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| alliteration | the repetition of identical or similar consonant sounds, normally at the beginnings of words. |
| allusion | a reference in a work of literature to something outside the work, especially to a well-known historical or literary event, person, or work. |
| apostrophe | a figure of speech in which someone (usually, but not always absent), some abstract quality, or a nonexistent personage is directly addressed as though present. |
| assonance | the repetition of identical or similar vowel sounds but different endings. |
| ballad meter | a four-line stanza rhymed abcd with four feet in lines one and three and three feet in lines two and four. |
| blank verse | unrhymed iambic pentameter |
| cacophony | a harsh, unpleasant combination of sounds or tones |
| caesura | a pause, usually near the middle of a line of verse, usually indicated by the sense of the line, and often greater than the normal pause. |
| conceit | an ingenious and fanciful notion or conception, usually expressed through an elaborate analogy, and pointing to a striking parallel between two seemingly dissimilar things |
| consonance | the repetition of similar consonant sounds in a group of words. The term usually refers to words in which the ending consonants are the same but the vowels that precede them are different |
| couplet | a two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same. |
| devices of sound | the techniques of deploying the sound of words, especially in poetry. Among devices of sound are rhyme, alliteration, assonance, consonance, and onomatopoeia. |
| diction | the use of words in a literary work. |
| didactic poem | a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson. |
| elegy | sustained and formal poem setting forth the poet’s meditations upon death or another solemn theme. |
| end-stopped | a line with a pause at the end. |
| enjabment | the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next. |
| extended metaphor | an implied analogy, or comparison, which is carried throughout a stanza or an entire poem. |
| euphony | a style in which combinations of words pleasant to the ear predominate. |
| dramatic poem | a poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends |
| antithesis | a figure of speech characterized by strongly contrasting words, clauses, sentences, or ideas |
| eye rhyme | rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation. |
| feminine rhyme | rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as “waken” and “forsaken” and “audition” and “rendition.” |
| figurative language | writing that uses figures of speech (as opposed to literal language or that which is actual or specifically denoted) such as metaphor, irony, and simile. |
| free verse | - poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. |
| heroic couplet | two end-stopped iambic pentameter lines rhymed aa, bb, cc with the thought usually completed in the two-line unit. |
| hyperbole | a deliberate, extravagant, and often outrageous exaggeration. It may be used for either serious or comic effect. |
| imagery | the images of a literary work; the sensory details of a work; the figurative language of a work. |
| irony | the contrast between actual meaning and the suggestion of another meaning. |
| situational irony | is when the ending is not what is expected |
| dramatic irony | is when we the reader know more than the characters within the poem. |
| internal rhyme | rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end. |
| lyric poem | any short poem that presents a single speaker who expresses thoughts and feelings. |
| masculine rhyme | rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme-words. |
| metaphor | a figurative use of language in which a comparison is expressed without the use of a comparative term like “as,” “like,” or “than.” |
| meter | the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. |
| metonymy | a figure of speech which is characterized by the substitution of a term naming an object closely associated with the word in mind for the word itself. |
| mixed metaphors | the mingling of one metaphor with another immediately following with which the first is incongruous. |
| narrative poem | - a non-dramatic poem which tells a story or presents a narrative, whether simple or complex, long or short. |
| octave | eight-line stanza. |
| onomatopoeia | the use of words whose sound suggests their meaning. |
| oxymoron | 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. |
| paradox | situation or action or feeling that appears to be contradictory but on inspection turns out to be true or at least to make sense. |
| parallelism | a similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry. |
| paraphrase | a restatement of an ideas in such a way as to retain the meaning while changing the diction and form |
| personification | a kind of metaphor that gives inanimate objects or abstract ideas human characteristics. |
| poetic foot | group of syllables in verse usually consisting of one accented syllable and one or two unaccented syllables associated with it. |
| pun | a play on words that are identical or similar in sound but have sharply diverse meanings. |
| quatrain | a four-line stanza with any combination of rhymes. |
| refrain | a group of words forming a phrase or sentence and consisting of one or more lines repeated at intervals in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza. |
| rhyme | close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding positions in two or more lines of verse. |
| rhyme royal | a seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc |
| rhythm | the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. |
| sarcasm | a type of irony in which a person appears to be praising something but is actually insulting it. |
| satire | writing that seeks to arouse a reader’s disapproval of an object by ridicule. |
| scansion | a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the type(s) of feet per line. |
| sestet | a six-line stanza. |
| similie | a directly expressed comparison; a figure of speech comparing two objects, usually with “like,” “as,” or “than.” |
| sonnet | normally a fourteen-line iambic pentameter poem. |
| stanza | usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme. |
| (rhetorical)strategy | the management of language for a specific effect. The strategy or rhetorical strategy of a poem is the planned placing of elements to achieve an effect. |
| structure | the arrangement of materials within a work; the relationship of the parts of a work to the whole; the logical divisions of a work. |
| style | the mode of expression in language; the characteristic manner of expression of an author. |
| symbol | something that is simultaneously itself and a sign of something else. |
| synecdoche | a form of metaphor which in mentioning a part signifies the whole. |
| syntax | the ordering of words into patterns or sentences |
| tercet | a stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme. |
| terza rima | a three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc,etc. |
| theme | the main thought expressed by a work. |
| tone | the manner in which an author expresses his or her attitude; the intonation of the voice that expresses meaning |
| understatement | the opposite of hyperbole |
| villanelle | a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain |
| verbal irony | is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning. |
