| A | B |
|---|
| accent | same as stress. a syllable given more prominence in pronunciation than its neighbors |
| alliteration | the repitition at close intervals of the initial consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words |
| anapest | a metrical foot consisting of two unaccented syllables followed by one accented syllable (understand) |
| anapestic meter | a meter in which the majority of the feet are anapests |
| anaphora | repitition of an opening word or phrase in a series of lines |
| approximate rhyme | a term used for words in a rhyming pattern that have some kind of sound correspondence but are not perfect rhymes |
| assonance | the repitition at close intervals of the vowel sounds of accented syllables or important words |
| aubade | a poem about dawn; a morning love song; or a poem about the parting of lovers at dawn |
| ballad | a fairly short narrative poem written in a songlike stanza form |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| cacophony | a harsh, discordant, unpleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds |
| caesura | a speech pause occurring within a line |
| consonance | the repitition at close intervals of the final consonant sounds of accented syllables or important words |
| continuous form | that form of a poem in which the lines follow each other without formal grouping, the only breaks being dictated by units of meaning |
| couplet | two successive lines, usually in the same meter, linked by rhyme |
| dactyl | a metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by two unnaccented syllables (merrily) |
| dactylic meter | a meter in which a majority of the feet are dactyls |
| dimeter | a metrical line containing two feet |
| double rhyme | a rhyme in which the repeated vowel is in the second last syllable of the words involved (politely, rightly, sprightly) |
| duple meter | a meter in which a majority of the feet contain two syllables |
| end rhyme | rhymes that occur at the end of lines |
| end-stopped line | a line that ends with a natural speech pause, usually marked by punctuation |
| English sonnet | a sonnet rhyming ababcdcdefefgg. has three coordinare quatrains and a concluding couplet |
| euphony | a smooth, pleasant-sounding choice and arrangement of sounds |
| extected rhythm | the rhythmic expectation set up by the basic meter of a poem |
| extended figure | a figure of speech sustained or developed through a considerable number oflines or through a whole poem |
| extra-metrical syllables | in metrical verse, extra unaccented syllables added at the beginnings or endings of lines; these may be either a feature of the metrical form of a poemor occur as exceptions to the form |
| feminie rhyme | a rhyme in which the repeated accented vowel is in either the second or third last syllable of the words involved (ceiling-appealing) |
| fixed form | a form of poem in which the length and pattern are prescribed by previous usage or tradition |
| folk ballad | a narrative poem designed to be sung, composed by an anonymous author, and transmitted orally for years or generations before being written down |
| foot | the basic unit used in the scansion or measurement of verse. usually contains one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables |
| form | the external pattern or shape of a poem, describable without reference to its content |
| free verse | nonmetrical poetry in which the basic rhythmic unit is the line, and in which pauses, line breaks, and formal patterns develop organically from the requirements of the individual poem rather than from established poetic forms |
| heard rhythm | the actual rhythm of a metrical poem as we hear it when it is read naturally. mostly conforms to but sometimes departs from or modifies the expected rhythm |
| hexameter | a metrical line containing six feet |
| iamb | a meter in which the majority of feet are iambs |
| ininternal rhyme | a rhyme in which one or both of the rhyme-words occurs within the line |
| italian sonnet | a sonnet consisting of an octave rhyming abbaabba and of a sestet using any arrangement of two or three additional rhymes, such as cdcdcd or cdecde |
| limerick | a fixed form consisting of five lines of anapestic meter, the first two trimeter, the next two dimeter, the last line trimeter, rhyming aabba: used exclusively for humorous or nonsense verse |
| masculine rhyme | a rhyme in which the repeated accented vowel sound is in the final syllable of the words involved (dance-pants) |
| meter | the regular patterns of accent that underlie metrical verse; the measureable repitition of accented and unaccented syllables in poetry |
| metrical varitations | departure from the basic metrical pattern |
| monometer | a metrical line containing one foot |
| octave | (1) an eight line stanza (2) the first eight lines of a sonnet, especially one structured in the manner of an italian sonnet |
| onomatopoeia | use of words that supposedly mimic their meaning in their sound |
| pentameter | a metrical line containing five feet |
| phonetic intensive | a word whose sound, by an obscure process, to some degree suggests its meaning |
| prose meaning | that part of a poem's total meaning that can be separated out and exprressed by paraphrase |
| prose poem | usually a short composition having the intentions of poetry but written in prose rather than verse |
| quatrain | (1) a four-line stanza (2) afour-line division of a sonnet marked off by its rhyme scheme |
| refrain | a repeated word, phrase, line, or group of lines, normally at some fixed position in a poem written in stanzaic form |
| rhetorical poetry | poetry using artificially eloquent language, that is, language too high0flown for its occaision and unfaithful to the full complexity of human experience |
| rhetorical stress | in natural speech, such as in prose and poetic writing, the stressing of words or syllables so as to emphasize meaning and sentence structure |
| rhythm | any wavelike recurrence of motion or sound |
| rhyme | the repitition of the accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds in important or importantly positioned words |
| rhyme scheme | any fixed pattern of rhymes characterizing a whole poem or its stanzas |
| run-on line | a line which has no natural speech pause at its end, allowing the sense to flow uninterruptedly into the succeeding line |
| scansion | the process of measuring verse by marking accented and unaccented syllables, dividing the lines into feet, identifying metrical pattern, and noting significant variations from that pattern |
| sentimental poetry | poetry that attempts to manipulate the reader's emotions in order to acheive a greater emotional response than the poem itself really warrants |
| sestet | (1) a six-line stanza (2) the last six lines of a sonnet structured on the italian model |
| sonnet | a fixed form of fourteen lines, normally iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme conforming to or approximating one or two main types |
| spondee | a metrical foot consisting of two syllables equally or almost equally accented (true-blue) |
| stanza | a group of lines whose metrical pattern (and usually its rhyme scheme) is repeated throughout a poem |
| stanzaic form | the form taken by a poem when it is written in a series of units having the same number of lines and usually other characteristics in common, such as metrical pattern or rhyme scheme |
| syllabic verse | verse measured by the number of syllables rather than the number of feet per line |
| tercet | a three line stanza exhibited in terza rime and villanelle as well as in other poetic forms |
| terza rima | an interlocking rhyme scheme with the pattern aba bcb cdc, etc |
| tetrameter | a metrical line containing four feet |
| total meaning | the total experience communicated by a poem. includes all dimensions of experience by which a poem communicates |
| trimeter | a metrical line containing three feet |
| triple meter | a meter in which the majority of the feet contain three syllables (anapestic and dactylic) |
| trochaic meter | a meter in which the majority of feet are trochees |
| trochee | a metrical foot consisting of one accented syllable followed by one unaccented syllable (barter) |
| truncation | in metric verse, the omission of an unaccented syllable at either end of a line |
| verse | metrical language; the opposite of prose |
| villanelle | a nineteen-line fixed form consisting of five tercets rhymed aba and a concluding quatrain rhymed abaa with lines 1 and 3 of the first tercet serving as refrains in an alternating pattern through line 15 and then repeated as lines 18 and 19 |
