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Lit Terms Glossary: Poetry Terms Poetry: A type of literature that emphasizes metaphor and other figures of speech in lines which are arranged for emotional effect, usually according to meter. It is one of the two most basic types of literature. [Compare: PROSE]

Lines and Syntax 1. Inversion-In poetry is an intentional digression from ordinary word order which is used to maintain

regular meters. For example, rather than saying the rain came a poem may say came the rain. Meters can be formed by the insertion or absence of a pause.

2. End-stopped- a line with a pause at the end. Lines that end with a period, a comma, a colon, a semicolon, an exclamation point, or a question mark are end-stopped lines. True ease in writing comes from Art, not Chance, / As those move easiest who have learnd to dance.

3. Enjambment- the continuation of the sense and grammatical construction from one line of poetry to the next (a run-on line). Miltons Paradise Lost is notable for its use of enjambment, as seen in the following lines: . . . .Or if Sion hill / Delight thee more, and Siloas brook that flowd / Fast by the oracle of God, . . . .

Stanzas 1. Stanza- usually a repeated grouping of three or more lines with the same meter and rhyme scheme.

2. Couplet- a two-line stanza, usually with end-rhymes the same. a. HEROIC COUPLET: One of the most common forms of English poetry. It consists of two rhymed lines of iambic

pentameter which together express a complete thought. Shakespeare's sonnets typically end with a heroic couplet, e.g.: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee; (18)

3. Octave- an eight-line stanza. Most commonly, octave refers to the first division of an Italian sonnet.

4. Quatrain- a four-line stanza with any combination of rhymes.

5. 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.

6. Sestet- a six-line stanza. Most commonly, sestet refers to the second division of an Italian sonnet.

7. Tercet- a stanza of three lines in which each line ends with the same rhyme.

8. Terza rima- a three-line stanza rhymed aba, bcb, cdc,etc. Dantes Divine Comedy is in terza rima.

Rhyme 1. Rhyme- close similarity or identity of sound between accented syllables occupying corresponding

positions in two or more lines of verse. For a true rhyme, the vowels in the accented syllables must be preceded by different consonants, such as fan and ran.

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2. Eye rhyme- rhyme that appears correct from spelling, but is half-rhyme or slant rhyme from the pronunciation. Examples include watch/match, love/move, forth/worth, come/home, bury/fury, stove/shove, or ear/bear.

3. Feminine rhyme- a rhyme of two syllables, one stressed and one unstressed, as waken and forsaken and audition and rendition. Feminine rhyme is sometimes called double rhyme. (generally multi-syllable rhyme)

4. Internal rhyme- rhyme that occurs within a line, rather than at the end. The following lines contain internal rhyme: Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore While I nodded, nearly napping. . suddenly there came a tapping . . . .

5. Masculine rhyme- rhyme that falls on the stressed and concluding syllables of the rhyme-words. Examples include keep and sleep, glow and no, and spell and impel. (generally single-syllable rhyme)

6. Oblique rhyme-Imperfect rhyme scheme.

7. Rhyme scheme-The act of assigning letters in the alphabet to demonstrate the rhyming lines in a poem.

8. Slant rhyme (also called inexact rhyme): Rhymes created out of words with similar but not identical sounds. In most of these instances, either the vowel segments are different while the consonants are identical, or vice versa. This type of rhyme is also called approximate rhyme, inexact rhyme, near rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme, analyzed rhyme, or suspended rhyme. The example below comes from William Butler Yeats:

Heart-smitten with emotion I sink down /My heart recovering with covered eyes; / Wherever I had looked I had looked upon / My permanent or impermanent images.

Slant rhyme has also been used for splendid intentional effect in poems such as Philip Larkins' "Toads" and "Toads Revisited," and has been increasingly popular with postmodern British poets after World War II. Contrast with eye-rhyme and exact rhyme.

Rhythm and Meter 1. Rhythm- the recurrence of stressed and unstressed syllables. The presence of rhythmic patterns lends

both pleasure and heightened emotional response to the listener or reader.

2. Scansion- a system for describing the meter of a poem by identifying the number and the type(s) of feet per line

3. 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. For example, one would naturally pause after human in the following line from Alexander Pope: To err is human, to forgive divine.

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4. Expansion-Adds an unstressed syllable and a contraction or elision removes an unstressed syllable in order to maintain the rhythmic meter of a line. This practice explains some words frequently used in poetry such as th in place of the, oer in place of over, and tis or twas in place of it is or it was.

5. Free verse- poetry which is not written in a traditional meter but is still rhythmical. Rhyme may be used, but with great freedom. There is no regular meter or line length. The poet relies instead upon DICTION, IMAGERY and SYNTAX to create a coherent whole. The poetry of Walt Whitman is perhaps the best-known example of free verse. Most contemporary poetry is written in free verse. However, it is not without its detractors. T. S. Eliot once said that: "No verse is free for the man who wants to do a good job," and Robert Frost remarked that writing free verse was like "playing tennis without a net". Free verse is not to be confused with BLANK VERSE which, although unrhymed, follows a definite form.

6. Meter- the repetition of a regular rhythmic unit in a line of poetry. The meter of a poem emphasizes the musical quality of the language and often relates directly to the subject matter of the poem. Each unit of meter is known as a foot. In English the most common patterns are these:

Iambic, with measures of two syllables, in which the first is unaccented and the second is accented; e.g. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield (A. Tennyson, Ulysses);

Dactylic, with measures of three syllables, in which the first is accented, the other two are not, e.g.: Rage, goddess, sing the rage, of Peleus son, Achilles (Homer, The Iliad);

Trochaic, with measures of two syllables, the first accented and the second unaccented, e.g.: Peter, Peter, pumpkin eater (Nursery Rhyme);

Anapestic, with measures of three syllables, with the only accent on final syllable, e.g.: The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold (Byron, Destruction of Sennacherib);

Spondaic, with measures of two syllables, both of them accented, e.g.: Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens and shades of death (Milton, Paradise Lost).

Foot: The metrical length of a line is determined by the number of feet it contains. The most common feet have two to three syllables, with one stressed.

iambic u /

trochaic / u

anapestic u u /

amphibrach u / u

dactylic / u u

pyrrhic u u

spondaic / /

Monometer: One foot

Dimeter: Two feet

Trimeter: Three feet

Tetrameter: Four feet

Pentameter: Five feet

Hexameter: Six feet

Heptameter: Seven feet

In Ancient Greek poetry and Latin poetry, lines followed certain metrical patterns, based on arrangements of heavy and light syllables. A heavy syllable was referred to as a longum and a light as a brevis (and in the modern day, reflecting the ancient terms, a longum is often called a "long syllable" and a brevis a "short syllable," potentially creating confusion between syllable length and vowel length). A syllable was considered heavy if it contained a long vowel or a diphthong (and was therefore "long by nature" it would be long no matter what) or if it contained a short vowel that was followed by more than one consonant ("long by position," long by virtue of its relationship to the consonants following). An example: Arma virumque cano: I sing of arms and of the man (Virgil, The Aeneid).

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Types of Poetry 1. Didactic poem- a poem which is intended primarily to teach a lesson. The distinction between didactic

poetry and non-didactic poetry is difficult to make and usually involves a subjective judgment of the authors purpose on the part of the critic or the reader. Alexander Popes Essay on Criticism is a good example of didactic poetry.

2. Dramatic poem- a poem which employs a dramatic form or some element or elements of dramatic techniques as a means of achieving poetic ends. The dramatic monologue is an example.

3. Elegy A meditative poem in the classical tradition of certain Greek and Roman poems, which deals with more serious subject (e.g. justice, fate, or providence). It often begins with an appeal to a muse for inspiration and includes ALLUSIONS to classical mythology. Other literary works may include elegiac [ell-leh-JI-ek] motifs, reminding the reader of the transitory nature of life. Often in English it is a poem or song composed especially as a lament for a deceased person.

Examples include Thomas Grays Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard; Alfred, Lord Tennysons In Memoriam; and Walt Whitmans When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomd.

4. Epic-A long, grand, narrative (story-telling) poem about the brave, exemplary deeds of ancient heroes. A "primary" epic the oldest type, based upon oral tradition; a "literary" epic is written down from the start. Examples of the first type include Homer's, Iliad and the Odyssey, and the Anglo Saxon epic, Beowulf; examples of the second type include Virgil's, the Aeneid, Spenser's, Faerie Queene, and Milton's, Paradise Lost.

5. Ode-A lyric poem of some length, usually of a serious or meditative nature and having an elevated style and formal stanzaic structure. An ode celebrates something. John Keats is known for writing odes.

6. Rhyme royal- a seven-line stanza of iambic pentameter rhymed ababbcc, used by Chaucer and other medieval poets.

7. Sonnet: The sonnet is a fourteen-line lyric poem in predominantly iambic pentameter, with a formal rhyme scheme. Although there can be considerable variation in rhyme scheme, most English sonnets are written in either the Italian (Petrarchan) style or the English (Shakespearean) style The conventional Italian, or Petrarchan sonnet is rhymed abba, abba, cde, cde; the English, or Shakespearean, sonnet is rhymed abab, cdcd, efef, gg.

8. Villanelle- a nineteen-line poem divided into five tercets and a final quatrain. The villanelle uses only two rhymes which are repeated as follows: aba, aba, aba, aba, aba, abaa. Line 1 is repeated entirely to form lines 6, 12, and 18, and line 3 is repeated entirely to form lines 9, 15, and 19; thus, eight of the nineteen lines are refrain. Dylan Thomass poem Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night is an example of a villanelle.