| A | B |
|---|
| Alliteration | the repetition of the initial letter or sound in two or more words in a line of verse. |
| Assonance | the similarity or repetition of an internal vowel sound in two or more words |
| Caesura | a pause within a poetic line |
| Consonance | the repetition of consonant sounds within a line of verse. |
| Internal rhyme | Rhyme occurring within a single line |
| Meter | The pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables |
| Foot | A unit of meter. |
| Iamb | A two-syllable foot with the stress on the second syllable |
| Spondee | two stressed syllables (pounding rhythm) |
| trochee | A stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable. |
| Anapest | three syllables with the stress on the last syllable. |
| Dactyl | three syllables with the stress on the first syllable |
| Pyrrhic | two unstressed syllables |
| Blank Verse | Unrhymed iambic pentameter (a line of poetry made up of five iambs) |
| Repetition | the reiterating of a word or phrase within a poem. |
| Run-on line | Enjambment; a line of poetry whose meaning and grammatical structure do not stop at the end of the line but run over into the next |
| end-stop: | a pause at the end of a line indicating that the unit of thought also stops. |
| Rhyme | the similarity or likeness of sound existing between two words |
| Stress | Emphasis on one syllable or word over another in poetry |
| Couplet | two-line stanza |
| Quatrain | four-line stanza |
| Lyric | typically short poem expressing the thoughts or feelings of a single speaker |
| Narrative | a poem that tells a story |
| pastoral | a poem, play or story that celebrates and idealizes the simple life of shepherds and shepherdesses. The term has also come to refer to an artistic work that portrays rural life in an idyllic or idealistic way |
| satire | the use of humor to ridicule and expose the shortcomings and failings of society, individuals, and institutions, often in the hope that change and reform are possible. |
| Stanza | The “paragraph” of a poem |
| Ambiguity | Quality of having two or more possible meanings; often used intentionally |
| Attitude | the feeling conveyed by the speaker toward his subject |
| Speaker | The “voice” or narrator of a poem |
| connotation | associations a word calls to mind; what a word suggests beyond its basic definition |
| Denotation | A word’s dictionary definition |
| Diction | A writer’s word choice: elevated vs. colloquial, etc. |
| Figurative language | an expression in which the words are used in a non-literal sense to present a figure, picture, or image |
| Hyperbole | Exaggeration; overstatement |
| Imagery | anything that affects or appeals to the senses |
| Metaphor | an implied comparison between two usually unrelated things indicating a likeness or analogy between attributes found in both things. |
| Onomatopoeia | the use of a word to represent natural sounds |
| Personification | the giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects, ideas, or animals. |
| Paraphrase | To put a poem into one’s own words |
| Simile | a direct or explicit comparison between two usually unrelated things indicating a likeness or similarity between some attribute found in both things; uses like or as to introduce the comparison. |
| Symbol | a word or image that signifies something other than what it literally represents. |
