Elements of Poetry

Poetry is a patterned form of verbal or written expression of ideas in concentrated, imaginative and rhythmical terms. Poetry often contains rhyme and a specific meter, but not necessarily.

Key terminology

Concrete: a concrete word refers to an object which can be heard, seen, felt, tasted, or smelled

Abstract: a word or phrase that refers to an idea rather than a concrete object or thing

Denotation: the literal or dictionary meaning of a word

Connotation: all the emotions or feelings associated with a word

Imagery: words or phrases which create a certain picture in the reader's mind

Tone: the author's attitude toward his audience and characters: serious, humorous, satiric, etc.

Mood: the feeling a piece of literature evokes in the reader: happy, sad, peaceful, etc.

Inversion: 1. a reversal of the normal word order of a sentence; 2. in verse, a reverse in the metrical pattern

Repetition: reiterating a word or phrase within a poem

Refrain: the repetition of one or more phrases or lines at interval in a poem, usually at the end of a stanza

Stanzas

Stanza: a division of a poem based on thought or form

Couplet: Two lines of verse that rhyme

Heroic Couplet: iambic pentameter with end rhyme

Closed Couplet: two lines that form a complete unit of thought

Setting

Triplet: three-line stanza

Quatrain: four-line stanza

Spenserian Stanza: nine-line stanza (first eight in iambic pentameter and the last in iambic hexameter) which rhymes ababbcbcc

Rime Royal: seven-line stanza, in iambic pentameter, which rhymes ababbcc

Ottava Rima: eight-line stanza, in iambic pentameter, which rhymes abababcc

Terza Rima: consists of linked groups of three rhymes in the following pattern: aba bcb cdc ded ...

Sounds

Euphony: language which seems to the ear to be smooth, pleasant, and musical

Cacophony: language which seems to the ear to be harsh, rough, and unmusical

Alliteration: the repetition of the initial letter sound in two or more words in a line of verse

Assonance: the similarity or repetition of a vowel sound in two or more words in a line of verse

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds within a line of verse. Consonance is similar to alliteration except consonance does not limit the repeated sound to the initial letter of a word; the repetition generally occurs at the ends of syllables.

Rhymes

Rhyme: the similarity of sound existing between two words

Rhyme Scheme: a pattern in end rhyme; the first sound is represented with an "a," the second sound with a "b," etc..

End Rhyme: similar sounds which occur at the end of two or more lines of verse

Internal Rhyme: similar sounds which occur between two or more words in the same line of verse (usually at the middle and end of the line)

Perfect Rhyme: repetition of two or more words with the same accented vowel sound and all succeeding sounds

Identical Rhyme: repetition of two or more words with the same accented vowel sound, preceding consonant sound, and all succeeding sounds

Approximate Rhyme (Slant Rhyme): two words that have some sounds in common but not enough to make them a perfect rhyme; often the words are spelled the same but pronounced differently

Double Rhyme occurs when the last two syllables of a word rhyme with another word.

Triple Rhyme occurs when the last three syllables of a word or line rhyme.

Alternating Rhyme is a rhyme scheme in which the last word in every other line rhymes.

Types of verses

Rhymed Verse: lines with end rhyme and regular meter

Blank Verse: lines of iambic pentameter without end rhyme

Free Verse: lines with no rhyme or regular meter

Punctuation of lines

End-Stopped Line: punctuation at the end of a line

Enjambment (Run-on Line): poetic "sentence" which flows over more than one line

Caesura: punctuation or a phrasal pause in the middle of a line

Meter

Meter: The pattern of stressed (accented) and unstressed (unaccented) syllables established in a line of poetry.

Types of metrical feet:

Iambic Foot (u /): two syllable foot--unstressed, stressed

Trochaic Foot (/ u): two syllable foot--stressed, unstressed

Anapestic Foot (u u /): three syllable foot--two unstressed, and one stressed

Dactylic Foot (/ u u): three syllable foot--one stressed, two unstressed

Spondaic Foot (/ /): two syllable foot--both stressed

(key: u = unstressed, / = stressed)

Kinds of Metrical Lines:

a. monometer: one-foot line

b. dimeter: two-foot line

c. trimeter: three-foot line

d. tetrameter: four-foot line

e. pentameter: five-foot line

f. hexameter: six-foot line

g. heptameter: seven-foot line

h. octometer: eight-foot line

Figures of Speech

Figure of Speech: an expression in which the words are used in a nonliteral sense to present a figure, picture, or image

Allusion: a reference to some person, place or event that has literary, historical, or geographical significance

Antithesis: opposing words or ideas written in grammatical parallels

Apostrophe: addressing someone (dead) or something (an idea) not present, as though present

Conceit: a far-fetched and ingenious comparison between two unlike things

Hyperbole (Overstatement): an exaggeration for the sake of emphasis which is not to be taken literally

Litotes: an understatement conveyed by stating the opposite of what one means or by stating a fact in the negative

Metaphor: an implied comparison between two usually unrelated things which suggests one thing is the other; a linking verb is often used to connect the ideas

Metonymy: the substitution of a word naming an object for another word closely associated with it

Onomatopoeia: the use of a word to represent or imitate natural sounds

Paradox: a statement, often metaphorical, that seems to be self-contradictory but has valid meaning

Personification: the giving of human characteristics to inanimate objects, ideas, or animals

Pun: a play on words that are identical or similar but have diverse meanings

Simile: a direct comparison between two usually unrelated things using "like" or "as"

Oxymoron: a type of paradox in which two linked words contradict each other (e.g. "jumbo shrimp)

Symbol: a word or image that signifies something other than what is literally represented; it has both a literal and figurative meaning.

Synecdoche: a substitution in which a part is used to represent the whole

Understatement: saying less than one means or saying what one means with less force than the occasion warrants

Kinds of poems

Ballad: a narrative poem which tells a story, frequently in four-line stanzas

Folk: a sung ballad of unknown origin which is part of an oral tradition

Literary: a ballad by a known author who imitates the folk ballad style

Elegy: a poem that deals with the subject of death

Fable: a short tale that teaches a moral lesson in which the characters are usually (but not always) animals with human qualities and speech

Lyric: any short, musical poem which expresses the poet's clearly revealed thoughts and feelings

Ode: a lyric poem written in an elevated tone about a serious topic

Pastoral: a poem that idealizes rural living and nature

Fixed Form: a traditional pattern that applies to a whole poem

Haiku: a three-line Japanese poem, usually about nature; the first line has five syllables, the second line has seven syllables, and the third line has five syllables

Limerick: a five-line nonsense poem with anapestic meter

Sestina: A poem composed of six six-line stanzas, followed by a tercet (three-line stanza). The end word used in each line of the first stanza repeat in a rolling pattern in the following stanzas; these same words are used two-to-a-line in the tercet

Elizabethan (English or Shakespearean) Sonnet:

structure: fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, three quatrains and one couplet

rhyme scheme: abab cdcd eff gg

Usually a question or theme is posed in the quatrains and answered or resolved in the couplet.

Italian (Petrarchan) Sonnet:

structure: fourteen lines, iambic pentameter, octave and sestet

rhyme scheme: abbaabba cdcdcd or abbaabba cdecde

Often a question is raised in the octave and answered in the sestet.

Villanelle: a poem which consists of five tercets and a quatrain, all rhyming "aba" (with a variation in the quatrain). The first and third lines of the first tercet alternate as the first lines of the other stanzas; these lines are again repeated as the final two lines of the poem.