| Term | Definition |
|---|
| poetry | the art of rhythmical composition, written or spoken, for exciting pleasure by beautiful, imaginative, or elevated thoughts. |
| narrative poetry | poetry that tells a story with characters, events, and actions |
| folk ballad | a song that is traditionally sung by the common people of a region and forms part of their culture |
| literary ballad | more elaborate and complex than folk ballad |
| lyric ballad | a short poem of songlike quality |
| denotation | is the strict dictionary meaning of a word. |
| connotation | the emotional and imaginative association surrounding a word. |
| imagery | The use of vivid or figurative language to represent objects, actions, or ideas. |
| pattern of imagery | a departure from what users of the language apprehend as the standard meaning of words, or the standard order of words, in order to achieve some special meaning or effect. |
| simile | a comparison between 2 different things using like or as |
| metaphor | an implied comparison that does not use like or as |
| personification | the attributing of human characteristics to something that is not human |
| apostrophe | direct address (talking to) an absent person, and abstract concept, or an inanimate object |
| symbol | something that represents something else (usually concrete stands for abstract) |
| synechdoche | the use of part of something to signify the whole |
| metonomy | the use of something closely related in place of the thing actually meant |
| irony | what actually happens turns out to be the opposite of what was expected or what is said is the opposite of what is meant |
| paradox | a statement that seems to contradict itself at first glance but actually has valid meaning |
| oxymoron | the placement of two words of opposite meaning next to each other |
| hyperbole | a deliberate exaggeration |
| understatement | saying less than one means |
| alliteration | repetition of initial consonant sounds in a line of poetry (tongue twisters) |
| assonance | repetition of vowel sounds in a line of poetry (not necessarily the first letter) |
| consonance | repetition of consonant sounds before and after different vowels |
| onomatopoeia | the use of words that sound like their meaning; the words imitate the sound (pow) |
| rhyme | the similarity of sound between syllables in corresponding positions; repetition of like sounds at regular intervals |
| end rhyme | rhyme which occurs at the end of two or more lines of verse |
| internal rhyme | rhyme which occurs within one line of verse |
| masculine rhyme | one syllable rhyme |
| feminine rhyme | rhyme of the final two syllables |
| polysyllabic rhyme | rhyme of more than two syllables |
| rhyme scheme | the pattern in which rhyming sounds occur in a stanza of a poem; begin with the letter A and continue naming the lines in order according to the last syllable |
| rhythm | the recurrence of accent or stress; the beat of a poem |
| meter | any regular pattern of rhythm; meter is measured in units called feet |
| scansion | the formal analysis of the meter of a poem |
| to scan | to determine the meter of a line of verse by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables |
| foot | a single metrical unit marked by 2 symbols |
| iambic | U / |
| trochaic | / U |
| anapestic | U U / |
| dactylic | / U U |
| spondaic | / / |
| quick foot | iambic, anapestic |
| slow foot | trochaic, anapestic, dactylic, spondaic |
| monometer | one foot |
| dimeter | two feet |
| trimeter | three feet |
| tetrameter | four feet |
| pentameter | five feet |
| hexameter | six feet |
| heptameter | seven feet |
| octameter | eight feet |
| couplet | stanza of 2 lines |
| tercet | stanza of 3 lines |
| quatrain | stanza of 4 lines |
| quintain | stanza of 5 lines |
| sestet | stanza of 6 lines |
| septet | stanza of 7 lines |
| octet/octave | stanza of 8 lines |
| ode | a long lyric poem which is formal in style and serious in subject matter |
| elegy | a lyric poem expressing grief over someone's death |
| sonnet | a lyric poem of 14 lines of iambic pentameter with a particular rhyme scheme |
| caesura | a stop or pause or break within one line of verse as indicated by punctuation |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter. Shakespeare wrote his plays in this |
| free verse | poetry with no set pattern of matter; does not rhyme |
Combine with other sets
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