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Alliteration is the
repetition of initial consonant sounds in neighboring words as in
"wet, wild, and wooly." Many poetic examples of alliteration can
be found in song lyrics. "…though the tangled trails of time have
led us far astray, the memory seems to stay" (from "Sounds of
Silence," Paul Simon)
Allusion is a reference to a mythological,
literary or historical person, place, or thing. "He met his
Waterloo." Allusion has become a problem for some modern readers
because people no longer share the same backgrounds. A century ago, an
allusion to the Bible supposed no special knowledge; a century ago, among
literate people, it was not obscure to speak of Greek deities like Apollo
or Aphrodite; a century ago, even scientific knowledge was commonly held,
partly because there was relatively little of it compared to today.
Blank verse is an unrhymed form of poetry
that normally consists of ten syllables in which every other syllable,
beginning with the second, is stressed. Since blank verse is often used in
very long poems, such as Frost's "Death of the Hired Man," it
may depart from the strict pattern from time to time to avoid monotony.
Canto is a division of a long poem.
Caesura is a pause or sudden break in a line
of poetry.
Couplet consists of two lines of verse with
similar end rhymes.
Closed couplet is two successive lines
rhyming aa and containing within the two lines a complete, independent
statement. Its meaning is complete and does not depend on what goes before
or follows for its grammatical structure or thought. A heroic couplet is
written in iambic pentameter.
Consonance is the repetition of consonant
sounds, especially in poetry. Consonance is similar to alliteration except
that it is not limited to the first letter of each word, as is
alliteration: "…and high school girls with clear skin smiles…"
(from "At Seventeen," Janis Ian).
End rhyme is the rhyming of words which
appear at the ends of two or more lines of poetry.
Foot is a unit of meter which denotes the
combination of stressed and unstressed syllables.
Iambic: an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable (repeat)
Anapestic: two unstressed followed by a stressed syllable
(interrupt)
Trochaic: a stressed followed by an unstressed syllable (older)
Dactylic: a stressed followed by two unstressed syllables (openly)
Spondaic: two stressed syllables (heartbreak)
Pyrrhic: two unstressed syllables (Pyrrhic is very rare and seldom
appears by itself.)
Free verse is poetry that does not have a
regular meter or rhyme scheme: Edgar Lee Master's "Silence" is
written in free verse.
Haiku is a form of Japanese poetry which has
three lines; the first line has five syllables, the second has seven
syllables, and the third line has five syllables. The subject of the haiku
has traditionally been nature as in:
Behind me the moon
Brushes shadows of pine trees
Lightly on the floor.
Internal rhyme occurs when the rhyming words
appear in the same line of poetry: "We'll drink a toast to those who
most believe in what they've won" (from "Tea and Sympathy,"
Janis Ian)
Lyric is a short verse that is intended to
express the emotions of the author; quite often these lyrics are set to
music.
Meter is the repetition of stressed and
unstressed syllables in a line of poetry. (See Foot.)
Ode is a lyric poem written to someone or
something. It is serious and elevated in tone. Allen Tate's "Ode to
the Confederate Dead" is a eulogy (words of high praise) written for
the Southern soldiers after the Civil War.
Onomatopoeia is the use of a word whose sound
suggests its meaning, as in clang, buzz, and twang.
Oxymoron is a form of paradox that combines a
pair of contrary terms into a single expression. This combination usually
serves the purpose of shocking the reader into awareness. "Sweet
sorrow." "Wooden nickel."
Paradox is a statement which at first seems
contradictory but which turns out to have a profound meaning as in Bob
Dylan's lyric: "I was so much older then; I'm younger than that
now."
Pastoral is a poem or dramatic work that was
originally characterized by an ideal look at shepherd and rustic life. The
term has since been extended to include any work that deals with the
subject of rural life.
Psalm is a sacred or religious song or lyric.
Pun is a play on words that are identical or
similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings. Puns can have serious
as well as humorous uses. When Mercutio is bleeding to death in Romeo and
Juliet, he says to his friends, "Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall
find me a grave man."
Refrain is the repetition of a line or phrase
of a poem at regular intervals, especially at the end of each stanza. The
refrain in a song is called the chorus.
Repetition is the repeating of a word or
phrase, or rewording of the same idea, within a poem or prose piece to
secure emphasis. Employed by deliberate design, it adds force and clarity
to a statement.
Rhyme is the similarity or likeness of sound
existing between two words. Sat and cat are perfect rhymes because the
vowel and final consonant sounds are exactly the same.
Rhymed verse is a verse with end rhyme; it
usually has regular meter.
Sarcasm is a type of irony in which a person
appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it. Its purpose
is to injure or hurt. "As I fell down the stairs headfirst, I heard
her say, 'Look at that coordination.'"
Stanza is a division of poetry named for the
number of lines it contains:
Couplet: two-line stanza Sestet: six-line stanza
Triplet: three-line stanza Septet: seven-line stanza
Quatrain: four-line stanza Octave: eight-line stanza
Quintet: five-line stanza
(Note: All others are called nine-, ten-, eleven-, and so on, line
stanzas.)
Verse is a metric line of poetry. It is named
according to the kind and number of feet composing it: iambic pentameter,
anapestic tetrameter…
Monometer: one foot Pentameter: five feet
Dimeter: two feet Hexameter: six feet
Trimeter: three feet Heptameter: seven feet
Tetrameter: four feet Octometer: eight feet
Verse is usually found in one of three forms: rhymed, blank, or free
verse.
Sonnet is a poem that consists of fourteen
lines of iambic pentameter. There are two popular forms of the sonnet, the
Italian (or Petrarchan) and the Shakespearean (or English).
Italian (Petrarchan) sonnet has two parts: an
octave of eight lines (abba, abba) and a sestet of six lines, rhyming cde,
cde or cdc, cdc or cde, dce. Often a question is raised in the octave with
a response in the sestet.
Shakespearean (English or Elizabethan) sonnet
consists of three quatrains and a final rhyming couplet. The rhyme scheme
is abab, cdcd, efef, gg. Usually, the question or theme is set forth in
the quatrains while the answer or resolution appears in the final couplet.
Figures of Speech
Antithesis is a direct contrast of
structurally parallel word groupings, generally for the purpose of
contrast. "Sink or swim." "Ask not what your country can do
for you. Ask what you can do for your country." (John F. Kennedy).
Apostrophe is a form of personification in
which the absent or dead are spoken to as if present and the inanimate as
if animate. "O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done."
"Milton! Thou shoulds't be living at this hour."
Hyperbole is an exaggeration or
overstatement: "I was so embarrassed, I could have died."
Understatement (meiosis) is the opposite of
hyperbole. It is a kind of irony that deliberately represents something as
being much less than it really is. "I could probably manage to
survive on a salary of two million dollars per year."
Litotes (li' ta-tez) is a form of
understatement in which something is expressed by a negation of the
contrary. "He was a man of no small means (meaning of considerable
means).
Metaphor is a comparing of two unlike things
in which no words of comparison (like or as) are used. "That new kid
in our class is really a squirrel."
Personification is a literary device which
endows animals, ideas, abstractions and inanimate objects with human form,
character or sensibilities; the representing of imaginary creatures or
things as having human personalities, intelligence and emotions.
Simile is a comparison of two unlike things
in which a word of comparison (like or as) is used. "My love is like
a red, red rose".
Symbol is the use of one object to represent
an idea.
Synecdoche is a form of metaphor where a part
of something is used to represent the whole. "All hands on
deck." (Hands is being used to represent the whole person.) Also, the
reverse, whereby the whole can represent a part, is synecdoche.
"Canada played the United States in the Olympic hockey finals."
Another form of synecdoche involves the container representing the thing
being contained. "The pot is boiling." In one last form, the
material from which an object is made stands for the object itself.
"The quarterback tossed the pigskin." In metonymy, the name of
one thing is applied to another thing with which is it closely associated.
"I love Shakespeare."
Tone: Tone
is the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; it is the
intonation of voice which expresses meaning. Tone may shift from paragraph
to paragraph, or even from line to line; it is the result of allusion,
diction, figurative language, imagery, irony, motif, symbolism, syntax and
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