POETRY 101

Allusion

reference to history, culture, mythology, etc. that the author expects you to recognize and understand

Example: Garden of Eden

Alliteration

repetition of consonant sounds in words close to one another

Example: Careless cars cutting corners create confusion.

Crossing centrelines.Countless collisions cost coffins.Collect conscious change.Copy?Continue cautiously.Comply?Cool.

Assonance

repetition of vowel sounds in words that are close together

Example: all the night tide I lay down by my side

Consonance

the repetition of the same consonant two or more times in short succession

Example: pitter patter

Sonnet

lyric poem of fourteen lines and strict meter

Shakespearean/English sonnet: follows rhyme

scheme abab cdcd efef gg

Petrarchan/Italian Sonnets: follows rhyme scheme abba abba ccde ed (or something similar)

Metaphor

comparison between two unlike things without using like or as

Example: I was a lonely cloud.

EXTENDED metaphor: a metaphor that continues into the following lines (sometimes referred to as a conceit)

Simile

comparison of two unlike things typically using like or as

Example: I was lonely like a cloud.

Personification

attributing human qualities to non human things

  Example: Misery loves company.

Onomatopoeia

the use of a word whose sound imitates its meaning

Example: a thin whine of wires,a rattling and flapping of leaves

Hyperbole

extreme exaggeration

Example: his words pounded like the hooves

of a thousand horses

Understatement

expression of less strength than what would be expected

Example: “It isn’t very serious. I have this tiny

little tumor on the brain.” (from The Catcher in the Rye)

Paradox

A statement that appears to contradict itself

Example: “The swiftest traveler is he that goes

afoot."(Henry David Thoreau, Walden)

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.“ C.S.Lewis

Rhythm

alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in language;

can also be created by rhyme, repetition, pauses, variations in line length, and balancing of long and short words and phrase

Free verse — no regular rhythm or rhyme schemes

Cadence

Balanced, rhythmic flow of poetry

Example: So strong you thump, O terrible

drums—so loud you bugles blow.

Rhyme scheme

pattern of rhymed lines determined by assigning a letter to each new soundExample: Once upon a midnight dreary, a while I pondered, weak and weary,     a         

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore— bWhile I nodded, nearly napping, c

suddenly there came a tapping, cAs of some one gently rapping, c

rapping at my chamber door. b“’Tis some visitor,” I muttered, d

“tapping at my chamber door— b  Only this and nothing more.” b

Foot

A pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables

believe (iamb stressed/unstressed) mercy (trochee unstressed/stressed) understand (anapest 2 <short>

unstressed/ 1 <long> stressed) meter –pattern determined by type and

number of feet in the line

Internal rhyme

rhyme occurs within a line

Example:   the grains beyond age, the dark

veins of her mother

End Rhyme

Rhyme that occurs in the last syllables of verses

Example:   Under my window, a clean rasping

soundWhen the spade sinks into gravelly

ground(from Seamus Heaney’s “Digging”)

Slant or Approximate rhyme

words sound similar but do not rhyme exactly

Example: …with madman’s flash famishing for flesh

Imagery

descriptive words that appeal to the five senses

When all aloud the wind doth blowAnd coughing drowns the parson’s sawAnd birds sit brooding in the snowAnd Marian’s nose looks red and raw,When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,Then nightly sings the staring owl, “Tu Whit, Tu Who!” a merry note,While greasy Joan doth keep the pot.

--Love’s Labours Lost

Parallel Structure

similar grammatical structure within a line or lines of poetry. 

Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them.

Catalog

A list of items, people, places, or things in poetry

In Song of Myself, Whitman uses a catalog of all that he sees — people of all ages, all walks of life, in the city and in the country, by the mountain and by the sea. Even animals are included. And the poet not only loves them all, he is part of them all.

& of course . . . don’t forget

Tone Diction Syntax Repetition

(and all of the other literary terms we have discussed!)