Poetry Terms
Speaker—In drama, the speaker is the character who is currently delivering lines. In poetry, the speaker is the
person who is expressing a point of view in the poem, either the author or a persona created by the author.
Example: In Ben Jonson’s “On My First Son” (page 297), the speaker is a father, presumably Jonson,
addressing his dead son.
Persona—a voice and viewpoint that an author adopts in order to deliver a story or poem
Example: The narrator created by Robert Browning in “My Last Duchess”. (Page 1104)
Mood—synonymous with atmosphere; mood is the feeling created for the reader by a work of literature. Many
things can generate mood—especially style, tone, and setting.
Tone— the author or speaker’s attitude toward the subject and the readers; tone is often exposed through
stylistic choices; it is often confused with mood, but it is not the same thing.
Abstract—an abstract term is a general term, referring to a broad concept, as opposed to a term that refers to a
specific, particular thing
Example: Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. (John Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”, page 1103)
Concrete—a concrete term is one that refers to a specific, particular thing, as opposed to a term that refers to a
broad concept; opposite of abstract
Imagery—a description of how something looks, feels, tastes, smells, or sounds. The verbal expression of a
sensory experience: visual (sight), auditory (sound), olfactory (scent), gustatory (taste), tactile (touch), or
kinesthetic (movement/tension). Imagery may use literal or figurative language.
Example: Queer little red bugs came out and moved in slow squadrons around me. Their backs were
polished vermilion, with black spots. (Willa Cather, My Antonia, page 19-20)
Form/Structure—Refers to the defining structural characteristics of a work, especially a poem (i.e., meter and
rhyme scheme). Often poets work within set forms, such as the sonnet or villanelle, which require adherence to
fixed conventions.
Anaphora—repetition of an initial word or words to add emphasis
Example:
Whose herds with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire;
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter, fire. (Alexander Pope, “The Quiet Life,” Page 497)
Refrain—a line, lines, or stanza in a poem that repeat(s) at intervals.
Example: “’twas a famous victory”
This refrain appears, slightly modified each time, in Robert Southey’s “The Battle of Blenheim”
(Page 1417)
Verse—writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme. Generally, the device is stated to
encompass three possible meanings, namely a line of metrical writing, a stanza, or, a piece written in meter. It is
important to note here that the term “verse” is often incorrectly used for referring to “poetry” in order to
differentiate it from prose.
Example:
“Daffodils” by William Wordsworth
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Blank verse—there is no rhyming scheme present. Also, it can be seen that there is presence of iambic
pentameter throughout.
Example #1: Example #2:
“Furball Friend” The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
Sweet pet by day, hunter by night. She sleeps, Brutus: No, not an oath. If not the face of men,
she eats, she plays. My feet, caught in white paws. The sufferance of our souls, the time’s abuse-
She’s up the fence, watching her prey – a bird. If these be motives weak, break off betimes.
Poor thing, better run quick, ’cause watch, she’ll pounce! And every man hence to his idle bed.
Free Verse—a free verse poem has no set meter; that is to say there is no rhyming scheme present and the
poem doesn’t follow a set pattern
Example:
“After the Sea-Ship” by Walt Whitman
After the Sea-Ship—after the whistling winds;
After the white-gray sails, taut to their spars and ropes,
Below, a myriad, myriad waves, hastening, lifting up their necks,
Tending in ceaseless flow toward the track of the ship:
Waves of the ocean, bubbling and gurgling, blithely prying,
Waves, undulating waves—liquid, uneven, emulous waves,
Toward that whirling current, laughing and buoyant, with curves,
Where the great Vessel, sailing and tacking, displaced the surface;
As can be seen from the stanza quoted above, there is an absence of rhyming effect and structure in each verse.
Types of Figurative Language
Metaphor—a figure of speech that compares or equates two things without using like or as.
Extended metaphor—a metaphor that continues over several lines or throughout an entire literary work.
Simile—a figure of speech used to explain or clarify an idea by comparing it explicitly to something else, using
the words like, as, or as though to do so.
Personification—a figure of speech in which an animal or an inanimate object is imbued with human qualities
Hyperbole/Overstatement—deliberate exaggeration used for emphasis or to produce a comic or ironic effect;
an overstatement to make a point
Example—You know how children with cameras learn to work the exposed moments that define the
family cluster. They break every trust, spy out the undefended space, catching Mom coming out of the
bathroom in her cumbrous robe and turbaned towel, looking bloodless and plucked. It is not a joke.
They will shoot you sitting on the pot if they can manage a suitable vantage.
Oxymoron—a paradox made up of two seemingly contradictory words.
Example—Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
Paradox—a statement that seems contradictory but actually is not
Example:
For whose sake henceforth all his vows be such
As what he loves may never like too much.
Sound, Rhythm, and Rhyme
Sound—the musical quality of poetry, as created through techniques such as rhyme, enjambment, caesura,
alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia, and rhythm
Rhythm—the general pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables
Meter—the formal, regular organization of stressed and unstressed syllables, measured in feet
Rhyme—the repetition of the same (similar) vowel or consonant sounds or constructions
End rhyme—a rhyme at the end of two or more lines of poetry
Example:
England hath need of thee: she is a fen
Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,
Internal rhyme—a rhyme that occurs within a line
Example:
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the
Tingling strings.
Near rhyme/Slant rhyme—a rhyme that pairs sounds that are similar but not exactly the same
Example:
The alphabet is searched for letters soft,
To try a word before it can be wrought.
Eye rhyme/Sight rhyme—a rhyme that only works because the words look the same
Example:
“Sisters and brothers, little Maid,
How many may you be?”
“How many? Seven in all,” she said,
And wondering looked at me.
Sound Devices
Alliteration—the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words (Black gloves, a broad black hat.)
Assonance—the repetition of vowel sounds in stressed syllables containing dissimilar consonant sounds (Ah,
but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp)
Onomatopoeia—the use of words that imitate sounds (i.e. buzz, crash, hiss, roar)
Consonance—the repetition of final consonant sounds in stressed syllables with different vowel sounds (i.e.
hat and sit)
Types of Stanzas
Couplet or Rhyming Couplet— A couplet is a literary device which can be defined as having two successive
rhyming lines in a verse and has the same meter to form a complete thought.
Example:
She was a little tense
The notice made no sense
Heroic Couplet—a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used in epic and narrative poetry, and
consisting of a rhyming pair of lines in iambic pentameter
Example:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee.
Tercet—a three-line stanza
Quatrain—a four-line stanza
Quintain—a five-line stanza
Sestet—a six-line stanza
Octet—an eight-line stanza
Types of Poems
Narrative—a poem that tells a story
Lyric—a short poem expressing the personal feelings of a first-person speaker
Example: “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, Page 308
Haiku—a verse form poem with three three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables
Tanka—a verse form poem with five unrhymed lines of five, seven, five, seven, and seven syllables. Conveys a
single, vivid emotion
Villanelle—a nineteen-line lyric poem written in five, three-line stanzas and ending in a four-line stanza
It is a form of poetry in which five tercets (rhyme scheme aba) are followed by a quatrain (rhyme scheme abaa).
At the end of tercets two and four, the first line of tercet one is repeated. At the end of tercets three and five, the
last line of tercet one is repeated. These two repeated lines, called refrain lines, are again repeated to conclude
the quatrain. Much of the power of this form lies in its repeated lines and their subtly shifting sense or meaning
over the course of the poem.
Shakespearean Sonnet—Also known as the English sonnet, its fourteen lines are composed of three quatrains
and a couplet, and its rhyme scheme is abab, cdcd, efef, gg.
Example:
“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun” by William Shakespeare, p. 684
Epic—a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of
heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation
Characteristics of an Epic Poem
The characters are beings of national, historical, or legendary importance.
The setting is grand in scope, covering nations, the world, or even the universe.
The action consists of deeds of great valor and courage.
Supernatural forces interest themselves in human action and often intervene directly.
Ballad—a simple narrative poem of folk origin, composed in short stanzas (usually quatrains) and adapted for
singing
Example:
From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long gray beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."
Eulogy—a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, typically someone who has
just died
Elegy—a contemplative poem, on death and mortality, often written for someone who has died
Example:
“Elegy for the Native Guards” by Natasha Trethewey, p. 1437
