Vocabulary of Poetry
Terms
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- apostrophe
- a technique by which a writer address an inanimate object, an idea, or a person who is either dead or absent
- refrain
- a word, phrase, line, or group of lines that is repeated, for effect, several times in a poem
- sestet
- six lines of poetry, especially the last six lines of a Petrarchan, or Italian sonnet
- hyperbole
- a figure of speech that uses an incredible exaggeration, or overstatement, for effect
- sonnet
- a fourteen-line poem, usually written in iambic pentameter, that has one of two basic structures (Petrarchan, or Italian, and English, Elizabethan, or Shakespearean)
- quatrain
- a poem consisting of four lines, or four lines of a poem that can be considered as a unit
- epic
- a long narrative poem, written in heightened language, which recounts the deeds of a heroic character who embodies the values of a particular society
- onomatopoeia
- the use of a word whose sound imitates or suggests its meaning
- spondee
- a metrical foot consisting of two syllables, both of which are stressed
- metonymy
- a figure of speech in which a person, place, or thing is referred to by something closely associated with it
- blank verse
- poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter
- simile
- a figure of speech that makes an explicit comparison between two unlike things, using a word such as like, as, than, or resembles
- alliteration
- the repetition of the same or similar consonant sounds in words that are close together
- concrete poem
- a poem in which the words are arranged on a page to suggest a visual representation of the subject
- ballad
- a song or poem that tells a story
- iamb
- a metrical foot in poetry that has an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable, as in the word protect
- trochee
- a metrical foot made up of an accented syllable followed by an unaccented syllable, as in the word taxi
- ode
- a lyric poem, usually long, on a serious subject and written in dignified language
- foot
- a metrical unit of poetry
- metaphor
- a figure of speech that makes a comparison between two unlike things without the use of such specific words of comparison as like, as, than, or resembles
- lyric poem
- a poem that does not tell a story but expresses the personal feelings or thoughts of a speaker
- allusion
- a reference to someone or something that is known from history, literature, religion, politics, sports, science, or some other branch of culture
- couplet
- two consecutive rhyming lines of poetry
- iambic pentameter
- a line of poetry that contains five iambic feet
- caesura
- a pause or break within a line of poetry
- meter
- a pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in poetry
- octave
- an eight-line poem, or the first eight lines of a Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet
- free verse
- poetry that does not conform to regular meter or rhyme scheme
- elegy
- a poem of mourning, usually about someone who had died
- cadence
- the natural, rhythmic rise and fall of a language as it is spoken