Poetic Terms

Poetic TermsAlliteration: Initial consonant sounds are repeated at the beginning of words.

Example: Macbeth: “life’s fitful fever.”

Allusion: A passing reference to historical or fictional characters, places or events that the writer assumes the reader will recognize.

Example: “I was surprised his nose was not growing like Pinocchio’s.” This refers to the story of Pinocchio, where his nose grew whenever he told a lie.

Anachronism: An event, object, or person that is out of its natural order in time.

Example: Having cars in a story about ancient Rome

Antithesis: Sharply opposing ideas are balanced against each other in grammatically parallel syntax

Example: More light and light it grows/ More dark and dark our woes

Apostrophe: Addressing a person or personified abstraction as though it were present.

Example: Oh whirling, wild sea, speak to me!

Archetype: A pattern or model of action, character, imagery, or theme that recurs consistently enough in literature to be universal.

Example: The Hero: He or she is a character who predominantly exhibits goodness and struggles against evil in order to restore harmony and justice to society, e.g. Beowulf or Hercules.

Assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds in non-rhyming words.

Example: Up above the world so high/ Like a diamond in the sky

Ballad: A simple narrative poem recounting a specific episode, usually with a song-like chorus or refrain. Originally designed to be sung or recited.

Blank Verse: Unrhymed iambic pentameter.Example: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Caricature: A description of a character with certain selected features exaggerated for comic effect.

Example: “Mr. Chadband is a large yellow man, with a fat smile, and a general appearance of having a good deal of train oil in his system. Mr. Chadband moves softly and cumbrously, not unlike a bear who has been taught to walk upright. He is very much embarrassed about the arms, as if they were inconvenient to him.”

-Charles Dickens

Conceit: An elaborate, extended, and fanciful comparison of two very different things.

Example: Love is a smoke made with the fumes of sighs, rising above our hearts.

Connotation: All the associations and ideas that come to mind with a particular idea or word: they are subjective (different for everyone).

Example: Connotations for the work shark might be: cool, evil, savage, sneaky, Jaws.

Consonance: The close repetition of identical consonant sounds in the middle or ends of words.

Example: The giant sat with a fit.

Couplet: Two lines with end rhyme. A Heroic Couplet: two lines of rhyming pentameter.

Example:

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind."

Denotation: A word’s literal, dictionary definition. Compare to connotation.

Diction: The choice of words. Levels of diction are suited for different occasions/genres.

Example: formal, informal, colloquial.

Didactic: Poetry that aims to teach a lesson.

Dissonance: Harsh or jarring sounds to rhythmical patterns. Same as cacophony.

Example: “finger of birth-strangled babe.”

Dramatic Monologue: A poem in which a singular character reveals a dramatic situation to a silent listener.

Example: In Romeo and Juliet, as Romeo is hiding in the Capulet garden, waiting for a glimpse of his new love, Juliet steps out onto the balcony. Romeo then reveals his thoughts to the audience through a monologue.

Elegy: A lyrical poem of sorrow or mourning for the dead; also, a reflective poem in a solemn or sorrowful mood.

Epic: A long narrative poem in a lofty style dealing with heroic characters.

Example: Milton’s Paradise Lost or Beowulf.

Epitaph: An inscription on tombstone.

Eulogy: A formal composition or speech in high praise of someone or something.

Euphony: Sounds or rhythmical patterns that are pleasing to the ear. Opposite of dissonance.

Example: A trill of silver laughter spoke.

Fable: A brief narrative, with characters that are often animals, illustrating a explicit or moral truth.

Example: Aesop’s Fable The Lion and the Mouse

Free Verse: A poem with irregular meter, no rhyme scheme, and no set length of lines.

Hyperbole: A deliberate exaggeration for emphasis or humour.

Example: The dog was as big as a house.

Lyric: A poem expressing the thoughts and opinions of a single speaker. Its distinguishing characteristics are emotion, subjectivity, imagination, and description.

Metaphor: A direct comparison or dissimilar objects without using “like” or “as.”

Example: The in-class essay was a breeze

or Her voice is music to my ears.

Metonymy: The name of a related object is substituted for the subject at hand.

Examples:

The suits are in a meeting. (The suits stand for business people.)

May I lend you a hand? (Hand means help.)

Narrative: Poetry that tells a story, featuring elements of plot and character.

Ode: A long and elaborate lyric poem, often dignified or formal in tone, written to praise something of something, or to mark an important occasion.

Onomatopoeia: The use of words that imitate the sounds they represent.

Example: The bacon sizzled. The bees buzzed.

Oxymoron: Two contradictory words or phrases are combined in a single expression.

Examples: screaming silence; wise fool; cruel kindness.

Paradox: A statement or idea that at first glance appears illogical, but reveals some truth.

Examples: “What a pity that youth must be wasted on the young.”

– George Bernard Shaw

Truth is honey which is bitter.

Pastoral: Poetry that concerns life in the country, meadows, forests, etc.

Pathetic Fallacy: Nature or setting details reflect the mood or events in a poem.

Example: During the intense argument, a thunderstorm howls outside.

Pathos: The quality in a work of art or literature that arouses feelings of pity, sorrow or sympathy in the reader or viewer.

Personification: Inanimate objects, animals or abstract ideas are endowed with human qualities.

Examples: Joyful day stood upon the mountaintops.

The trees danced in the wind.

Pun: Word playing involving a) the use of a word with two different meanings and b) the use of homonyms.

Example: I wondered why the baseball was getting bigger; then it hit me.

Quatrain: A stanza of four lines.

Refrain: A line or lines repeated at intervals during a poem, usually at the end of each stanza.

Rhetoric: The art of persuasion (by the way of diction, register, phrasing, etc), in speaking or writing.

Satire: Ridicule meant to expose folly, vice, or shortcomings of others through the use of humor.

Simile: A comparison of two dissimilar objects using “like,” “as,” or “than.”

Example: Her cheeks are red like a rose.

Sonnet: Lyric poem of fourteen lines and a regular rhyme scheme.

Petrarchan Sonnet: The first eight lines are called the octave, while the final six are called the sestet. Rhyme scheme is abba abba cdecde.

Shakespearean Sonnet: Written in iambic pentameter and finishing with a rhyming couplet. Rhyme Scheme of abab cdcd efef gg.

Synecdoche: The name of a part of an object is substituted for the whole object. Compare to metonymy.

Example: Calling a car “wheels” is a synecdoche because a part of a car “wheels” stands for the whole car.