Elements of Poetry Terms
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Created by:
attaltaima on January 22, 2011
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Classes:
FHE APE Literature and Composition
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72 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 theme | the central idea of a poem |
| denotation | the dictionary meaning of a word |
| connotation | what a word suggests beyond what it expresses; its overtones of meaning |
| imagery | the representation through language of sense experience |
| figure of speech | any way of saying something other than the ordinary way; a way of saying one thing and meaning another |
| figurative language | language using figures of speech; should not be take literally |
| simile | a means of comparing things that are essentially unlike; the comparison is expressed by a word or phrase (is, as, like) |
| metaphor | a means of comparing things that are essentially unlike; the comparison is not expressed but is created when a figurative term is substituted for the literal term |
| personification | giving the attributes of a human to an animal, an object or a concept |
| apostrophe | addressing someone absent, dead or nonhuman as if it was alive and could respond |
| synecdoche | comparing unlike things; the use of a part for the whole |
| metonymy | comparing unlike things; the use of something closely related for the thing actually meant |
| symbol | something that means more than what it is |
| allegory | a narrative or description that has a second meaning beneath the surface |
| paradox | an apparent contradiction that is nevertheless somehow true |
| overstatement or hyperbole | exaggeration used in the service of truth |
| understatement | saying less than one means (in what is said, or in how it is said) |
| irony | a situation or a use of language involving some kind of incongruity or discrepancy |
| verbal irony | saying the opposite of what one means |
| sarcasm | bitter or cutting speech intending to wound others' feelings |
| satire | ridicule of human folly or vice with the purpose of bringing about reform |
| irony of situation | a discrepancy between the actual circumstances and those that would seem appropriate or between what one anticipates and what comes to pass |
| allusion | a reference to something in history or previous literature |
| total meaning | the experience a poem communicates |
| prose meaning | the part of a poem's total meaning that can be separated out and expressed through paraphrase |
| tone | the writer's or speaker's attitude toward the subject, the reader or herself or himself |
| alliteration | the repetition of initial consonant sounds |
| assonance | the repetition of vowel sounds |
| consonance | the repetition of final consonant sounds |
| rhyme | the repetition of the accented vowel sound and any succeeding consonant sounds. |
| masculine rhyme | when a rhyme involves only one syllable |
| feminine rhyme | when a rhyme involves two or more syllables |
| internal rhyme | when one or more rhyming words are within the line |
| end rhyme | when one or more rhyming words are at the ends of lines |
| approximate rhyme (slant rhyme) | words with any kind of sound similarity |
| rhythm | wavelike reoccurance of motion or sound; the natural rise and fall of language |
| accented (stressed) | in words with more than one syllable, at least one syllable is given more prominence in pronunciation |
| rhetorical stresses | in natural speech, the stressing of words or syllables so as to emphasize meaning and sentence structure |
| end-stopped line | the end of the line corresponds with a natural speech pause |
| run-on line | where the line runs on without pause into the next line |
| caesuras | grammatical or rhetorical pauses that occur within the line |
| free verse | nonmetrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, and in which pauses, line breaks, and formal patterns develop organically from the requirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms |
| prose poem | usually a short composition having the intentions of poetry but written in prose rather than verse |
| meter | the identifying characteristic of rhythmic language that we can tap our feet to |
| foot | the basic unit of meter; normally one accented syllable plus one or two unaccented syllables or maybe none |
| stanza | consists of a group of lines whose metrical pattern is repeated throughout the poem in the same amount of lines |
| metrical variations | departures from the basic metrical pattern |
| substitution | replacing the regular foot with another one |
| extrametrical syllables | extra unaccented syllables added at the beginning or end of lines |
| truncation | the omission of an unaccented syllable at either end of a line |
| scansion | the process of defining the metrical form of a poem |
| grammatical pause | a pause introduced into the reading of a line by a mark of punctuation |
| rhetorical pause | a natural pause, unmarked by punctuation, introduced into the reading of a line by its phrasing or syntax |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| phonetic intensives | words whose sounds to some degree connects with their meaning |
| onomatopoeia | the use of words that sound like what they mean |
| euphony | smooth and pleasant sounding |
| cacophony | rough and harsh sounding |
| structure | the internal ordering of materials; the arrangement of ideas, images, thoughts, and sentences |
| form | external shape; an external pattern of a poem |
| continuous form | a form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning |
| stanzaic form | a form in a series of stanzas: with repeated units having the same number of lines, the same metrical pattern and an identical rhyme scheme |
| fixed form | a form of poem in which the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage or tradition (sonnet, villanelle) |
| sonnet | 14 lines in length and in iambic pentameter. Can be Italian (Petrarchan) or English (Shakespearean) |
| Petrarchan (Italian) sonnet | a sonnet consisting of an ovtave rhyming abbaabba and of a sestet using any arrangement of two or three additional rhymes |
| octave | 1) and 8 lined stanza 2) the first 8 lines of a sonnet, usually the Italian model |
| sestet | 1) a 6 lined stanza 2) the last 6 lines of a sonnet, usually the Italian model |
| Shakespearean (English) sonnet | a sonnet rhyming asascdcdefefgg. Its cotent or structure ideally parallels the rhyme scheme, falling into 3 coordinate quatrains and a concluding couplet; but it can be structured in an octave and a sestet as well. |
| villanelle | a 19 lined fixed form consisting of 5 tercets rhymed aba and a concluding quatrain rhymed abaa, with lines 1 and 3 of the first terect serving as refrains in an alternating pattern through line 15 and repeated in 18 and 19 |
| sentimentality | indulgence in emotion for its own sake; expression of more emotion that an occasion warrants |
| rhetorical poetry | uses a language more glittering and high-flown that its substance warrants. |
| didactic poetry | poetry with a primary purpose to teach or preach |
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