wine

But, son,

always serve wine


Term
Dramatic Monologue
Definition

A type of poem in which a speaker addresses a silent listener. As readers, we overhear the speaker in a dramatic monologue. Robert Brownings “My Last Duchess” represents the epitome of this genre.


Term
Enjambment
Definition

 

 run-on line of poetry in which logical and grammatical sense carries over from one line into the next. . 

 

That’s my last Duchess painted on the wall, 

Looking as if she were alive, I call

That piece a wonder, now.....

 

 

Term
Figurative Language
Definition

 A from of language use in which writers and speakers convey something other than the literal meaning of their words. Examples include hyperbole or exaggeration, litotes, or understatement, simile and metaphor, which employs comparison, and synecdoche and metonymy, in which a part of a thing stands for the whole.


Term
Foot
Definition

 A metrical unit composed of stressed and unstressed syllables. For example, an iamb, or iambic foot is represented by an unaccented syllable followed by an accented one. Frost’s line “Whose woods are these I think I know” contains four iambs, and is thus an iambic foot.

 

Term
Free Verse
Definition

 

Poetry without a regular pattern of meter or rhyme. 

 

Term
Iamb
Definition

An unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one.

Term
Iambic Pentameter
Definition

-A poetic line of five iambic feet. “When in disgrace with fortune and mens eyes”


Term
Image
Definition

 

A concrete representation of a sense impression, a feeling, or an idea. 


 

Term
Imagery
Definition

 

The pattern of related comparative aspects of language, particularly of images, in a literary work. 

 

Term
Lyric Poem
Definition

 A type of poem characterized by brevity, compression, and the expression of feeling. Most of the poems in this book are the lyrics. The anonymous “Western Wind” epitomizes this genre:

 

Western Wind, when will thou blow,

The small rain down can rain?

Christ, if my love were in my arms

And I in my bed again!


Term
Meter
Definition

A measured pattern of rhythmic accents in poems.


Term
Metonymy
Definition

A figure of speech in which a closely related term is substituted for an object or idea. An example “We have always remained loyal to the crown”

Term
Narrative Poem
Definition

A poem that tells a story, See Ballad.

Term
Octave
Definition

An eight-line unit, which may constitute a stanza or a section of a poem, as in the octave of a sonnet.


Term

Onomatopoeia-

Definition

The use of words to imitate the sounds they describe. Words such as “buzz” and “crack” are onomatopoetic. The following from Pope’s “Sound and Sense” Onomatopoetically imitates in sound what it describes.

When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,

The line too labors, and the words move slow.

 

Term
Personification
Definition

The endowment of inanimate objects or abstract concepts with animate or living qualities.


Term
Quatrain
Definition

A four-line stanza in a poem, the first four lines and the second four lines in a petrarchan sonnet. A shakespearian sonnet contains three quatrains followed by a couplet. 

 

Term
Rhyme
Definition

The matching of final vowel or consonant sounds in two or more words. The following stanza of Richard Cory employs alternate rhyme, with the third line rhyming with the first and the fourth with the second: 

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him;

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored and imperially slim


Term
Rhythm
Definition

The recurrence of accent or stress in lines of verse. In the following lines from “Same in Blues” by Langston Hughes, the accented words and syllables are underlined:

I said to my baby,

Baby take it slow...

Lulu said to Leonard,

I want a diamond ring.

 

Term
Sestet
Definition

 A six-line unit of verse constituting a stanza or section of a poem; the last six lines of an Italian sonnet.


Term
Sestina
Definition

A poem of thirty-nine lines written in iambic pentameter. Its six-line stanzas repeat in an intricate and prescribed order the final word in each of the first six lines. After the sixth stanza, there is a three-line envoi, which uses the six repeating words, two words, two per line.


Term
Sonnet
Definition

A fourteen-line poem in iambic pentameter. The shakespearian or english sonnet is arranged as three quatrains and a final couplet, rhyming abab cdcd efef gg. The Petrarchan or Italian sonnet divides into two parts: and eight-line octave and a six-line sestet, rhyming abba abba cde cde or abba abba cd cd cd.


Term
Spondee
Definition

A metrical foot represented by two stressed syllables, such as knick-knack.

Term
Stanza
Definition

 A division of unit of a poem that is repeated in the same form-- either with similar or identical patters or rhyme and meter, or with variations from one stanza to another. The stanzas of Rita Dove’s “Canary” are irregular.


Term
Synecdoche
Definition

 a figure of speech in which a part is substituted for the whole. An example: Lend me a hand.


Term
Tercet
Definition

 A three-line stanza, as exemplified by shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”. The three-line stanzas or sections that together constitute the sestet of a Petrarchan or Italian sonnet.

 

Term
Trochee
Definition

An accented Syllable followed by an unaccented one, as in football


Term
Villanelle
Definition

A 19 line lyric poem that relies heavily on repetition. The first and third lines alternate throughout the poem, which is structured in 6 stanzas- five tercets and a concluding quatrain. Examples: Bishop’s “One Art”, Roethke’s “The Walking”.


Term
Tone
Definition
The implied attitude of a writer towards the subject and characteristics of a work
Term
Theme
Definition
The idea of a literary work abstracted from its details of language, character, and action, and cast in the form of a generalization
Term
Allegory
Definition
A symbolic narrative in which the surface details imply a secondary meaning, Allegory often takes the form of a story in which the characters represent a moral quality.
Term
Flashback
Definition
An interruption of a work's chronology to describe or present an incident that occurred prior to the main time from of a work's actions
Term
Foreshadowing
Definition
Hints of what is to come in the action of a play or a story
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