12 terms
Different Types of Poetry - Definitions (Pack 1)
Learn about different poetry forms and styles.
A type of lyrical stanza, which is elaborately structured. It praises or glorifies an event or individual, describing nature intellectually as well as emotionally. There are three typical forms.
Ode
A traditional lyric poem that is 14 lines long. They normally feature a "turn" somewhere in the middle, where the poem takes a new direction.
Sonnet
A lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily involving a time beyond living memory, describing heroic events.
Epic
A literary device that can be defined as poetry without the limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and does not rhyme with fixed forms.
Free Verse
An Ode with only one stanza type; the style deliberately imitated the Greek lyricists such as Alcaeus and Anacreon.
Horatian Ode
A popular narrative song. In the English tradition, it usually follows a form of rhymed (ABCB) quatrains alternating four-stress and three-stress lines.
Ballad
A form of verse, often humorous and sometimes rude, with a strict rhyme scheme of AABBA.
Limerick
A Japanese poem which has five lines - the first and third composed of five syllables and the rest of seven.
Tanka
A very distinctive style, typically characterised by a three strophe pattern of strophe, antistrophe, and epode. Each new three strophe pattern repeats the meter and rhyme scheme of the first set.
Pindaric Ode
A poetic form invented by the Japanese. Lines follow a pattern of five syllables, seven syllables, and five syllables.
Haiku
Type of poetry consisting of 10- or 11-syllable lines, arranged in three lines with the chain rhyme scheme ABA BCB CDC etc.
Terza rima
A short poem consisting of fifteen lines that have two rhymes throughout. The first few words or phrase from the first line are repeated twice in the poem as a refrain.
Rondeau