Poetry Final Vocabulary

Tone
Attitude. Speakers attitude towards the subject or topic. Influences the reader’s attitude toward the subject and towards the speaker. Poets reveal tone through the words selected, as well as other factors.

Intonation
the way something is said

Satiric Poetry
Blends criticism with humor to convey a point, often conveying a message by ridiculing a person or group and/or some aspect of human behavior.

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Irony
Implies a discrepancy. Comes in several forms

Verbal Irony
Character says something but means something else, often the opposite.

Sarcasm
an extreme form of verbal irony in which the comment is conspicuously sharp or bitter

situational irony
readers expect a certain outcome but something else happens entirely, surprises readers with a twist

Dramatic irony
A situation in which the character says something that the audience (who knows more then him) knows to be untrue or somehow wrong. sometimes known as tragic irony.

Tragic Irony
same as dramatic

Cosmic Irony/Irony of Fate
When the fates seem to have a cruel sense of humor and use it to conspire against human beings. expectation that humans will be successful, but then through some unexpected force, they are thwarted.

Image
A thing seen. in poetry a word or sequence of words that refers to any sensory ecperiance

VIsual Image
sight

Auditory Image
Sound

Tactile Image
Touch

Olfactory Image
Smell

Imagery
all images in a given poem or text taken together

Imagism
movement founded by Pound and inspired by HD which put forth the idea that the poem was the image.

In an effort to revolt against old tired forms, the Imagists (a subset of modernism) looked at the new ways to capture imaginative ideas, and the image provided the perfect way to experience the world in an immediate way. The object or image is all important here, and the reader is left to discern the significance of the image offered.

haiku
17 syllable Japanese poem, 5-7-5 syllables, captures the intensity of a single moment, usually linking two concrete images. it tends to be seasonal/nature oriented, and maintains a view of nature in which nature and observer are not separate.

Coleridge’s distinction between prose and poetry
prose is “words in their best order” while poetry is “the best words in the best order”

Explication
Literally “unfolding” the entire poem is explained in detail, addressing every element and unraveling any complexity as a means of analysis.

Symbol
Something that, while it is in the interest and important in and of itself, also suggests something larger and more complex than the literal – often and idea or range of interrelated ideas, attitudes and practices.

Conventional symbol
symbols traditionally recognized to have a standard meaning, so that a red rose would symbolize love, or a skill and crossbones would indicate death or danger.

Iconography
the visual or pictorial representation of a symbol, as a picture of a crown represents power and royalty, qualities beyond the literal round metal bejeweled hat.

Symbolic act
an action whose significance goes beyond literal meaning

Allegory
presents an abstract idea through concrete means.

for instance typically allegories are narrative stories that have at least two levels of meaning: the surface story plus the larger meaning it suggests. Aesop’s fables are kinda of allegories.

Parable
A short, realistic, illustrative story intended to teach a moral or religious story, a type of allegory.

unlike other kinds of allegories, parables are written in response to specific situations. Most famous are those told by jesus including the prodigal son.

Figurative Language
Describes one thing by relating it to something else.

Figures of speech
poetic language that relies NOT on literal meaning but on connotations, suggestions, and most often, comparisons

Simile
comparisons between unlike objects using “like” or “as” or a verb like “resembles”. He eats like a pig.

Metaphor
comparison between unlike objects that does NOT use like or as, but uses the verb “to be”. He IS a pig.

Larger in its scope than a simile.

Implied Metaphor
metaphor that does not use the verb “to be” instead the reader has to take an extra step to understand the comparison. “John crowed over his victory” implies John is a rooster.

Extended Metaphors
When entirety of poem is one long, involved metaphor

Pun
Play on words. reminds us of another word or words that are similar in sounds but have different denotation.

A malta Millionaire

Apostrophe
direct address to a person or object not usually spoken to. Could be inanimate object, dead, or absent, and abstraction. Dramatizes non-humans in human terms.

Hyperbole
(Overstatement) exaggeration.

overstatement. poets sometimes exaggerate to provide emphasis

Personification
bestowing human characteristics on an inhuman or inanimate object or abstract notion

Understatement
opposite of Hyperbole, this technique is ironic and creates emphasis in the other direction, by minimizing the importance or grandeur of a given subject

metonymy
FOS in which the name of something is substituted for that of another, closely related thing: The White House released a statement.

synecdoche
a part of the whole represents all of it, or the whole represents a part. describing a car as “wheels” for instance

paradox
a seemingly contradictory statement which upon further/closer examination. turns out to be somehow accurate. Often achieved through play on words.

Oxymoron
Like paradox, in fact a condensed form, in which two apparently contradictory words are used together…

jumbo shrimp

onomatopoeia
a word that imitates the sound it represents like “buzz” or “click”

euphony
a succession of harmonious words used in poetry or prose; the opposite of cacophony reflect theme of poem

cacophony
harsh, jarring, discordant words; dissonance reflect theme of poem

alliteration
repetition of initial consonant sounds

consonance/Slant rhyme
repetition of consonant sounds within words but different vowels (reason raisin or health hearth)

assonance
repetition of vowel sounds makes rhyme-y sound

(exact) Rhyme
full rhyme initial consonant sound is different but the rest of the words rhyme exactly or perfectly

near rhyme/off rhyme/ imperfect rhyme
words close to being a rhyme but are slightly off like other shudder

end rhyme
rhymes occurring at the end of the poetic line… most common form of rhyme in English poetry

masculine rhyme
one syllable rhyme like blue and flew

feminine rhyme
rhyme in which each rhymed word has a stressed syllable and then one or more unstressed syllable following it, such as QUIVering and SHIVering

eye rhyme
occurs when two or more words are spelled in similar ways and thus look the same, but sound differently (i.e. “move” & “love” and “home” and “come”)

internal rhyme
rhyme between words that occurs within a single line of poetry

rhythm
pattern of stresses and pauses in poetry (more general than meter which is a specifically fixed recurring pattern)

prosody
the study of metrical structure in poetry

meter
recurrent regular rhythmic patterns in verse involving stressed and unstressed syllables

scansion
The analysis of a poem’s meter.

This is usually done by marking the stressed and unstressed syllables in each line and then based on the pattern of the stresses dividing the line into feet.

stress / accent
emphasis placed on a syllable in speech… stress is the basic principle of “meter”

unstressed / slack
syllables those syllables that do not get emphasis in speech

ceasura
pause within a line of verse. often in the middle, often accompanied by punctuation, but not necessarily so

end-stopped line
definite pause at the end of a verse due to punctuation

enjambement
verse in which the sense runs on from one line to the next; lines which are not end-stopped

foot
basic unit of measure in metrical poetry. different meters are identified based on pattern and order of stressed/unstressed syllables.

Iambic / iamb
a metrical foot with an unstressed first syllable and a stressed second syllable U / (balloon)

Dactylic / dactyl
a metrical foot in poetry that consists accented, unaccented unaccented syllable.

/ U U (beautiful)

Trochaic /Trochee
/ U accented unaccented (banquet)

anapestic / anapest
unaccented unaccented accented U U / (unrehearsed)

Spondaic /spondee
Accented Accented / /

Prefixes
indication the number of feet. each prefix followed by meter…

. 1 mono- 2 di- (couplet- two line stanza) 3 Tri – (tercet 3 line stanza) 4 tetra – (quatrain 4 line stanza) 5 penta- 6 hexa – (sestet 6 line stanza) 7 hepta- 8 octa –

refrain
words phrases or line repeated in intervals throughout the song

terminal refrain
repeated after each stanza

incremental refrain
repeated within the stanza

ballad
songs that tells a story. originally oral verse. compresses dramatic objective

folk ballad
sung not written down. they told stories that evolved with the people who sang them. in writing them down their form changed to become static

ballad stanza
most common pattern 4 lines rhymed abcb. falls into 8-6-8-6 syllables

common meter
has two pairs of rhymes and is the same as the ballad stanza otherwise

literary ballad
ballad meant to be read, not sung

blues
folk music originally.

3 line stanzas, lines 1 and 2 the same 3 different but rhymes with 1 and 2.

rap
music that emerged in the 1980’s with spoken lyrics were rhythmic and set to a driving beat. the original form was rhyming couplets with assonance

fixed form poetry / closed form
A poem that may be categorized into a traditional form (e.g., sonnet, villanelle, sestina, etc.) by the pattern of its lines, meter, rhythm, or stanzas.

open form poetry
Characterized by lack of pre-existing pattern; content creates the form

free verse poetry
A poem with no form or consistent metrical pattern or rhyme-scheme

blank verse poetry
Written in line of iambic pentameter, does not use end rhyme

rhyme scheme
the pattern of rhymes in a poem

couplet
two consecutive lines of poetry that usually rhyme and have the same meter

closed couplet
A rhymed couplet forming a complete thought or syntactic unit

heroic couplet
two consecutive lines of rhymed verse written in iambic pentameter that form a complete thought

tercet
3 line stanza

triplet
a tercet in which all three lines rhyme

terza rima
A stanza form consisting of tercets, rhymed ABA BCB CDC DED etc.

quatrain
4 line stanza

ballad stanza
ABCB 8-6-8-6 rhyme scheme

syllabic verse
verse measured by the number of syllables rather than number of feet per line

English Shakespearean sonnet
3 quatrains (rhyming ABAB CDCD EFEF) and a couplet (rhyming GG) that provides an often, unexpected commentary or conclusion

Italian Petrarchan Sonnet
type of Sonnet written in iambic pentameter, with the first eight lines rhyming abba abba and the last six line usually rhyming cde cde

octave
8 line stanza

sestet
6 line stanza

epigram
a short witty poem or saying offering a biting thought or meaning

limerick
a poem with a pattern AABBA – lines 125 traditionally have 3 stressed syllables and line 34 have 2 stressed syllables

abecedary
a type of closed form poetry where all the letters of the alphabet are used in alphabetical order

acrostic
a closed form poem in which the first letters in each line spell a word

villanelle
closed form containing six rhymed stanzas in which two lines are repeated in a specific pattern. thomas poem “do not go gentle into that good night” is a famous example

sestina
highly structured poem with 39 lines, iambic pentameter, and repetition of six words from first stanza in each of six stanzas the final three line stanza or envoy finishes the poem by using all six of the repeated words from the first 6 stanza.

pantoum
a poem in which the second and fourth lines of the first stanza become the first and third of the second, and the second and fourth of the second become the first and third of the fourht, and so on

elegy
a sad or mournful poem used to mark death or other solemn occasion written in a very formal style

visual poetry
the shape of the poem in some way contributes to the meaning or understanding or theme of the poem.

haiku
closed form originating in Japan of 3 lines of 5-7-5 syllable pattern often using themes related to nature and human beings connection to it

prose poetry
poetry in which the poet prints their poem in block, paragraph form and the poem is composed of sentences rather then lined poem.

however still pays strict attention to poetic elements such as sound imagery figurative language

concrete poetry
designs or pictures made from letters and words. these poems do not have meaningful messages instead the shape of the letters are used to create pictures