| A | B |
|---|
| alliteration | the repetition of initial consonant sounds: she sells seashells by the seashore |
| asonance | the repetition of vowel sounds followed by different consonants: wak and weary |
| blank verse | poetry written in unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| concrete poem | a poem with a shape that suggests its subject |
| couplet | a pair of rhyming lines |
| dramatic poetry | poetry in which the speaker is a character like one in a play, or drama |
| epic | a long narrative poem abou the deeds of gods or heroes |
| extended metaphor | a subject is spoken or written of as though it were something else |
| figurative language | writing or speech not meant to be interpreted literally |
| free verse | poetry that does not have a regular pattern of rhyme or rhythm |
| haiku | a three-line, seventeen syllable poem |
| imagery | description that appeals to the five senses |
| lyric poem | a poem that expresses the feelings and abservations of the speaker |
| metaphor | a figure of speech in which one thing is spoken as if it were something else |
| meter | the rhythmical pattern of a poem determined by the number and types of stresses |
| mood | the feeling created in the reader by a literary work or passage |
| narrative poem | a poem that tells a story |
| onomatopoeia | the use of words that imitate sounds |
| personification | figurative language in which a non-human subject is given human characteristics |
| poetry | one of the three major types of literature, the others being prose and drama |
| prose | the ordinary form of written language |
| refrain | a repeated line or group of lines in a poem or song |
| repetition | the repeated use of any element of language |
| rhyme | the repetition of sounds at the ends of words |
| end rhyme | rhyming words at the ends of lines of poetry |
| internal rhyme | rhyming words that appear in the same line |
| rhyme scheme | a regular pattern of rhyming words in a poem determined by using different letters of the alphabet for each new rhyme |
| rhythm | the pattern of beats or stresses in a line of poetry |
| simile | a figure of speech in which like or as is used to make a comparison between two basically unlike ideas |
| sonnet | a fourteen-line lyric poem |
| stanza | a formal division of lines in a poem |
| quatrain | a four-line stanza |
| cinquain | a five-line stanza |
| sestet | a six-line stanza |
| octave | an eight-line stanza |
| symbol | anything that stands for or represents something else |
| tone | the writer's attitude toward his or her audience or subject |
| ballad | a story told in verse and usually meant to be sung |
| consonance | repetition of end consonants as in an alternative to full rhyme |
| pun | a play on words based on different meanings of words that sound alike |
| parallelism | the use of similar grammatical structures in successive lines of verse |
| folk ballad | a ballad composed anonymously and passed down by word of mouth for generations |
